Brains Are Stupid (Mine More Than Most)

[lydy]

So,  a couple of friends and I have a tv date every Sunday, more or less.  At the moment, we are watching "Community" which I really love.  The acting is amazing.  The plot lines are pretty stupid, and it is a sitcom with all the ills to which the genre is heir, but seriously, the acting is amazing.  One of the episodes involves a family day, where the community college members invite their family.  Donald Glover's character is forced into squiring around his grandmother.  He says that she is evil.  One of the other characters insists that this cannot be the case, and to prove her point, tells a slightly tasteless joke to gramma.  Gramma tells her to get a switch.  

This is all very predictable.  Glover's character tells his friend she shouldn't do this, she insists, finds a suitable stick, and brings it to gramma.  Gramma tells her to drop her pants and bend over her knee, which the character with some amazement does.  I was expecting them to play this for laughs, and wasn't real happy about it.  The first blow startles the victim, the second clearly hurts, and she starts to cry on the third blow.

At which point, I hear myself say, "This is not ok.  This is not ok.  MAKE IT STOP.  I CAN'T STAND THIS.  THIS HAS TO STOP.  I'm sorry, I have to leave, I have to..." and I leave the room walk into the living room, stand staring at a blank wall and cry.  After a while, I say, "I'm 56 years old.  This is stupid."  It takes me a while to stop crying.

It was embarrassing.  My friends are wonderful people, and this will never be used to hurt or mock me.  But it is still embarrassing.  And it was such a shock.  I was completely blindsided by my own brain.  I referred to it as a flashback, but I'm not sure that's technically correct.  I didn't suddenly relive a childhood experience.  But I was utterly overwhelmed by an extreme distress, and taken completely by surprise.

Brains are really weird.

Donald Glover is a wonderful actor, and I need to look for the actor that plays Abed, because he is amazing.  Glover has charm and charisma.  The other guy has fucking range, and gorgeous timing.  I will watch the rest of the series.  But damn, that was a shock.

Comments

[calimac]

Sympathies. There are things I can't watch too.

[lydy]

Yeah, but usually I get more warning. This was going from very slightly uncomfortable to hysterical with no transition. Quite remarkable, even for me.

[green_knight]

'Hysterical' minimises your distress and makes it sound as if you *shouldn't* have reacted as you did. You couldn't predict your reaction because you had no idea what you would be facing, You voiced your distress and removed yourself from the situation since you could not interfere.

From where I'm sitting (my reaction would have been similar, I'm upset just reading the description) that sounds like a perfectly justified reaction to the situation.

The *first* problem is that a person is gaslit and disbelieved when he says that his grandmother is evil and he does not want to have contact with her, much less inflict her on his friends, but he gives in to community pressure, maybe doubts his own experiences, and he's sitting there the whole time waiting for something bad to happen and wishing it will not.

That's not something every viewer will pick up on - many viewers will be on the side of 'oh, c'mon, she can't be that bad', but if you DO believe the victim, that's a lot of tension to carry right away.

Then the abuse is telegraphed. And still people smile and act as if that's normal, and nothing will happen. Only Glover's character at the same time knows and feels completely helpless to stop it. You know there's a train wreck coming, some people can see there's a train wreck coming, and still nobody does anything to stop it.

Then the train wreck starts, and STILL nobody interferes.


Frankly, given that *this is our lived reality*, how could you not find this distressing if you understand it?

You stood up and said 'this is not ok, make it stop'. For that, I salute you.

[lydy]

It...wasn't exactly voluntary. This is precisely the abuse that I experienced in my childhood, minus the switch. My parents mostly used hand and belts, with occasional forays into kitchen implements. I was up and out of there so fast, and wasn't really back in control of myself until I was in the living room, arguing with myself about my age. Which is kind of funny, in a sad sort of way. It will have been more than 40 years since I was hit in that fashion. I think my parents gave it up when I was about 14. Not for my sibs, you understand, They were younger than me. But somewhere around puberty they seem to have decided that spanking was no longer appropriate.

I think that maybe the episode was intending to show how horrible this is. If so, man, it totally worked for me. Just...a little too well. And I'm really glad this happened with good friends, rather than people I would have to worry about being that vulnerable around.

[rushthatspeaks]

Much sympathy. That bit made me uncomfortable too. I tend to think that when people say their relatives are evil it's coming from experience, and I thought the show probably knew that, so I was expecting her to do something evil, but not for it to go straight into full-on physical violence of the kind people still try to justify performing on children. The whole thing was upsetting.

[lydy]

I think...it was supposed to be upsetting? I'm not sure, as I declined to watch the rest of the episode. My friend said that the conclusion of the character being spanked was that gramma was, indeed, evil. Which is the right message! I think that thing that really caught me off guard was that the spanking scene _wasn't_ being played for laughs, or for titillation. I was prepared for that. Not for it being actual, brutal violence. So, possibly they were doing a...good thing? Not sure. But man, it was too much for me.

[haertstitch]

oh hell I would have reacted the same
but seriously first i would have hit mute
then
I would have shut off the tv.
would not mattered if they wanted to see it

so sorry this happened
at least you can talk about it.
had a lover that found spanking titillating?
just could not go there nope never .
didn't matter how much he needed it to get off.
I could not, would not hit someone I loved.

I had the same problem with the colour purple
never have watched the whole movie.
it would get to a part & i'd change the channel
flip back after a while try again
did a few tries and gave up.

the drop your pants dad would hit till his hand hurt ?
the only way It stopped that hitting was "I have my period"
when mom broke the hair brush on my brother
that's when she was finally embarrassed
and she finally stopped hitting him.

spanking only taught me dad was a bully.
I was 49 when i finally found out
his anger made him feel good- it raised his blood pressure
to where it was supposed to be.
he was so proud of that low blood pressure.
rarely did I ever do a single thing that deserved being hit.
it was all about him demanding obedience without
any allowance for me- like i needed to finish something
or it wasn't for me who didn't do what he wanted the others to do?
really wish he'd gotten a pace maker YEARS ago
or a divorce. Divorce would have made life
so much easier>best after he got laid off.
that was a hell of a time.
mom could have run north to her folks-
her folks would have been good with it
grandma knew dad was a nasty man.
run away and taken us with. she was always nicer without him.
I really would have loved to start over life in school sucked.
it was hard to tell which was worse, home or school.

[pameladean]

I did not have your childhood experiences, but your mere description of that scene made me step away from the computer. I fucking hate your parents right now.

Your account also made me remember an evening long ago when you and Raphael and I were going to watch a movie. I think it was Chinese; it definitely had either dubbing or subtitles. Some children were being trained in some school of something, maybe martial arts. There was supposed to be a fantastical element and the movie had good reviews. There's a scene early on in which a child is being physically punished. We all reacted very strongly to it and paused the movie, and in the end we decided not to watch it at all. I don't think that any of us was the audience that needed a detailed look at just why such behavior towards children on the part of authority is evil and inexcusable.

In comments above there's a discussion of whether the people producing this episode of Community intended the audience to realize that the scene is horrible, and to understand that the grandmother is evil; the conclusion seems to be, probably yes.

I think a lot about this kind of thing. People who process their experiences in some ways, or who lament bad experiences that they have not had themselves, tend to do this careful expository approach with all the details, which may be persuasive to some audiences but just tends to traumatize or re-traumatize others. It's not great for those of us who are able to understand imaginatively that such experiences are horrible, and it's far far worse for people who know that because they have had the experiences and really do not need to have them again in art.

P.

[lydy]

I'm pretty sure the movie was "Farewell, My Concubine" and the kids being abused were in "training" for the Chinese Opera. I remember wondering just how much of this abuse was necessary to get the results they wanted, and wondering how much of it Jackie Chan had been subjected to. My recollection of the point at which we bailed was the exposure of an infant, and in the stunned aftermath of having turned off the movie, we kind of hoped that someone came and rescued the infant. I think one of the reasons we never went back to it is because we were afraid to collapse that waveform. I remember it as being beautifully shot, visually stunning.

I think those are good questions about portraying traumatizing things in fiction. I don't really have an opinion, just some boundaries around what I, personally, can and cannot watch. But I do wonder how many people who cannot understand imaginatively are actually persuaded by depicting the horror, if any.

[pameladean]

You're right. (We discussed this in person but for some reason I want it recorded in the comments too.) I had actually suppressed the particular distressing part where we really bailed out.

And yes, the movie was very beautiful, no doubt one of the reasons we wanted to watch it.

P.

[lcohen]

your brain isn't stupid--your brain was protecting you. my parents barely spanked me--so seldom that i can remember every time and what does that say that i can remember every time? i hated reading the description of the scene--i have no idea what having that picture in my head would have done to me.

i think that this question which you said in response to pamela:

But I do wonder how many people who cannot understand imaginatively are actually persuaded by depicting the horror, if any.

is extremely well put. especially given the apparent paucity of empathy in the world lately.