the loneliness of the fetishist

[piranha]

i've been watching "bones", which i overall mostly like (though not quite as much as CSI, which has more nuance). but just now i finished an episode i want to throw against the wall. hard.

season 3, episode 3, "death In The Saddle" deals with the murder of a man who engaged in pony play. the show is quite disrespectful of the fetish, mainly in the form of agent booth whose conservative, catholic, white-bread personality can't seem to keep a professional front; aside from various dismissive comments towards the people who're involved in the subculture (who all are shown to be quite cooperative with his investigation), he actually assaults one of the ponies (grabs the guy by his reins and pulls him forward). bones, on the other hand, gives us a few anthropological insights about fetishism, and mentions that she, too, has engaged in some role playing, albeit not pony play. ok, that's something, at least.

at the end, however, they're sitting in a restaurant, and booth pontificates some more about fetishists, culminating in the claim that it's crappy sex. why, asks bones? booth goes on about how we're all lonely, and forever searching for that real connection with somebody else, and now and then, in lovemaking we reach the miracle of becoming one with another. and that fetishists and their little role playing games are nothing compared with that.

and bones says "you're right".

*barf*. of all the time to let him win an argument, this isn't it.

i really hope they'll never end up together. i can tell they will; the show has that feel to it, the never-ending sexual tension between the two main characters who don't admit to it until the show has had a good run (and then they get thrown together and the show goes downhill). but i dislike booth a lot, and wish bones (whom i like a lot) somebody less mired in pablum philosophy.

this makes me want to go back and rewatch the CSI episodes with lady heather -- that was so well done in comparison.

Comments

[seryn]

On Bones, pretty much whatever they encounter that is non-mainstream has someone who disrespects it. It's more than characterization too. Some of it probably has to do with it being a Fox show. I read several people's comments when they had a Wiccan episode.

I liked Bones a lot in the earlier seasons. Especially I liked the one where she's a certified diver and has cave dives she's named. I like it when she black belts a villain. I like it when she's so smart that she misses the human-level interaction that mundane people consider the essential subtext of communication. In recent seasons, she acts like a bimbo without much of a brain in her head. She's still socially stupid but lately she's been brain-stupid too. And she's stopped touting her physical competence. But I think some of that is an actress mis-match; if she actually was smart and physically capable and trained in martial arts, we'd see it in body language even if it was covered by artificial mannerisms and scripted behavior. Sometimes Bones subtly mispronounces words that anyone with her degrees would know.

I'm still watching, but whenever there's a conflict, Bones loses.

[piranha]

damn; it sucks to hear that it'll get worse. i am still really enjoying bones herself; that she doesn't play games, that she can take care of herself, that she's not a typical victim even when she is in dire straights. she strikes me as designed to have asperger's; her cluelessness about human interaction despite being clearly brilliant in anything she decides to research seriously is a otherwise a bit over the top for somebody not on the autistic spectrum.

booth bores me to death; he's such a stereotypical macho guy with the usual braggadocio hiding serious insecurities about utterly mundane things (like his penis size). he's just no match for bones who's genuinely interesting -- heck, all the other main characters are more interesting than he is.

[azurelunatic]

I have original fiction with a pair of kinkster characters. Just in the past 24 hours I had occasion to ask them why, not that there was anything wrong but I was curious. They are head over heels for each other, and it turns out they started playing around because they wanted to see if it was possible to make something already mindbendingly awesome even better. They would have a happy and fulfilling love life without kink; this is the cherry on top.

[piranha]

FLAMES! FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF YOUR PHOENIX!

[anatsuno]

I wrote a similar post on this episode when it aired, yeah. And I'm afraid to say that seryn is right and it goes downhill. ://

[piranha]

when i googled (casually) to see if this episode got any criticism, unfortunately all i found on the first few pages was "oh, wasn't that speech by booth so ROMANTIC" and some general disbelief of "those weird things kinky people do".

sometimes i forget just how far out of the mainstream i am.

[branewurms]

OH MY GODDDD I have never seen ANY of Bones except for this very scene. (I had turned on the TV a few minutes early for Leverage, I think.) FLAMES. FLAMES ON THE SIDES OF MY FACE.

Bones may be an otherwise good show; thanks to that being the one scene I saw, I will certainly never find out.

[piranha]

talk about being unlucky! there's a lot to like about the main character (and some of the others). but yeah, i understand why you'd want to give the show a pass.

so, leverage. tell me about it. what's good, what's bad?

[branewurms]

Well, fortunately, I'm not really into the kind of show that Bones is, so it's no real loss for me.

I hardly ever watch US-ian TV, but Leverage is one of my favorite shows! The characters have most amazing group chemistry, omg, even though it's not sexual you sort of wonder how the whole bunch of them haven't exploded into an orgy. (Well, I mean, sometimes it's sexual. But not with ALL of them. I mean. Okay, moving on.) It's hysterically funny and the characters are intensely lovable and the cons are really intense and exciting! AND STRONG LADIES, IT HAS THEM.

It's done some things that annoyed me at times, but nothing that made enough of an impression on me that I can actually... remember it... right now...

(I am maybe not so coherent or helpful here! SORRY. I'm terrible at explaining why I love the things I love, I just sort of flail around and go OMG THAT WAS AWESOME, AND THEN, THERE WITH THE THING, OMG SO. AWESOME. over and over.)

[afuna]

That was a really painful episode.

I still enjoy watching Bones, but certain topics I have to brace myself for, going in.

And I get that it's TV and that kink isn't accepted by mainstream audiences, so they're playing to that, but wow that episode was just really really painful.

[piranha]

i get that kink isn't accepted by the mainstream, but i expect a certain type of show to educate rather than just mock and deride. maybe i was mistaken to think "bones" is that kind of show; they do a decent enough job with being accepting of social ineptitude and other markers that scream "geek".

[afuna]

Yeah, agreed. I wasn't trying to defend the show (I can see how it would seem like I might have been!), more... trying to express frustration at the level of fail that I wasn't expecting from Bones, which has before (sometimes) managed to treat other less mainstream cultures in a more respectful fashion.

[piranha]

no, i didn't think you were defending it, i was in full agreement with your frustration. :)

[afuna]

Hee, okay. I reread my comment and realized it might have been ambiguous, so wanted to make sure it was clear where I was coming from.

Anyway, back to Bones, the first few seasons definitely felt better. With the later seasons, I've been seeing more and more disregard for various subcultures which have been making me D:

[matthewdaly]

I wonder how much of our education comes from the writers of television dramas. Now that I've started thinking about it, I wonder how to stop, since it is making me morose.

[piranha]

*heh*. well, not much of mine does. and when it does, it's usually stuff i will then look up and inform myself better (i am getting a whole lot of new medical education after watching "house MD"). and i watch relatively little tv; these days it's really just spurts of marathoning shows other people in my circles like. so it's good for me, in general.

if one just consumes it without ever investigating, that would be depressing -- but even then it's getting better, because we've come a long way from "leave it to beaver". it must be difficult to be a tv writer with a conscience.

wow, i am optimistic today! who knew!

[roadnotes]

This is the episode of Bones that seems to piss off everyone I know. Soren and I watched it, and we both had the same reaction.

It is a typical Fox "normal heterosexual love is best" ending, and -- gaaaah. I am full of memories of people telling me that there is something wrong with exploring explicit power and sensation dynamics (including a memory of discovering that someone who looked down on me for not having "flowing" sex between equals was into a form of power dynamic fantasy that I find totally squicksome).

[piranha]

sometimes i am really embarassed after having such strong negative reactions to a show screwing up like this -- because when i was 20, i had similar attitudes about BDSM (though i would have never treated other people the way booth treats them).

and i guess that's why booth annoys me so much -- i learned, but he has such great opportunities to learn from bones who is as much of an objective observer of her society's mores as one can be, and he learns nothing, but instead he "corrupts" her.

[holyschist]

I think I'd pretty much say all crime/forensics shows do poorly with topics that aren't mainstream. Anything with a subculture, especially one involving sex, is almost guaranteed to be treated poorly the majority of the time.

Bones has has some episodes which are really good on queer and trans issues (and I can't think of another mainstream TV show with an openly bisexual character whose relationships with men and women are treated pretty similarly--even if she did end up with a guy in the end, at least her relationship with a woman was portrayed as real and valid and ending for a normal, non-gender-related reason). And then it has some episodes which are really, really bad (e.g. the episode with the visiting Japanese scientist where everyone was trying to figure out zir gender in a really offensive way). Overall, I've felt that Bones does better on queer and trans issues than average, and about as bad on kink as all the other crime/forensics shows.

Booth's characterization is all over the place. He has moments (I really liked how he handled one of the main characters coming out), but he also has fucking stupid pompous speeches. I think the thing I hate the most is that Booth's religious moralism almost always trumps Brennan's more reason-based worldview.

CSI did some stuff pretty well (Lady Heather, if not necessarily the other stuff in the Lady Heather episodes) and a lot of stuff really badly. Ditto Castle; I wanted to throw stuff at the screen during the BDSM episode last season.

[piranha]

watching these shows gives me a whole new appreciation for the harassment and mistreatment non-mainstream people go through when caught up in the "justice" system; i've been privileged in that my non-mainstreaminess hasn't landed me in any difficulties. i know it's just television, but i suspect that when it comes to portraying mainstream law enforcement, it's not as far from the truth as it is when portraying kink etc.

who on bones is openly bisexual? i'm just in season 3, so maybe that comes later? i expect it's angie. and i haven't seen anything trans-positive yet either. incentive to keep watching.

i think the show comes in pretty well generally when it comes to feminism -- strong female lead characters who can take care of themselves. i really enjoy that bones never cowers in a corner, afraid and waiting for the man to rescue her, but that she kicks butt for herself. though i am worrying about the bones <-> booth dynamic, and other comments lead me to think that unfortunately the writing won't continue to favour bones as a strong, independent woman.

[holyschist]

Bones had an episode about "witches" recently which made me shriek with rage, and I'm an atheist. >:(

Bones--yeah, it's Angela. There are hints of it prior to season 3 (the scene with the delivery girl), but I don't think it gets discussed until one of her exes enters the picture. I pretty much like how Angela's sexuality was handled.

The episode with the trans character I'm thinking of involved a formerly conservative former evangelical preacher turned (iirc) liberal pastor, murdered for completely un-trans-related reasons, and had some stereotype-challenging scenes with her son. I thought it did pretty well, even though the trans person was the murder victim. (There's another show I caught a few episodes of a while back that is the only positive portrayal of an FTM trans person I can think of on mainstream TV--I wish I could remember the name of it. Weirdly, religion was a theme again there.)

I have complicated opinions on the Booth-Brennan dynamic. I'd say she remains strong and competent, but that I'm really dissatisfied with the long, drawn-out, stupid tension between them and the fact that neither of them seems to be allowed to genuinely date other people wholeheartedly. The end of the season that just finished has them both going off to do other things for a while, and feels like they're trying to reboot to the roots of the show (they've practically forgotten that Brennan's an anthropologist!). I dunno.

In some ways it is the beloved geek show of my heart, and in others it's utterly infuriating. It has the best gender balance of any of the forensics shows currently on TV, and frequently handles social issues better than I would expect. It has mostly convincing geeks. On the other hand, when it screws up it screws up hard, and I wish the women talked about stuff other than work and men more often.

[piranha]

i've just watched the season 3 finale, and i am just sputtering. WHAT THE FUCK. as far as i am concerned the show has jumped the shark with a giant leap.

the drawn-out tension makes no sense, because they both jump into the sack with other people without too much thought (regardless of whether they're colleagues), so it feels incredibly artificial to me. it also overplays the "opposites attract" trope, which i find tedious at best. and in its service, booth is becoming more and more of a caricature -- in the very beginning i didn't dislike him as heartily as i do now, despite disliking david boreanaz as an actor (a visceral thing; he repulses me). but now the character also annoys the shit out of me, which is just a losing proposition.

*sigh*.

[holyschist]

I am STILL furious over season 3. It was fucking stupid and nonsensical and a crappy, lazy way to write out a character. There are a few appearances later that FURTHER compound the stupid.

Amazingly, it does semi-recover in other respects, and the rotating interns are actually pretty great (with the exception of Daisy, who is both deliberately obnoxious and implausible, and Asshole Depression-is-Cool Intern).

The reason Booth and Brennan hop in the sack with other characters but not each other seems to be a fundamental fear of real emotional connection or something. They care about each other, so they fuck other people and then break their hearts (as much as I hope they're kind of rebooting, it really bugged me that in the finale, they worried about temporarily separating from each other, but NOT THEIR ACTUAL SIGNIFICANT OTHERS).

I sometimes like Booth, and don't mind Boreanaz these days, but I really hate how the show has ended up handling their relationship.

[kore]

booth goes on about how we're all lonely, and forever searching for that real connection with somebody else, and now and then, in lovemaking we reach the miracle of becoming one with another. and that fetishists and their little role playing games are nothing compared with that.

and bones says "you're right".

BARF

Bones sounds a lot like X-Files where the straight whitebread male agent was Always Right, All The Time, and just....no. No. I don't need more of that.

- I LOVED the Lady Heather eps, except the last one where they totally fucked up and betrayed her character and made the lifestyle look AWFUL AND DOOOOOOOOMED to boot. There's one priceless scene in I think the first LH ep where she and Catherine are bonding, and it's so adorable.

[piranha]

the first two seasons of "bones" are not like this; she is definitely strong and independent and competent, and she kicks butt to boot, and does not need rescuing by anyone. she's a joy to watch. it's just in the 3rd season that things start to go south with booth making more and more conservative speeches about what's good and moral, and with her becoming more... acculturated into mainstream society for lack of a better term.