further comments on Shawn's comments

[wren_kt7oz]

I originally put most of this into an email to someone who responded to my original post on Rramblers by saying that he thought I was underating the importance of Mikey's role in Brian's life. And Deb's.

Which got me thinking about a few other things that I'd left out of the first post, or hadn't made clear.

So here is my second attempt to explain what I meant.



I guess I have very strong views on the Brian/Michael relationship, which make me very cynical about how healthy it is, and therefore how worthy it is of a 9 under platonic love. (To me, there is something not quite right about a thirty year old man who keeps chanting "he's my best friend", like a 9 year old.) I do agree that it may be stronger by the end - not so much because they've both grown up, but because Mikey has finally let go of his fantasies about Brian, his desire to have Brian be more than a friend.

But Mikey aside, I guess what I was really saying is that one friendship does not qualify Brian as having a 9 for Platonic Love. If he had a number of healthy friendships then I would have rated him higher here, but he doesn't. His other "friends" are constantly dismissive and contemptuous of him (at the same time as they envy him), and he isn't able to express his friendship for them - except in the fact, which I don't at all under-rate, that he comes through for them every damned time - but that's something that neither he or they seem to place any value on at all. Aside from Lindsay (and that's more complicated, since their relationship has not always been platonic), Brian doesn't in 101 have any other friends.

As for family, what I was trying to say about Brian's relationship with his blood family is that it provided Brian with a very negative take on what family love is all about, and I don't think that it's till towards the end of the show that you start to feel that Brian is comfortable expressing love for his son, and for his created family. To me it's significant that it's in S4 that we hear Brian refer to both Deb, and even Jenn, as "mother" (and I know with Jenn it was sort of mocking, but I think it was also Brian acknowledging some sort of relationship between them, which he never never would have done in S1 - let alone in 101). (And remember Shawn stated very definitely that the ratings he gave Brian were for the character at the beginning of his journey.)

So that's why I indicated that maybe by the end of S5 he'd got up to round about a 7 for Family Love but I don't see him there at the beginning, not by a long way.

My correspondent here asserted that Shawn hadn't said that Justin didn't matter to Brian, that Brian loves Justin and so is understandably hurt and sad whenever Justin leaves him, but just that Brian can survive without Justin.

My response to that was:


But see, I think that's exactly what Shawn did say. Well, not that Brian wouldn't survive without Justin; we all know Brian's a survivor.

But he stated quite specifically that Brian's happiness is linked, not to his feelings about Justin (Romantic Love), but to his Self Love (which Shawn equates with his self-image as a sexual predator) and with Platonic Love (his relationship with Mikey).

So that would mean, logically, that as long as those two things were intact, he would be happy, with or without Justin.

And we know that isn't the case. Not all his tricks, not all Mikey's love and support could help him when Justin left him for Ethan. His Self Love and Platonic Love were powerless then to make him happy. And he wasn't just unhappy. He was appallingly miserable.

So it simply can't be true that Brian's happiness is linked to those two things.

It might have been in 101. But by 513? No, sorry, but just NO.

Surely, the whole story of QAF has been about Brian's priorities changing (the boys to men thing), and that those things which used to make him happy are no longer enough. Now that he's experienced the wholeness and joy which Romantic Love -ie Justin - can bring, (and, for that matter, the warmth and contentment that family love - ie Gus - can bring), what used to make him happy just won't cut it any more.

The alternative to this (and this is exactly what Shawn says when he states that Brian's happiness is linked to Self Love and Platonic Love) is to say that Brian's priorities have stayed pretty much the same as they were when we saw him dragging that first trick to the backroom, before ever he saw that beautiful young man under the streetlamp, and that as long as he has the tricks, and has Mikey, he's just fine thank you very much.

Well, sorry, but I think that's total crap. And it simply isn't what we've seen on our screens for five seasons.

What we've seen Is Brian gradually accepting that he can find happiness in Romantic Love, and to see him miserable every time it fails him (ie every time he believes he and Justin are over).

And yes, he's been sad when things between he and Mikey go pear shaped, but I'm not arguing that Mikey isn't important to him. I'm saying that Justin is at least equally important. Which is precisely what Shawn is denying when he denies that Romantic Love is important to Brian's happiness.

I believe that what Shawn is trying to do is some major revisionist history on what has gone on for five seasons in an effort to justify the pathetically bad writing of the last episode.

I also think it's very interesting that while he implies that Brian and Justin are over (because they've "gone their separate ways"), C/L are stating that they deliberately left the ending open so everyone could make up their own mind.

These guys can't even get their stories straight.

I have absolutely zero respect for the writing on this show since the end of S1. Zero.

And I found Shawn's attempt to justify their bad writing by dragging in some psycho-babble that is not only very very poor psychology, but that also runs directly counter to what we've actually seen on screen simply contemptible.

Comments

[shadownyc.livejournal.com]

I've said it before and I'll say it again--it's obvious that Shawn Postoff did NOT write the same show that we all watched on TV. He is way too out of touch with what actually aired versus what he thought was written.

[wren-kt7oz.livejournal.com]

I have the feeling that NO ONE wrote what we saw. I think that it came about almost despite the writers' worst intentions because of the way that Gale and Randy fleshed out their characters and from what they brought to the roles.

That what we saw developed almost independently of the writing process, and that the writers could simply never come to terms with that.

[shadownyc.livejournal.com]

You DO have a point! I love the icon you used to accompany your response. ;)

[wren-kt7oz.livejournal.com]

I like it too (I call it "naughty boys"). I loved that scene, as I do any where Justin and Brian get to be playful together.

And, of course, who could resist a Brian who sits there claiming "I'm sweet" when he's up to such mischief?