Nighthawk wrote:Here you go...
anonymous wrote:
We can look at any one the scenes of violence against women in isolation and use the show's internal logic to justify it in narrative terms (which seems to constitute the bulk of the apologism). But this episode really reinforced the pattern that seemed to be emerging in the early episodes of what the role of women in this series was going to be (largely, window dressing and murder-fodder). The paternalistic flirting of older men with women who work for them (and the women's eager responsiveness to it) especially creeps me out (knowing what Lynch seems to be like in that respect), and it trivialises their characters to some extent. No matter how much of a visionary Lynch may be, there are still aspects of his work that are entirely what you what expect of a white male director in his 70s, with a penchant for 50s nostalgia that is clearly not just aesthetic. Of course, there's more time for characters to be developed, but I'm a lot less optimistic about it after E10. Sure, we've got a few good female characters (one of them is even allowed to tell jokes), and one or two Strong Female Characters™, but unless I missed a scene, in the first 10 hours of TP:TR it's only passed the Bechdel Test twice (Miriam and Heidi/Shelley at the Double R, and the zebra/penguin girls at the roadhouse). That's less than the amount of women murdered in the first episode. People are pointing out that the scenes of violence against women are reflecting reality, and sure, this stuff happens. But, you know, women actually talk to each other in reality too, and we get to see a lot less of that.
I mean ... that's further than I would take it, and more harshly worded, but that's all fair; it's all in the show. That last bit actually gets to the part of
The Return sitting less well for me than Lynch's films in that area: the violence is affecting, and reflecting of reality, but if the goal is a mirror into reality, it's slightly remiss for not also reflecting that women have more in their internal and external lives than how they're confronted by violence. In continuing a fascination presented powerfully and personally in Lynch's movies, it may have accidentally moved into a pattern of portrayals that's a bit too narrow to feel completely honest (even as, and this is important, the goal behind them appears to be unflinching honesty). Will it all track by the end? Maybe!
I don't see any calls for moral panic or censure there; just observation of elements that aren't working for one viewer. And unless I've missed something, that's the most overtly negative post on the subject in the thread. Why does that ruffle your feathers so?
eyeboogers wrote:Any chance we might get back to discussing episode 10? I think starting a separate thread for this gender debate has been suggested many times now.
Why not just post whatever you'd like to address not related to the subject? As has also been suggested many times, the flow of conversation could naturally cover any number of topics (and did, for the bulk of the thread, gender included) if people would stop being so reflexive about the idea of broaching this singular one.
yaxomoxay wrote:But we can't and we shouldn't attach more to a work of art just because things have to be overly analyzed. Yeah, Lynch is talking about violence against women. He's showing it to us. So? Do we really have to bring out much more? I think that some people are going to be paralyzed by analysis after this series is finished, and some will find deeper meanings that simply are not there.
Why should conversation stop at identifying a pattern, rather than discussing how it works?
Can we be "paralyzed by analysis"? Isn't that why people are still discussing the impact of Lynch's films twenty to forty years after the fact? Lynch is talking about violence against women; he's often talked about violence against women; I don't sense that it works quite as well in this entry as it does in his previous works, and that's interesting and I think wholly worth discussing as a foregrounded element. Agree or disagree; I'm fine (even here for that!) so long as a conversation multiple posters believe has merit isn't dismissed outright.
Re: Separate thread: I resist it on the basis that people are (were?) just responding to ideas and elements brought out by episode 10, until other posters decided that certain subjects related to the episode were okay to tackle, and, going out of their way to dismiss conversations via otherwise substanceless posts, one particular subject was not. The idea of having to filter thematic conversations out of a reaction thread on a David Lynch forum is ludicrous to me.
(dustoff beat me to the Albert response; but this was already getting overlong)