Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Hard Vs. Mean
By Jacob Clifton | Season 2 | Episode 2 | Aired on 06.21.2011
Or too, we can get so concerned about a faceless, hypothetical other who might be offended by the thing that we don't stop to wonder if that person even really exists. I feel like there's a little bit of that recreational outrage centered on the Aria/Ezra storyline -- which frankly, it's ridiculous because this whole show is about how to defend yourself from the monsters that lurk under every boy's façade of hotness -- which also seems like a good way to opt out of the entire storyline for no good reason.
Like, recently there was a bit of a dustup by a few Gossip Girl fans who were quite certain that somewhere out there was a victim of domestic violence that might be troubled outrageously by what they viewed as domestic violence on the show. As a survivor of pretty horrific family violence myself, but somebody who doesn't believe in whoring out my own experiences to make an intellectual point, or playing the "who's more offended" game, or in fact being offended by entertainment generally, I could not have felt good about playing the card.
And given the sheltered nature of this particular kind of faux-feminist, it wouldn't matter anyway because I'm a guy and can't take part in the conversation at all -- another easy-peasy rule of thumb that makes thinking so much easier -- no matter how laughable it is or my direct, non-imaginary experience of the thing being discussed: To suggest that a real-life victim of violence might actually know the difference between life and television would be, in this context, to further abuse and silence the mass of hypothetical victims. Or at least the sheltered, privileged young ladies who felt empowered to speak on their imaginary behalf.
But even if I didn't have personal experience of a particular thing, I still wouldn't be interested in playing any card, because ultimately those conversations are more about the theoretical and about confusing fiction and reality, descriptive and prescriptive, which isn't something that interests me because it's a maze you can't get out of until you grow up and have some actual life experiences away from your computer. It was sad and it was ugly and a lot of good and brilliant young women got their feelings hurt, but it didn't really change my feelings about the seriously dangerous* disservice feminism has been done by Generation X's inability to use the internet properly, which is what the whole thing is really about. That, and the second wave's obsolete inability to discern between fact and wish, What Is and What Should Be, hard and mean: