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"Bones" is love
Dec. 31st, 2006 10:23 pmFrom now on, I shall leave my viewing options entirely to my sister's judgment. She's the one who told me to go see POTC, she's the one who made me watch "Dead Like Me" and "Studio 60" (which, I should've known better on my own from having watched Sorkin's previous work and having interviewed him several years ago - I feel sort of "duhhhh" for missing that one). She's made me start watching "Bones" recently, the first season on DVD.
I like Bones - the character, not the show (I like the show too, but I mean specifically the woman). Here's a woman who tries to apply logic to everything she comes across, and explain, and everyone around her is pushing her to be more emotional, less "cold," less logical. I feel sorry for this character, trying to relate scientifically to an emotional world ... and basically being told her way is wrong, even when she's proven right. Last night (for you fans, you'll recognize this one) we watched the episode where she had to testify at the trial of a 19-year-old murdered girl, and the expert for the other side was her old professor/lover, a charming man whom the jury loved because he appealed to them emotionally ... but whose testimony wasn't as factual or correct as Bones's. Whereas, when Bones talked on the stand, it was putting the jury to sleep because she stuck to technical terms, not wanting to compromise the data and leave it open for other interpretation. The prosecutor asked her at one point about why she'd become a forensic anthropologist, if it was because her own parents disappeared when she was 15 and she was trying to "find them" with each case she solved for other abandoned families. Of course, she had to confirm her parents had disappeared and give this whole emotional spiel about how when she examines a corpse, she thinks of it as a person with a face and a life and how their family and friends feel about losing them - only THEN would the jury look interested.
At one point in the episode, while worrying how she might make her testimony better, she asks her boss at the museum about the jurors, "Are they just stupid?" and he answers, "Compared to you? Yes. But compared to you, much of the world is a little stupid."
I like Bones because while she's a little unsure of herself socially - and she *could* stand to relate better to people, true - she's smart and she believes other people should make an effort to keep up with her and refute her with equally-logical arguments. I'm not nearly as smart as her, or even as smart as Agent Booth who works with her, but I can relate to being insistent on a POV I've thought about and worked out logically, and not understanding why some people are either offended by or angry when I point out holes in their arguments. I take my lumps when they're deserved, whether it's politics or anything else, and I usually do it publicly - and it's hard to understand, sometimes, why other people aren't taught to do the same. Life isn't fair, none of us are always going to be right, and pussyfooting around, in the long run, serves nobody. (This jury, for example, probably would've let the killers go because their appreciation for the male expert and his "spin" on the data outweighed their interest in what Bones had to say about factual matters like forced bondage and pain and drugging.)
Maybe my annoyance with all this pandering is because as a reporter I've simply covered one too many meetings where no real discussion takes place because everyone is busy trying not to offend a voter or a colleague with this "Now this is just my opinion, I see your point, and I agree with part of it" bullshit. Positive change is slow enough coming without worrying about offending someone - just imagine how many whites were offended when blacks were no longer forced to sit at the back of the bus or use a separate door at the theatre. Imagine how many men have been offended throughout history to lose a coveted job to a more qualified woman.
Only the show has inspired this semi-rant, nothing specific. End-of-the-year thoughts. *G*
EDIT: I gotta add this for the sheer humor (and truth) of it - fandom is supposed to be fun, not serious, though there are those of us occasionally guilty of making it sound on par with politics and Real WorldTM concerns. (Maybe because if you're an insistent dick online, at least nobody dies and it's a good way to vent your spleen so you don't kill your warmongering neocon-Republican co-workers?)
I like Bones - the character, not the show (I like the show too, but I mean specifically the woman). Here's a woman who tries to apply logic to everything she comes across, and explain, and everyone around her is pushing her to be more emotional, less "cold," less logical. I feel sorry for this character, trying to relate scientifically to an emotional world ... and basically being told her way is wrong, even when she's proven right. Last night (for you fans, you'll recognize this one) we watched the episode where she had to testify at the trial of a 19-year-old murdered girl, and the expert for the other side was her old professor/lover, a charming man whom the jury loved because he appealed to them emotionally ... but whose testimony wasn't as factual or correct as Bones's. Whereas, when Bones talked on the stand, it was putting the jury to sleep because she stuck to technical terms, not wanting to compromise the data and leave it open for other interpretation. The prosecutor asked her at one point about why she'd become a forensic anthropologist, if it was because her own parents disappeared when she was 15 and she was trying to "find them" with each case she solved for other abandoned families. Of course, she had to confirm her parents had disappeared and give this whole emotional spiel about how when she examines a corpse, she thinks of it as a person with a face and a life and how their family and friends feel about losing them - only THEN would the jury look interested.
At one point in the episode, while worrying how she might make her testimony better, she asks her boss at the museum about the jurors, "Are they just stupid?" and he answers, "Compared to you? Yes. But compared to you, much of the world is a little stupid."
I like Bones because while she's a little unsure of herself socially - and she *could* stand to relate better to people, true - she's smart and she believes other people should make an effort to keep up with her and refute her with equally-logical arguments. I'm not nearly as smart as her, or even as smart as Agent Booth who works with her, but I can relate to being insistent on a POV I've thought about and worked out logically, and not understanding why some people are either offended by or angry when I point out holes in their arguments. I take my lumps when they're deserved, whether it's politics or anything else, and I usually do it publicly - and it's hard to understand, sometimes, why other people aren't taught to do the same. Life isn't fair, none of us are always going to be right, and pussyfooting around, in the long run, serves nobody. (This jury, for example, probably would've let the killers go because their appreciation for the male expert and his "spin" on the data outweighed their interest in what Bones had to say about factual matters like forced bondage and pain and drugging.)
Maybe my annoyance with all this pandering is because as a reporter I've simply covered one too many meetings where no real discussion takes place because everyone is busy trying not to offend a voter or a colleague with this "Now this is just my opinion, I see your point, and I agree with part of it" bullshit. Positive change is slow enough coming without worrying about offending someone - just imagine how many whites were offended when blacks were no longer forced to sit at the back of the bus or use a separate door at the theatre. Imagine how many men have been offended throughout history to lose a coveted job to a more qualified woman.
Only the show has inspired this semi-rant, nothing specific. End-of-the-year thoughts. *G*
EDIT: I gotta add this for the sheer humor (and truth) of it - fandom is supposed to be fun, not serious, though there are those of us occasionally guilty of making it sound on par with politics and Real WorldTM concerns. (Maybe because if you're an insistent dick online, at least nobody dies and it's a good way to vent your spleen so you don't kill your warmongering neocon-Republican co-workers?)
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