Hawaii Five-0: Finally Some Thoughts
Feb. 22nd, 2012 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityHawaii Five-0 is not an excellent TV show. I mean, it's fun, don't get me wrong, and it's probably got a bigger Asian recurring cast than the rest of Prime Time combined, but it is, at its heart, the story of two white dudes with daddy issues and a persecution complex, respectively.
I cut it slack because it's pretty, because I love Grace Park, because it's pretty, because I love justice and comeuppance (seriously, these people have the best solve rate EVER), and because it's pretty. It is completely mindless entertainment, and I'm a fan of that, but I have to say something about Lori Weston before my head explodes.
I feel kind of bad that it's the mistreatment of the white female character that finally pushed me over the edge. And yes, Lori Weston's exit is the reason I could no longer fight off writing all this up, but my problem starts a bit earlier, with what happened to Kono at the end of season one when she took the fall for something she and Steve did as a team.
(Don't, by the way, whine to me that Steve went to prison for something else he eventually got acquitted of. That's not the conversation I am interested in having, because he STILL got off scot free, and Kono did not.)
It's not an unfamiliar story. White Dude screws up, someone else pays the price. What kills me is that it is SO DAMN EASY to fix. All it takes is someone on the writing staff who cares EVEN A LITTLE BIT about the female characters.
Kono's time with IA could have been voluntary. It could have been a sting she went on mostly of her own volition. IA Dude could have sat her down, said "Hey, Kono, you have the perfect opportunity to do some real good" and Kono would have done it. They gave her FIVE WHOLE EPISODES, and then the whole thing ended with a complete cop-out (no pun intended). Set up against Chin's vindication, it looks even more stupid.
Which brings me to Lori. I love her. She is a tiny blonde competent person. Who knows how to use a lot of guns. And dresses up in very authentic looking costumes for theme movie parties. And Halloween. She was given the most thankless job in fiction: Eyes of the Authority, and, even worse, she was set up as Conflict to the Bromance. If there are two things that are GUARANTEED to make the bulk of fandom hate a female character, those are them.
IT IS SO FUCKING ANNOYING AND I AM TIRED OF IT. And that's before we get to the part where she took screen time from Kono (though, to be fair, she stepped on a lot of Danny's lines too...just more of Kono's).
But I kept watching because it's pretty, and because Danny had this weird thing with his ex-wife (that bothered me for other reasons), and Steve had that kind of awesome thing with the navy woman who can kick is ass and doesn't put up with his crap, so I figured Lori would get to be awesome and single and maybe have a silly fling with Max (even though they wrote out Navy Woman for a bit, which I thought might have had something to do with White, but possibly it doesn't. In any case, Steve and Navy Woman did not break up). And the show is not really about romance, either, and there are lots of girls with guns.
This show has a lot of stupid moments. Danny has plenty, which is the only reason I am kind of willing to sort of forgive the scene where Lori sprains her ankle and Steve has to carry her down the mountain. Her exit though? ALL THE RAGE.
The facts are these: Lori does not do her job, and the Governor fires her. Since her job kind of sucks, this is understandable and, frankly, I'd been bracing for it since her introduction. BUT THEN, when Steve is all "I WILL SAVE YOUR JOB!" and Lori is all "No, no, don't, because I really didn't do my job at all", the writers drop the ball BIG TIME.
It would have been so easy to have Lori say "No, I didn't do my job. I let my feelings, you guys get results, and I let that happen, even when I should have stepped in." That way, Lori is professional, competent, and has a reasonable out.
But no. No, instead she says "No, I didn't do my job. I let my feelings, my feelings for you, [five second pause], for the team stop me from doing my job."
And, just like that, a hundred little things that bugged me about this show come to a head, and I have to make this post about how annoyed I am. Lori gets fired for something that was Steve fault, and she takes it "like a girl" IN THE BAD WAY.
I'd flail a bit about why we can't have competent, professional women on TV (and I mean plural, because Olivia Dunham shouldn't be enough to content me forever), but it's nothing we haven't talked about before.
Someday, I tell you. Someday. It's impressive that I still have hope. If anyone needs me, I'll be watching Pan Am. OH, NO WAIT, I won't. *sighs*
I cut it slack because it's pretty, because I love Grace Park, because it's pretty, because I love justice and comeuppance (seriously, these people have the best solve rate EVER), and because it's pretty. It is completely mindless entertainment, and I'm a fan of that, but I have to say something about Lori Weston before my head explodes.
I feel kind of bad that it's the mistreatment of the white female character that finally pushed me over the edge. And yes, Lori Weston's exit is the reason I could no longer fight off writing all this up, but my problem starts a bit earlier, with what happened to Kono at the end of season one when she took the fall for something she and Steve did as a team.
(Don't, by the way, whine to me that Steve went to prison for something else he eventually got acquitted of. That's not the conversation I am interested in having, because he STILL got off scot free, and Kono did not.)
It's not an unfamiliar story. White Dude screws up, someone else pays the price. What kills me is that it is SO DAMN EASY to fix. All it takes is someone on the writing staff who cares EVEN A LITTLE BIT about the female characters.
Kono's time with IA could have been voluntary. It could have been a sting she went on mostly of her own volition. IA Dude could have sat her down, said "Hey, Kono, you have the perfect opportunity to do some real good" and Kono would have done it. They gave her FIVE WHOLE EPISODES, and then the whole thing ended with a complete cop-out (no pun intended). Set up against Chin's vindication, it looks even more stupid.
Which brings me to Lori. I love her. She is a tiny blonde competent person. Who knows how to use a lot of guns. And dresses up in very authentic looking costumes for theme movie parties. And Halloween. She was given the most thankless job in fiction: Eyes of the Authority, and, even worse, she was set up as Conflict to the Bromance. If there are two things that are GUARANTEED to make the bulk of fandom hate a female character, those are them.
IT IS SO FUCKING ANNOYING AND I AM TIRED OF IT. And that's before we get to the part where she took screen time from Kono (though, to be fair, she stepped on a lot of Danny's lines too...just more of Kono's).
But I kept watching because it's pretty, and because Danny had this weird thing with his ex-wife (that bothered me for other reasons), and Steve had that kind of awesome thing with the navy woman who can kick is ass and doesn't put up with his crap, so I figured Lori would get to be awesome and single and maybe have a silly fling with Max (even though they wrote out Navy Woman for a bit, which I thought might have had something to do with White, but possibly it doesn't. In any case, Steve and Navy Woman did not break up). And the show is not really about romance, either, and there are lots of girls with guns.
This show has a lot of stupid moments. Danny has plenty, which is the only reason I am kind of willing to sort of forgive the scene where Lori sprains her ankle and Steve has to carry her down the mountain. Her exit though? ALL THE RAGE.
The facts are these: Lori does not do her job, and the Governor fires her. Since her job kind of sucks, this is understandable and, frankly, I'd been bracing for it since her introduction. BUT THEN, when Steve is all "I WILL SAVE YOUR JOB!" and Lori is all "No, no, don't, because I really didn't do my job at all", the writers drop the ball BIG TIME.
It would have been so easy to have Lori say "No, I didn't do my job. I let my feelings, you guys get results, and I let that happen, even when I should have stepped in." That way, Lori is professional, competent, and has a reasonable out.
But no. No, instead she says "No, I didn't do my job. I let my feelings, my feelings for you, [five second pause], for the team stop me from doing my job."
And, just like that, a hundred little things that bugged me about this show come to a head, and I have to make this post about how annoyed I am. Lori gets fired for something that was Steve fault, and she takes it "like a girl" IN THE BAD WAY.
I'd flail a bit about why we can't have competent, professional women on TV (and I mean plural, because Olivia Dunham shouldn't be enough to content me forever), but it's nothing we haven't talked about before.
Someday, I tell you. Someday. It's impressive that I still have hope. If anyone needs me, I'll be watching Pan Am. OH, NO WAIT, I won't. *sighs*
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-23 02:52 am (UTC)Probably outside your genre, but The Good Wife is just littered with them.
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Date: 2012-02-23 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-23 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-23 03:06 am (UTC)YMMV. I love Kono, I loved Jenna, I loved Rachel (till they screwed her characterization - and Danny's - over at the end of s.1). I even love Malia. I will be annoyed with the person who says I'm hating on the character of Lori Weston. I'm not. I hated the actress's portrayal. I thought her character was a bit thin, in terms of the way she was primarily orbiting Steve in terms of plot usage, but on paper? Her character could have rocked.
Would have rocked, IMO, with a different actress. *points t Larisa Oleynik for example*
The show is so ridic, though. I can't really fault the writing fails when there's so many ways in which their Earth is not like ours. (Hawai'i, the most dangerous state in the union, omg.)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-23 03:10 am (UTC)But yeah, it's not like there's a lot of logic on this show. Which is why it took me a season and a half to get around to complaining. :)
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Date: 2012-02-23 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-23 03:14 am (UTC)But yeah...she was kind of awkward. I liked her, because I am always attracted to weirdly suppressed emotional types, both male and female. So help me.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-23 03:20 am (UTC)Between the clumsy line reading and general delivery, and her giving-Grace-Park-a-run-for-her-money stick thinness, I just never warmed to her.
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Date: 2012-02-23 04:32 am (UTC)I pretty much ditto everything you've said here about the female characters on this show. The fan backlash against Lori made me ill, the misogynistic shit storm that fans (mostly women) reacted to her. ug. disgusting. I actually really liked Lori. Sure, she was another white character on the one show on US tv with Asians, but hey, I was willing to overlook that.
I wanted her and Kono to get along, to hang out, to be badasses together. I wanted Jenna to not be treated the way she was and join the gal-pals. I wanted Mary to come back and stay around.
They could have done this. I compare it to The Big Bang Theory, a show that started off all about the menz with the token "hawt girl" but then you see where the show is now and its dominated by its female characters. The writers integrated these truly remarkable women into the show so effortlessly that they began to feel as if they'd been there the entire time. When I go back and watch earlier episodes without Amy and Bernadette, the show isn't as funny.
So clearly its possible to do. And if Chuck Lorre can do it, and do it well, than anyone can.
Olivia Dunham. *sighs of love*.
One of the reasons I'm loving Alcatraz so much is that the main female characters are ones of intelligence, competence, and all those wonderful words used to describe amazing female characters. The show is only a few weeks in, so theres a chance they could undermine this and turn them into simpering morons, but I doubt it.
And I'll throw Cougar Town in the ring as a woman-positive show. Its a ridiculous show, but really fantastic. Oh! and Rizzoli + Isles!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-23 12:40 pm (UTC)Sitcoms aren't really my thing either.
I LOVE R&I! I have to catch up, but I love it.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-23 04:01 pm (UTC)Because yes.