See, I do like fucked up characters
Jan. 28th, 2008 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficIt is a slow day at work, so…meta.
I've been catching up on Boston Legal, which always surprises with its combination of sympathetic open-mindedness to difference and its perverse exploitation and voyeurism. It's like watching Jerry Springer, which attempts to balance out an hour of sideshow theatrics with a populist moral message at the end, only much better written.
The reason why I come back to the show, again and again, is the character of Alan Shore. He, on the one hand, is utterly depraved and delights in his lechery and sexual deviance. But his own feelings that he is a freak and an outsider allow him to be incredibly understanding to other outcasts—particularly the recurring character of Jerry Espenson, who says repeatedly that Alan's his closest friend. Alan never makes fun of socially unacceptable traits, he's always deeply understanding of other's fears, and he engages with these characters with a respect for their basic humanity many claim never to have been given before. On more than one occasion he deliberately plays into a character's delusions because he understands the person's psychological need for them. In the very first episode he appeared on The Practice, he was the only one who could look at a homeless pro bono client with anything other than disdain. All of this is because he feels a kinship to these people—that he is just as freakish but has somehow managed accidentally to be allowed into normal society.
All of this is wonderful and heartwarming and noble, but the show also has Alan, on occasion, express his own disdain for the freaks he spends most of his time with. He has confided that he can't take being around Jerry anymore. It seems clear that at the same time as he feels kinship to these people he holds himself above, and it makes you wonder if all of his sympathy is an act to make himself feel morally superior.
Alan also has a tendency to sabotage himself. This was clearest in his relationship with Tara, who he clearly had feelings for. During their flirtation on The Practice, Tara once points out to him that he propositioned her for sex on the conference room table not because he wanted to sleep with her but because he wanted to debase her, and himself. Alan seems completely sure that he is a despicable person, so as soon as someone who he respects and cares for, like Tara, starts telling him that he's better than that, he goes out of his way to destroy their esteem of him so that he can prove that he really isn't worth saving. He completely destroys his relationship with Tara in a stunt meant to show that he is an innately unlikable person, even though the break-up leaves him miserable and depressed.
He's aware of his depravity and, in an attempt to claim it as a human trait, has a perverse pride in it. But even though his actions seem whimsical at times and caring at others, he's very aware that his embracing his flaws has made it impossible to achieve what he wants. From his many conversations with Denny, it seems he does want someone to love him and settle down and raise a family, but he believes he's unlovable. It's almost as if he's drawn his flaws around him as a test—his true love will see all of them and love him anyway. In the meantime, as one relationship fails after another, he can always blame it on the woman's inability to accept him as he is, or his own inability to be loved.
From week to week, it's fascinating to watch this push-pull of Alan's nature, sometimes reveling in the profane, sometimes reaching for something better, and is the main reason I keep coming back. Of course, watching him kick the verbal crap out of scientologists, pro-death penalty judges and the NRA isn't half bad either.
I've been catching up on Boston Legal, which always surprises with its combination of sympathetic open-mindedness to difference and its perverse exploitation and voyeurism. It's like watching Jerry Springer, which attempts to balance out an hour of sideshow theatrics with a populist moral message at the end, only much better written.
The reason why I come back to the show, again and again, is the character of Alan Shore. He, on the one hand, is utterly depraved and delights in his lechery and sexual deviance. But his own feelings that he is a freak and an outsider allow him to be incredibly understanding to other outcasts—particularly the recurring character of Jerry Espenson, who says repeatedly that Alan's his closest friend. Alan never makes fun of socially unacceptable traits, he's always deeply understanding of other's fears, and he engages with these characters with a respect for their basic humanity many claim never to have been given before. On more than one occasion he deliberately plays into a character's delusions because he understands the person's psychological need for them. In the very first episode he appeared on The Practice, he was the only one who could look at a homeless pro bono client with anything other than disdain. All of this is because he feels a kinship to these people—that he is just as freakish but has somehow managed accidentally to be allowed into normal society.
All of this is wonderful and heartwarming and noble, but the show also has Alan, on occasion, express his own disdain for the freaks he spends most of his time with. He has confided that he can't take being around Jerry anymore. It seems clear that at the same time as he feels kinship to these people he holds himself above, and it makes you wonder if all of his sympathy is an act to make himself feel morally superior.
Alan also has a tendency to sabotage himself. This was clearest in his relationship with Tara, who he clearly had feelings for. During their flirtation on The Practice, Tara once points out to him that he propositioned her for sex on the conference room table not because he wanted to sleep with her but because he wanted to debase her, and himself. Alan seems completely sure that he is a despicable person, so as soon as someone who he respects and cares for, like Tara, starts telling him that he's better than that, he goes out of his way to destroy their esteem of him so that he can prove that he really isn't worth saving. He completely destroys his relationship with Tara in a stunt meant to show that he is an innately unlikable person, even though the break-up leaves him miserable and depressed.
He's aware of his depravity and, in an attempt to claim it as a human trait, has a perverse pride in it. But even though his actions seem whimsical at times and caring at others, he's very aware that his embracing his flaws has made it impossible to achieve what he wants. From his many conversations with Denny, it seems he does want someone to love him and settle down and raise a family, but he believes he's unlovable. It's almost as if he's drawn his flaws around him as a test—his true love will see all of them and love him anyway. In the meantime, as one relationship fails after another, he can always blame it on the woman's inability to accept him as he is, or his own inability to be loved.
From week to week, it's fascinating to watch this push-pull of Alan's nature, sometimes reveling in the profane, sometimes reaching for something better, and is the main reason I keep coming back. Of course, watching him kick the verbal crap out of scientologists, pro-death penalty judges and the NRA isn't half bad either.