GiuliettaMasina

That was my feeling as well--I taught at an all girls high school for years, and she's how most 15-16 year olds look in my experience. I think some of it is also that we're used to seeing movie teens dressed really well and with impeccable make-up and hair and not the more unpracticed looks of most teens. So even actors who are young look older/more mature on screen.

The post in question. C'mon now, TJ...

I am only passingly familiar with one of the participants, but the Twitter response to the GMA scandal is absolutely sending me.

He may not have known about her medical condition, but he sure as heck knew what he was doing making fun of a Black woman's lack of hair. He made a whole documentary ostensibly about the topic (but which actually just further shamed Black women), and then accepted a whole bunch of public awards and praise for being the person to bring attention to the issue and for being a "supporter" of Black women. Edit: I'm just going to add in the trailer of the documentary Chris Rock himself produced about Black women and hair, and then bow out of this convo for my own mental health.

Agreed--which is why I didn't say they did. I was speaking very specifically about the 3 individuals involved and myself (I am a woman). I would defend any of my friends of any gender from those kinds of jokes, though only the Black women femmes and women would need defending from misogynoir, hence my specificity there. Edit: Black femmes of any gender can be the object of misogynoir--that's my mistake.

I think this is understandable, but if I had one quibble it would be that "nobody was into the violence." Many people weren't, that's clear, but I was not bothered by it and I know there are plenty of others who weren't. Personally, I don't have the type of muscle to engage in physical fights, but making fun of someone's disability and/or mocking a Black woman for being "bald-headed" (especially in front of a mostly white audience) are well-known as "fighting words" and I absolutely would be having an equally public (shoulda made the joke in private if you wanted it to stay private) confrontation with someone who did either of those things to someone I loved.

Just last week we had numerous celebrities putting on their capes to defend Chris Brown's right to a second chance (when he hasn't even stopped being a violent piece of shit!) and Helena Bonham Carter calling #MeToo a "trend." The hypocrisy is galling and makes me think they were most traumatized by seeing someone stand up to a bully for once instead of protecting and covering for the bully like the rest of the pack.

That's where I'm at. I'm honestly most mad at Will because his actions allowed for attention to be deflected from that disgusting "joke." Not even a funny one, using decades old references. I'm kinda of waiting on Chris to start making jokes about it--as someone who's enjoyed many a first half of a Rock set and then turned it off in the second half when he becomes just another misogynist misogynizing under the guise of "humor," I suspect he'll tell on himself enough that the coverage will start to balance out.

That's where I am. Their behavior may have been out of step with the majority at that time, but there were many outliers, and given that we've seen plenty of storylines about homophobic parents on film/tv, I'm quite happy to see something different. There's plenty of dramatic possibilities to explore as they no doubt existed on a spectrum from "ok with it being an open secret" to "complete and total acceptance." Ohhhh, yes! You've put your finger on what it is about these two that I just can't get into. Yup. And no doubt plenty of willful blindness about the gay people they loved, like not thinking too deeply about their "roommates" on purpose. I would watch the hell out of this show.

Laughing at both of these posts. I try so hard to be interested in Lucille b/c she's the only main character of color, but gosh if she isn't the drippiest of drips.

No need to take her word for it, history supports her. Exactly. Access to safe and effective contraception and the stability to use it as directed continue to be issues facing poor women. In the US, birth control requires a prescription, which requires access to health care (or the ability to access an overburdened free or low cost clinic), which requires a job that provides health insurance. It also needs to be taken at the exact same time every day or its efficacy is affected negatively. This can be hard to do if you are juggling shift work or "odd jobs" as many poor people are. It really is not as simple as finding a drug store. There is nothing inconsistent with believing that abortion is a grave sin and also being upset that only poor people have to die for it. Also, they are Anglican not RC or American fundamentalist--not every religious denomination believes the same thing about abortion. American Protestants largely did not care about abortion until the 70s and even the Catholic history is not as solid as one might think. Also, people can believe in some parts of their religion's doctrine but not others. I'm not sure why we need these characters to act like fundamentalists to understand that they oppose abortion--they've literally shown their opposition in every abortion storyline on the show.

One has to admit to doing something wrong in order to atone. Being worthy of forgiveness and being owed forgiveness are not synonymous. Yup. Or even better, done the right thing and quit his job to marry her and uphold the religion he supposedly is a representative of. Zero sympathy for this piece of trash.

I came away thinking it leaned to heavy on the pro-life side, so mileage clearly varies. The nuns literally recruited people to testify against the abortionist, their positions were pretty clear, and it seems obvious this storyline will continue, they'll likely say more. The spent the majority of the episode having the characters deemed moral direct vitriol at the abortionist, and only had the abortionist (redeemed only by her own submission to a punishment even her accusers deemed harsh) talking about the bigger structures driving women to obtain abortions. I don't see that as preaching a "pro-choice" message.

Just to be clear--I don't think youth absolves one from responsibility, or more precisely, accountability. When children do wrong, they should absolutely be made to take account for the harm they've caused (even inadvertently), but we should also view their mishaps in the context of their age and life-experience. Diana behaved poorly plenty, I just don't think pretending to share her crush's interests and believing in idealized love as a teenager indicate that she was a manipulator (plenty of other evidence she was to use actually) nor do I view them in the same light as the mature people who looked at her clear lack of experience and thought "Yes, exactly, the perfect candidate to throw into a pressure cooker (while telling them it's a kiddy pool because otherwise they'd run away"). Puh-lenty of women would have been willing to have a marriage of convenience with the PoW and they could have found one if they'd taken their heads out of their asses. That doesn't mean society should step in and save Diana from those decisions she made as a young adult, nor did they. I don't think we can deny she suffered consequences for her poor decision-making.

We'll have to agree to disagree that making a poor decision about who to marry is "a sin." I'm not taking away her personal agency--she made choices as a 19 year-old that were hers to make, and she, in fact, did live with the consequences. She also did not have a fully formed brain when she made those choices. Those two things can both be true. No absolution of "sin" necessary.