Is True Detective just more macho postering pretentious woman denigrating bullshit?

[cali]

OK, I admit I'm a junkie for these kinds of debates. And I confusingly agree with both arguments. I love True Detective but yeah, I think Nussbaum has the better argument.

From Nussbaum's New Yorker Piece:

<snippety, snip, snip, snip>

This aspect of “True Detective” (which is written by Nic Pizzolatto and directed by Cary Fukunaga) will be gratingly familiar to anyone who has ever watched a new cable drama get acclaimed as “a dark masterpiece”: the slack-jawed teen prostitutes; the strippers gyrating in the background of police work; the flashes of nudity from the designated put-upon wifey character; and much more nudity from the occasional cameo hussy, like Marty’s mistress, whose rack bounces merrily through Episode 2. Don’t get me wrong: I love a nice bouncy rack. And if a show has something smart to say about sex, bring it on. But, after years of watching “Boardwalk Empire,” “Ray Donovan,” “House of Lies,” and so on, I’ve turned prickly, and tired of trying to be, in the novelist Gillian Flynn’s useful phrase, the Cool Girl: a good sport when something smells like macho nonsense. And, frankly, “True Detective” reeks of the stuff. The series, for all its good looks and its movie-star charisma, isn’t just using dorm-room deep talk as a come-on: it has fallen for its own sales pitch.

<more snipping>

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2014/03/03/140303crte_television_nussbaum


From Paskin's Slate piece:

rue Detective, let me concede upfront, does not come close to passing the Bechdel test. The show opens with the violated body of a dead woman crowned with antlers, and it has consistently objectified the naked bodies of the young women Marty has slept with—particularly during Sunday night’s extended, groaning, porny sequence with Beth. Michelle Monaghan, who plays Marty’s wife, Maggie, has done well with the material she’s been given, but before this week that consisted almost entirely of her being a (completely justified) nag. In the previous episode, Elizabeth Reaser showed up for a minute so she could deliver one line as Rust’s long-term girlfriend. The other women on the show have been mistresses, prostitutes, corpses, or some combination thereof, most of them barely memorable.
OK, this will take an itsy bit of work: Who has the better argument, Nussbaum or Paskin? And I totally understand why you might think this debate is silly bullshit, so there's an "app" for that.

Presenting women as a parade of scolds, sluts, and the strung-out typically makes me hate a television series. But I love True Detective. While it is possible—by which I mean undeniably true—that I am completely in thrall to the ever-captivating McConaissance, I think True Detective has not triggered my usual response because it is, at least on some level, very aware of how stereotypically and perfunctorily it treats its female characters. When it comes to women, True Detective is undeniably shallow—but I think it’s being shallow on purpose.

gnoring women may be the show’s blind spot, but it is also one of its major themes. True Detective is explicitly about the horrible things that men do to women, things that usually go unseen and uninvestigated. No one missed Dora Lange. Marie Fontenot disappeared, and the police let a rumor stop them from following up. Another little girl was abducted, and a report was never even filed. “Women and children are disappearing, nobody hears about it, nobody puts it together,” Rust told his boss Sunday night, outlining what he believes is a vast conspiracy in the Bayou. Rust is haunted by women who aren’t there—his ex-wife and his dead daughter—while Marty cannot deal appropriately with the women who are.

<snip>

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2014/02/true_detective_the_women_on_the_show_are_treated_badly_but_there_s_a_good.html

1 vote, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Nussbaum presents the better argument
	0 (0%)
	Paskin presents the better argument
	0 (0%)
	bollocks and bullshit to this
	1 (100%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Blue_In_AK]

1. Too much overthinking.

I'm enjoying the suspense and the acting. I guess I'm just shallow.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

2. I have yet to watch this show

But I have heard nothing but great things about it and look forward to putting aside some time to watch it.

Again, I suspect it's a lot like the people who call "Mad Men" a glorification of the sexist, smoke and booze fueled 60's (which on it's surface, it's very easy to think). Watch the show for awhile, and tell me these aren't the saddest, most depressed, most miserable people in the world?

[Warren DeMontague]

20. People who say that about Mad Men have not, actually, bothered to watch it.

It's a scathing commentary about that era. And spot-on, too. I remember some of that stuff.

My parents were smack dab part of that generation, with all the flaws and neuroses.

[geek tragedy]

3. Gratuitious female nudity is something of a requirement for HBO programming.

Though there is a difference between the way they portray the nudity of the incidental female characters and the way they portray that of the other characters (Matthew M does show his buttocks in the most recent episode). Not sure if that's intentional or accidental.

And I disagree with the characterization of Maggie as some weak nothing of a character. As would anyone who's watched all of the episodes.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. Yeah, that's a pretty non-eroticized sex scene, all the way around.

almost absurdly so.

[LittleBlue]

4. I don't watch the show, but this is typical of all premium channel shows

Remember Game of Thrones? If you hadn't read the book, Ros (the prostitute) was not in the books. She was created by the director/writers for (let's be honest) no purpose other than raunchy sex filler.

Is there a premium channel show without gratuitous sex/nudity? It's hard to recall even one.

[geek tragedy]

5. her character actually does have purpose

it's the dozens of nude women who don't even have names that serve as raunch filler.

don't even get me started on the "pod's reward' storyline of season 3

[LittleBlue]

7. My opinion is

that they should cover Martin's original material before creating filler like Ros. Watching them cut scenes from the books while adding nude filler was infuriating. And yeah, that includes Pod's little moment in the sun.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. I think some of the challenge for that writing team is the sheer amount of ground they need to cover

re: the storyline, getting Characters 1-26 from points A-Z, respectively.

To jam all that into 10 episodes per book or half book, either they're going to make something incomprehensible and not very entertaining, or they're gonna have to take some liberties with the material.

Which isn't to say every decision they've made has been spot-on. But overall, they've done a decent job IMHO given the magnitude of the task. It's saying something just to acknowledge that they could have fucked it up far more extensively.

[TDale313]

6. I have really mixed feelings about True Detective

The way the female characters are treated can be very disturbing. But yeah, I guess I'm in the camp that does feel that's kinda the point. I don't think it's trying to glorify it, and Marty definitely doesn't feel like he's being portrayed as a hero. He's a seriously flawed character. I'm hooked enough to see how the mystery plays out, because I think it may shed some light on this question.

[Squinch]

16. +1

[laundry_queen]

22. Same here. Because of what you said. nt

[RainDog]

8. At this point, I think it's part of the point of the story

So I guess I side with Willa. If this doesn't play out, then I will have overestimated the show.

This, however, is the way I feel about HBO in general with their neglect of the female viewer:

[LittleBlue]

9. Funny video

Sounds like they need a few episodes of Spartacus.

Plot/acting is mostly crap but there are lots of dongs.

[Tom Ripley]

10. Doesn't that go with the territory in noir or hard-boiled properties?

[cali]

12. well, it certainly goes with the classic noir-hard-boiled

but like many, if not all, genres, it undergoes substantial changes as each generation adds their twist to the genre.

[Tom Ripley]

15. "In the beginning there was 'Let's kill my husband"'...

not "Let's kill your husband"; a crucial difference.

[librechik]

11. We'll know when it's over. it hasn't said what it means yet. Nothing but red herrings

[LisaLynne]

13. Not about this show in particular, but ...

I think I have been in the same place Nussbaum is about this show about a different movie. I won't name it because I don't want to get into a discussion about it, but there was a fairly critically acclaimed movie that depicted a relationship between someone with all the power and someone with little to no power. Was this movie the worst example of this? Was it doing anything that a million other movies haven't done (in this case, treat an uneven relationship like the greatest romance evah)? Nope, not at all, but at that moment, I was just tired of it. I wasn't willing to overlook the inherent message of the movie to have a good time or enjoy it.

That feeling is sort of what I'm getting from Nussbaum.

[cthulu2016]

14. Your headline question is not a poll option

True Detective is a fine work of art, so is not just more macho postering pretentious woman denigrating bullshit.

As to whether it is a fine macho postering pretentious woman denigrating work of art... that's all about defining critical slur terms and kind of a dead end.

I do not know which of the two authors I don't know come closer to stating my opinion on the matter, but it's a fine show.

It is however, not a show that is much about women and, as such, is not an exclusive model for all future art.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. It's compelling and dark, and I think most viewers get sucked in just to try to figure out what is

Really going on.

The sex and the 'gratuitous nudity' constitute about 2% of the whole thing. Most of it is psychodrama, with some creepy Lovecraft references thrown in.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Guess who else is a fan?

http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/18/tv-fan-barack-obama-asked-hbo-boss-for-game-of-thrones-and-true-detective-advance-episodes-4308950/