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Jan. 21st, 2007 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexmegamiDear Studio 60,
Danny doesn't strike me as 13 years old or someone who routinely engages in sexual harrassment. Please cease and desist.
On the other hand, Jack is much cooler. I approve.
Danny doesn't strike me as 13 years old or someone who routinely engages in sexual harrassment. Please cease and desist.
On the other hand, Jack is much cooler. I approve.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Huh?
Date: 2007-01-22 11:40 am (UTC)Re: Huh?
Date: 2007-01-22 12:20 pm (UTC)Anyway. The episode after the break starts with him calling her more or less every couple of days when she's on Christmas vacation; he asks her out a bunch of times, she says no. He changes his number at one point because he figures "[she's] blocked [his] number by now" and she agrees.
LATER in the episode, someone offhandedly mentions letters of recommendation for university, and he gets the "brilliant" idea to send her multiple letters of recommendation about him from everyone who knows him.
Keep in mind that Danny's actor is closing in on 50, here. So solidly in the YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER category.
1) This is the adult equivalent of "DO YOU LIKE ME, CHECK YES [] OR NO []"
2) She's already said NO, goddamnit, at least three times ALREADY
3) He outright told her that he will not stop pursuing her despite the no - which goes WAY beyond just creepy if you think about the implications down the road.
4) For this reason, if she winds up saying 'yes' eventually, I will be fucking ENRAGED.
Re: Huh?
Date: 2007-01-22 05:14 pm (UTC)Also-alex..I think it's time we took our friendship to the next level.
I think we should add each other on MSN
Re: Huh?
Date: 2007-01-23 04:45 am (UTC)Re: Huh?
Date: 2007-01-22 05:45 pm (UTC)That happened to me in grade 6. This girl kept bothering me about being her boyfriend. She would often buy me small presents in an effort to win me over. I liked her as a friend and, being young and dumb about relationships, I had no idea how to communicate to her that I wanted her to leave me alone. Then one day I was given something by her through a mutual friend. I was so frustrated and confused about how to handle the situation that I had a small fit of hysteria exclaiming, "I lover her! Yes, I do, I love her, there... I'll be her boyfriend! Ok?! I love her! Ok?!"
Fortunately, when this got back to the girl that liked me I think she became just as confused and I no longer had to put up with her courting.
* * * * * *
Of course, as you say, the guy in Studio 60 is about 50. So it is a tad creepier. I've never watched the show, and I don't think I'm missing anything.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-22 06:58 pm (UTC)Bear in mind I have a big crush on this show. Not only does it have no (a) surgeons and (b) forensic experts, it's smart and, I think, a lot more layered than most people are giving it credit for. Also, re: the statement Danny made before the break, it was neither romantic nor hilarious, but it was... cool and interesting.
Firstly! We're only halfway through the first season, here, so I think it's hard to jump in and say what the characters "are like". I do get what you mean, but here we come into secondly..
Secondly! I LIKE that it's weird. I like that it's different. I like that it's a little juvenile and a little creepy. It's like the TV equivalent of "I'll be Watching You" by the Police - not quite sexy, not quite scary, but some weird middle ground. Here's the thing, in terms of Danny's character as I understand it so far, and why this works for me: He's got an addiction problem, ergo he has demonstrated thus far general addictive personality (in dealing with the show, with coworkers, in being in control). He's also got two (I think) failed marriages behind him. He's not good with relationships. He's doing this all wrong.
The number one reason why I love this whole scenario is that it is different and interesting (I know I keep saying that) in terms of character flaws and character development. I think it's in line with past Sorkin (Where even President Sheen did some bloody dark stuff and he was practically the democratic messiah) to throw in some genuinely hard-to-wrestle-with flaws - as opposed to frequent TV favourite flaws like "I'm just too nice!" and "I just don't know which boy to choose!" or "I'm unreasonably sexy and marginally insecure!". He generally prevents anyone from being -perfectly- likeable. So is the Danny-stalking freaking me out somewhat? Hell yes. Do a couple of the things make him endearing? Absolutely. The combination of the two is making me very happy. Especially as a fellow writer, I hope you give this a chance to play out. It's not a comfortable, easy move for a script, and it's certainly not predictable.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 04:58 am (UTC)The thing is... it IS predictable. How many times have we seen a guy pursue a girl that's reluctant at first, only to win her over by... what? Sheer persistence of will?
To me, it's just a replay of "she says no, except she really WANTS to say yes, so I'll keep harrassing her until she admits what she TRULY wants! Which is me." And... y'know... just, no. I don't find it anywhere near the middle ground you're describing.
I will tentatively agree that it works for Danny's character, but... have we seen him grappling with his addiction in any meaningful way, yet? (I missed a couple of eps, it's possible it happened.) But... he shows no evidence of being in withdrawl, or remorse over sliding off the bandwagon (apart from a little in the initial episodes), and. Well. If we're going to make the argument that he's got an addictive personality, I'd like to see his addiction to his actual... addiction... before seeing it transferred elsewhere. I sort of see what you mean re: addiction to the show, but not so much co-workers (codependency on Matt, maybe).
Plus this tactic takes what I found endearing about him and throws it into such OVERDRIVE that it becomes creepy, stalkerish, and totally unrelatable (except in that I've KNOWN guys like that, and they were loser asshats). I would rather Sorkin grapple with the more interesting (to me) cocaine addiction than go to "Danny is every guy who can't take NO for an answer".
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 05:48 am (UTC)Also, which I forgot to include in my initial analysis up there ;), from a script point of view, there are more places to go drama-wise from this point (i.e., Danny doesn't accept no) than from the alternative (Danny accepts no, they don't date, they have calm professional interaction).
As for Danny's behaviour as a personality trait, I think I was a bit misleading. I don't think it's exclusively about an addictive personality. I think possibly he also represents a fairly large demographic of men in that age range who are socially... untrained (read: inept). To be perfectly honest, I am consistently far more unsettled by Matt's refusal to stop interfering with his ex all the time, but nobody else seems particularly bothered by that. I am willing to accept the argument that I have known no guys like Danny, and therefore this is novel to me, whereas apparently everyone else includes at least one stalker in their entourage, and therefore this is old hat ;)
And we may just have to disagree on the addiction question. It seems to me that it's pretty standard to see someone literally working through their addiction, with the substance to which they are addicted - you've got your House (which does it very well), you've got your assorted falling-off-the-wagon plots, you've got your "but magic is a metaphor... FOR DRUGS" plots. I'm actually -more- compelled to see a character who has that aspect to his background, arguably to his personality, but who isn't snorting/shooting up in the bathroom every episode. He's working on recovery, and I buy that. Just like I don't need a long-shot of haggard-hero-staring-down-bottle-of-gin every other frame to understand that the script told me he was a recovering alcoholic.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 06:07 am (UTC)And, I agree with you that Jordan's reaction is true. I just wish that they weren't going this route period, that they had stopped while they were at the weird line and, you know, explored a relationship between the two characters that are as fucked up as they are without pursuing a very traditional (and fucked up) model of how to do it.
And I don't buy that Danny is socially inept. He's like the master manipulator. (Of course, the easiest example I can come up with is Matt, offhand, but I already know the dodge for that one.) But he's been shown to be able to get people to come to his side of things where Matt can't; if anything, he's BETTER with people. He's supposed to be the people-person half of that pair, the one who smoothes over the crazy writer's rantings for everyone else and gets people to do what he needs them to do. That's not a position a socially inept person gets to. And he wasn't this way with Jordan at any point previously that I noticed, so I don't entirely buy that he's made stupid by the pretty girl; he's liked her since pretty much episode 2.
(Side note: I am ALSO irritated to hell and back by Matt's interfering, but at least it's in keeping with what he's been doing up until now. I am also irritated by Harriet, who is... mm. And, well, pretty much everyone in the cast except Tom and Jack and USUALLY Simon. Matt's only redeeming grace is that I usually think he's right in his rants at Harriet; but even then I'm mentally screaming "DUDE STOP MAKING MY SIDE LOOK BAD")
I don't need the long shots either; I can buy that he's not doing it in the bathroom or staring it down daily. But drugs have a definite effect on your performance, and Danny never seems to be suffering from any of them, or needing/wishing for the energy that cocaine gives to perform better. *shrug* I just think that as it is, the addiction thing is there so that Matt and Jordan can toss him snappy one-liners about it.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 07:55 pm (UTC)I just don't see being socially inept and being manipulative as being mutually exlusive. He's not good in -personal- relationships. He -is- the master manipulator... ergo, he likes to be in control, expects to get what he wants, and will manipulate people into getting what he wants. I don't think being good with people necessarily makes you a -nice- person. (I am here obviously deviating from TV-land and extending into reality-land ;) I think there are a lot of people in positions of PR, working with people, being good with people, who have absolutely lousy personal lives, because they can't get out of the mind set of manipulating the other person into getting what they want. I should've said, though, that I meant socially inept in a personal-relationship way. But they did establish in the first episode that he really doesn't play ball by anyone else's rules, right? How everyone else told him not to mention the drug thing, so he tells the drug thing to the entire press corps?... I think that was the first ep. It feels like a very long time ago ;) So it doesn't come out of left field, to me, that here's a guy who is told "No", and immediately, irrevocably, does what he wants anyway.
Now, I know that the show probably won't go to all of the places I hope it will, but I like the potential that is there. It's also possible that I totally need to get out more ;)
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Date: 2007-01-22 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 06:15 am (UTC)