Grey's Anatomy casting spoiler
Nov. 4th, 2008 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
askmehowBig, big casting spoiler for Grey's Anatomy
Uncool, ABC. Uncool.
Other reactions tend to focus on the injustice of firing Brooke Smith, and punishing her for a storyline not of her devising;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jennyo, for example, is right on the money, but I'd like to focus on the creative impact for a moment.
Despite the Shonda et al's claims that Smith wasn't let go for playing a lesbian/bi character, and that Hahn's leaving will have repercussions for Callie's arc for the rest of the season, I do think that this smack uncomfortably of dead-girlfriend-in-the-refridgerator syndrome. Let me explain:
At the beginning of the season, the writers of the show explicitly said that they wanted to deal with the Callie/Erica storyline in a realistic, uncliched way. Instead, they remove one half of the couple and have the other deal with the ramifications of the loss. Not only is this repetitive storytelling (re: Cristina and Burke, as Shonda acknowledges), but it is reductive in the extreme; Erica is now reduced to becoming a footnote in Callie's angst over her sexual history as an afterthought instead of dealing with the reality of a (potential) relationship.
In short: badly played, ABC. Untrustworthy gundas indeed.
Uncool, ABC. Uncool.
Other reactions tend to focus on the injustice of firing Brooke Smith, and punishing her for a storyline not of her devising;
jennyo, for example, is right on the money, but I'd like to focus on the creative impact for a moment. Despite the Shonda et al's claims that Smith wasn't let go for playing a lesbian/bi character, and that Hahn's leaving will have repercussions for Callie's arc for the rest of the season, I do think that this smack uncomfortably of dead-girlfriend-in-the-refridgerator syndrome. Let me explain:
At the beginning of the season, the writers of the show explicitly said that they wanted to deal with the Callie/Erica storyline in a realistic, uncliched way. Instead, they remove one half of the couple and have the other deal with the ramifications of the loss. Not only is this repetitive storytelling (re: Cristina and Burke, as Shonda acknowledges), but it is reductive in the extreme; Erica is now reduced to becoming a footnote in Callie's angst over her sexual history as an afterthought instead of dealing with the reality of a (potential) relationship.
In short: badly played, ABC. Untrustworthy gundas indeed.