My House Issues

[katallison]

I write this entry (which has been floating around in my head) with some trepidation; many of my friends are over-the-moon smitten with House, and I have no intention of raining on anyone's parade, pissing on anyone's cornflakes, or otherwise harshing the love. But there are reasons why I shall never, despite some geniune fondness for some aspects of this show, be able to be a *fan* of it, or in fact to watch it a whole lot, and I felt moved to type them out (possibly because I am cranky from spending way too much time in hospitals the last six months).

Disclaimer the first: I haven't seen all the episodes. I've seen maybe -- five? Six? Something like that, anyway. The last one I saw was the mysteriously-ill high school kids.

Disclaimer the second: My having reservations about something, or not liking something, implies *no* slur or disrespect toward people who unreservedly like that thing.

Having said which -- There's stuff I actually do like a lot about the show:

It's a by-god actual hour-long TV drama! With characters, and storylines, and dialogue! Not reality TV! This alone is (sadly, in our age) worth praise.

It seems on the whole to be well-written and well-acted.

In particular, Hugh Laurie is a whole big tasty bundle of rrRRAAWWRRrrrr, does a fantastic job in the role, and is clearly having a blast.

I love hospital series to an unreasonable degree; medicine really interests me, while at the same time I'm not enough of an expert to be bugged by inaccuracies/implausibilities in the show.

But I have one big difficult and apparently insuperable Issue:

It's the attitude. I mean, I'm not bothered that House is written as an arrogant, snarky, insulting SOB. I have been known to love such characters before (e.g., Methos, Toby, Ray Vecchio). And if the show was constructed so that the objects of his snark and arrogance were his peers, more or less (Cuddy, the members of his team, organized medicine in general) -- or if they were people who had in some way earned his attitude (say, if he were a help-desk tech for an ISP dealing with hordes of abusively clueless Entitlement Cases [and wouldn't that be a cool show?]) -- that would be just fine with me.

But. But.

The people on the show who frequently get the sharp edge of his tongue and his attitude are patients. As in, people who are sick, in pain, vulnerable, scared, and who have been thrown against their will into the meat-grinder that is Organized Medicine.

I know those people. I have *been* those people, from time to time. And I can tell you if there's one thing that truly and royally *pisses me off*, it's a doctor who pulls attitude on me--overrides me, dismisses me, implies that I'm stupid or hypochondriacal, plays the "I know better than you do" card. As House does, all the time, with his clinic patients.

And you know what? I don't *care* that he's a freakin' genius. I don't *care* that he's doing clinic rounds against his will. I don't *care* that he has chronic pain, and Issues, and whatthefuckever. He's being an asshole to people who are sick, in pain, vulnerable, and--relative to him--powerless. And in those moments he exemplifies everything I hate about the arrogance of Organized Medicine, a world where very real power differentials exist between patients and doctors, with results that range from the humiliating to the tragic.

And part of what's frustrating is that I can see how they've painted themselves into a corner on this one. I applaud, actually, a show that's willing to make their main character a right bastard; and if they relented and had a Very Special Moment on each show displaying him actually being a heck of a nice guy to his patients, it would undercut the audacity of that. ("Audacity" relative to the norms of mainstream US TV, that is.) Part of what I respect about the show is that they don't seem to take the easy fluffy-bunny way out on this; but they've placed House in one of the very few professions where consistent, across-the-board assholery is pretty much guaranteed to lose me, because it too closely and painfully reflects the ways that people in that profession do in fact abuse their power, and do actual damage to the lives of actual people in the process.

And there's a related issue -- I'm supposed to cut House some slack because he's portrayed as a diagnostic genius, but the fact is (at least, from everything I've heard from actual doctors) that diagnosis is as much art as science, that a lot of key information you gain about a patient comes not from lab reports or test results but from sitting with that person, closely observing, noting the nonverbal details of appearance and speech and manner. And asking questions in a way that will get honest unguarded responses, and truly listening to what is said. And he cuts himself off from all that data, which counts as willful stupidity in my book, and for no good reason. So he thinks all his patients lie to him? Well, no shit, the way he treats people, I'd lie to him too.

So. I repeat, perhaps needlessly, that I intend no slur towards those who dig the show--dude, I'm happy whenever anyone finds a new object of fannish love. I just wish I could enjoy it as fully, and am a little sad that I can't. But -- I can't.

Comments

[viggorlijah.livejournal.com]

They're putting it as him not giving a damn about the patient, but purely the medicine. That said, there have been a few patients who get past that - the pilot, the woman trying to max out her insurance before she gets fired who says "I don't like being told what to do", and the musician. He's very careful *not* to let them get past - there's an amazing scene with the babies, where you realise he's never gone near them if possible, until he has to, and he's incredibly tender.

All of the doctors - they're assholes to some degree, and they're all broken. None of them are particularly good people. The only one who comes close is Chase and he's an ex-priest-in-training and has Issues. The really nice ones - Wilson and Cameron - fuck up in other ways.

He doesn't want to do the clinic work, and it's partly revenge that he gets ont he administrator making him do it, but yes. He doesn't really care about the patient's feelings, past what he needs for his work. But they're making it that most of the doctors don't give a damn about the patients, unless they have an actual relationship. They just fake it better.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

"But they're making it that most of the doctors don't give a damn about the patients, unless they have an actual relationship. They just fake it better."

Sounds pretty accurate to me then, honestly.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

See, I think part of the problem is they're trying to have it both ways. If House was to medicine what, say, Action was to Hollywood--a cool-eyed exploration of the essential exploitative heartlessness of a privileged order--that would be one thing. But (and I respect this) they can't quite jettison the fact that the patients are people, in real pain, and so House's essential cold-heartedness comes across (to me, at least) as a jarring thing. I mean, I really do respect the effort and intent here, but they really have painted themselves into a corner, and they can't take either of the obvious routes out of it.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

That's what I suspected from your description of the show--they want to have that cool-eyed exploration, but they can't get away from the Hollywood "likability" adage (and of course, they'd point out to me that Action sank like a stone trying to go the other way).