My House Issues
Feb. 16th, 2005 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katallisonI 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.
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.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 01:53 am (UTC)1) In the pilot, he says that his infarction was misdiagnosed by doctors until it was far too late to save the muscle.
2) I personally never get the sense that we're supposed to cut him any slack, for genius reasons or otherwise; Foreman certainly doesn't and neither does Cuddy.
3) He is rude to *everyone*, including patients, which makes him a complete asshole, not a partial one. ;)
4) In last night's episode, Wilson and House argue rather vehemently about the fact that since his injury, House's personality has changed radically.
but finally -
5) In several sound bites and articles, both Hugh Laurie and the creator say that they do not believe that House *could be* for real -- that what many people enjoy in the character is the vicarious fantasy of telling off of the public/client/customer which 99.99% of the service industry fantasizes about daily. The wish-fulfillment of telling someone who is making your job hell "Wow, are *you* stupid." The fact that this particular revenge fantasy takes place in a situation where you, Kat, cannot bear it, may simply make you and the show incompatable.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 02:33 am (UTC)See, this is the kind of thing that just doesn't work for me as a rationale. House *chose* to take on special responsibilities, responsibilities that demand an extra commitment to being caring and empathetic. He decides to ignore those responsibilities. Therefore, he's what you'd call a complete-*plus* asshole. ;)
Seriously, it's the difference between Batman as jerk and a member of the JL, among his peers, and Batman as jerk and mentor to a bunch of recruited sidekicks. I can put up with his systematic personality problems a lot better when he's not beating on the people who are vulnerable to and dependent on him.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 02:48 am (UTC)I do wish (as I said to danielleleigh above) that House's own experiences at the hands of the medical establishment had been woven more meaningfully, or propulsively, or something, into how he in turn deals with patients, from the get-go. It may just be that the sequencing in exposition within the episodes could have been done better.
And your point about the vengeful wish-fulfillment nature of the show is taken; god knows, I have at times (in my helping-professional role) muttered awful things about the hapless vulnerable students I'm supposed to be dealing with empathically and caringly. For people in such roles, there's always a tension between the "Wow, are *you* stupid" inwardness, and the outward maintenance of compassion. I know that's a reality for people in medicine, and I think what futzes the show for me is that the surface presentation is fairly straightforward-realistic, and (as Nuland says in the Slate article cited somewhere up- or down-thread) House's behavior would *never* fly in a real medical setting. There's a certain shock of refreshingness in House manifesting so blatantly all the hostility that lurks within the maintenance of compassionate-medical-facade; and yet there's a real reason for the maintenance of that facade that has to do with the actual wellbeing of suffering people.
And yeah, it may just be that me and the show are incompatible. *g* As I say, I dig it that others are enjoying it, and I actually am digging a lot of the good fiction in the fandom, which manages to dig beneath some of the binds the show has (by my judgement) gotten itself into.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 03:01 am (UTC)You can blame that on Fox. Other than the pilot, they've been showing episodes out of order. I don't know how much the show knew about that going in, but either way it basically destroyed whatever chance they could have to tell a character-driven story over multiple eps, or even dribble out ongoing character details in multiple eps, because it was entirely possible that we'd be told D before we found out about A B and C.
It's not quite as bad for the minor characters, who can have their facts snuck in during the episodes that focus on them, but for the protagonist I have to imagine it's been frustrating as all Hell to want to unveil House's backstory and have their tools for doing that snatched away from them.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 03:12 am (UTC)Why, yes, I am not at all over Firefly yet.
But thanks for letting me know that there are (as always, I guess) external and irrational network factors contributing to my discontent with a show. Thank freakin' GOD for fanfic, is all I can say.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 05:22 am (UTC)And fwiw I'm a fan of the show who totally gets where you're coming from in not liking it. When my grams was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago I didn't want to watch, b/c all I could think of was how if some doctor treated her like House treats his patients, I would beat said doctor to death with a shovel.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 12:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-18 06:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-18 02:25 pm (UTC)vicarious thrills
Date: 2005-03-02 01:37 am (UTC)Re: vicarious thrills
Date: 2005-03-02 01:47 am (UTC)