![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A point of understanding
May. 19th, 2008 09:47 pmThe Boy and I have been blowing through "The Office" because it's fabulous and funny and a damned good time.
And then we got to the end of season three, Jan went completely crazy out of nowhere, and I tried to explain to The Boy my issue with the matter.
The issue is this: There is an long, long history of writers, when having no ideas how to work with an established female character, suddenly do one of a collection of things. They marry her, knock her up, have her leave because she doesn't get the guy, or they do something completely random. Like make her batshit.
Jan, as a character, had her flaws. Really, really terrible taste in men, for one. But if there was one thing that was always excellent, it was her business sense. She was always written as someone who took her job seriously and had a solid head on her shoulders, even if her taste in men was bad.
And then, in the season finale of season 3, she was suddenly completely unstable with no explanation, save a twenty second diatribe from her supervisor.
The Boy and I went round and round, me trying to explain the way that this happens to female characters on a regular basis and makes me lose it, and him not really getting the point. Not from lack of trying, mind you, but just that he couldn't quite make the connection between my frustration and anger and why it was so affecting to me.
Then, tonight, as we're watching "Money", when Oscar and Michael are on speaker phone with Jan and she's doing the whole batshit routine, The Boy looked at me and said, "You know, this would have been a lot funnier if they'd just introduced a new character to play his girlfriend and kept Jan as his boss."
Eureka.
And then we got to the end of season three, Jan went completely crazy out of nowhere, and I tried to explain to The Boy my issue with the matter.
The issue is this: There is an long, long history of writers, when having no ideas how to work with an established female character, suddenly do one of a collection of things. They marry her, knock her up, have her leave because she doesn't get the guy, or they do something completely random. Like make her batshit.
Jan, as a character, had her flaws. Really, really terrible taste in men, for one. But if there was one thing that was always excellent, it was her business sense. She was always written as someone who took her job seriously and had a solid head on her shoulders, even if her taste in men was bad.
And then, in the season finale of season 3, she was suddenly completely unstable with no explanation, save a twenty second diatribe from her supervisor.
The Boy and I went round and round, me trying to explain the way that this happens to female characters on a regular basis and makes me lose it, and him not really getting the point. Not from lack of trying, mind you, but just that he couldn't quite make the connection between my frustration and anger and why it was so affecting to me.
Then, tonight, as we're watching "Money", when Oscar and Michael are on speaker phone with Jan and she's doing the whole batshit routine, The Boy looked at me and said, "You know, this would have been a lot funnier if they'd just introduced a new character to play his girlfriend and kept Jan as his boss."
Eureka.
