“You’ve got to understand. He comes from a different time. Standards were different.” Well, here’s a thing. One way to gauge the standards of a prior time is to take a look at its pop culture. See what assumptions it reflects. You can discover all sorts of things. Like rape as a way to handle […]
One interesting thing about anchorman Ted Baxter, from the old MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, is that he was objectively a bad person. Oh, the show kept finding ways to redeem him, because you didn’t have unredeemable assholes as regular characters in those days. You were supposed to be affectionately aggravated by him, but not to […]
First Published on Facebook 29 September 2014. A key misunderstanding people have about their relationship with fiction is the belief that their favorite characters are people they would like to hang around with. In a sense, this is what they’re doing when they read a story or watch a TV show; they are hanging out […]