I don’t know how I feel about the word “problematic,” but hopefully it’s not bothersome up there in the post header.
Anyway, first off, *spoiler alert.*
Secondly, I don’t want to be the “big, mad media police.” I don’t want to be constantly critiquing people’s creative ideas and television shows and stuff… Like, I still want life to be fun and everything…
Also, I’m a fan of the show. Overall, I like it more and more as it goes on. (And Sterling K. Brown is a gift to television. I don’t know where he was before this, I just know I’m sorry I wasn’t there.)
Anyway.
The point is, even in the midst of all this love I have for the show, there was one episode that stood out as kind of upsetting to me…
There’s a couple on the show – Kate and Toby who are falling pretty quickly for each other. And there’s a scene where he asks her what she wants to do Sunday night. And she says she can’t hang out because Sunday night is when she watches football.
Then they do this whole back and forth. Of like, “I’ll watch with you.” “Oh, no thanks, I watch alone,” and then back and forth about why, or if that’s weird, etc.
They go back and forth of her declining to watch football with him four times.
Now, I see how maybe he thinks it’s a little odd that his significant other doesn’t want to watch football with him. I would think there was nothing at all wrong with him having questions (if she was willing to answer them).
We want to know the people in our lives. And we want things to make sense to us when we don’t understand them. I get that.
So, I’m not trying to say that I personally believe in the idea that if someone says they don’t want to do something (and that confuses you, or hurts your feelings), that you can’t at least just ask, “Okay, I respect that, but if you’re willing to share, may I ask why you don’t want to watch football with me?”
Nothing blaming. Nothing judgemental. Not starting a fight of angrily yelling, “Well, why the hell wouldn’t you want to watch football with me? You’re supposed to like me!”
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!