Sigh, Lie to me

[sqbr]

I'm watching "Lie to Me" and up until this episode (12) it avoided all the things which have bugged me about recent shows I've watched. EDIT: Used..and then subverted! &hearts Lie To Me, I'm sorry I ever doubted you.

Premise: company are hired to tell if people are lying. Has a CSI-esque dynamic of collecting clues to solve a mystery, with a somewhat House-esque "grumpy but brilliant middle aged guy (Tim Roth) with a bunch of sidekicks" dynamic too.

Less sexist that Being Human! The women are 3 dimensional, have lives and motivations that don't revolve around men, and don't neatly fall into a madonna/whore dichotomy. Bechdel test pass, in fact the reverse Bechdel test is more likely to be shaky.

Less objectifying than Chuck and Dollhouse! Women are pretty, but not objectified by either their clothing or the camera.

Less creepy that Dollhouse! There have been stories about rape and racism that actually used modern, complicated ideas about how those things are defined and play out in practice.

Less racist than Burn Notice! There have been POC victims where their victimisation was not a direct result of their race, and the bad guy may even have been white. (There was an episode with lots of Asians that didn't mention Triads once!) There is a Genius White Guy who saves the day but he's not infallible or too much of an irritatingly un-PC always-right jerk, though the dynamic is sometimes a bit problematic imo.

Better mysteries than Psych! Sometimes I guess who the bad guy is for narrative causality reasons or am a step or two ahead but don't sit there shouting at the screen "How did you not notice that, genius!"

Buuuut...we've just hit "Any woman (and to a lesser extent, man) with a disfigured face is a Tragic Victim whose life is Ruined" trope, which I had my fill of in Dollhouse. EDIT: Ok, doesn't look so bad now. It's still a serial killer plot, up there with zombies and irish music for "plots which irritate me out of all proportion". As an antidote, here's Facial Difference & Prosthetics.

Anyway, it was bugging me and I needed to get it off my chest before finishing the episode. It may well improve.

Comments

[sqbr]

*nods*

I will definitely keep that in mind should I, say, decide to make a post about the terrible use of shoes in Dollhouse etc. (Which I might. They were ALWAYS wearing stilettos! No matter how impractical it was in context! But I digress)

But in this case to be honest the fact the episode was triggery didn't even occur to me until you pointed it out, thus it never would have occurred to make the sort of disclaimer you're talking about. I make an effort to keep an eye out and warn for stuff in my own posts, but it often simply won't occur to me that something I'm linking to/reviewing etc is going to be triggery unless the trigger also happens to hit one of my related squicks. Which has hurt people including yourself before :( Still, I guess all I can do is try and remember the problem exists and work on avoiding it.

But! Regardless, what you said still good advice for when it DOES occur to me that the topic of my post might put people off unnecessarily.

[sami]

*nods* All we can do is our best, and since I know you try, I'm never annoyed with you if you miss something - but since I also know your intentions are good and, as the usage goes, it's an area in which I do believe you to be an ally, I'm just likely to point out these things when they come up with you, as I know you'll listen.

[sqbr]

And I appreciate that and am inspired to try better as a result :) I just had this moment of "Oh dear, the suggestion she's giving assumes I'm rather less clueless than I actually am."