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Political Animals
Feb. 27th, 2014 02:36 pmSo I also went on a massive TV-watching spree to see basically everything Sebastian Stan has been in, which led me to Kings and Political Animals. I don't have much to say about Kings; I didn't care for most of the characters other than Jack (and I found David extremely bland, which is weird considering I usually love generic good guy heroes). But I wanted to say something about Political Animals, other than the fact that once again Stan is a show-stealer.
I really appreciated the way this show handled drug addiction. It's extremely rare for shows to make it clear that addiction isn't the addict's fault; we become used to drug addict characters as cautionary tales, as "make sure you don't become like them!" reminders. So it was nice to see TJ's addiction handled with sensitivity (even though there's quite a bit more tragedy involved than in, say, Elementary, another show that deals with addiction sensitively and thoughtfully).
I suppose you could argue about whether TJ was a positive portrayal of a gay character, considering how often gay characters in fiction have tragic lives (and TJ has the triple-whammy of romantic breakup, suicide attempt, and drug addiction). Still, I love the character & the way Stan portrayed him.
Hmm...now (on a somewhat different note) I'm thinking about gay/lesbian characters in fiction and pondering about the fact that bisexuality often gets erased in the process. (Oh, and let's not even get into how allosexist 99.99% of TV and fiction is...)
I really appreciated the way this show handled drug addiction. It's extremely rare for shows to make it clear that addiction isn't the addict's fault; we become used to drug addict characters as cautionary tales, as "make sure you don't become like them!" reminders. So it was nice to see TJ's addiction handled with sensitivity (even though there's quite a bit more tragedy involved than in, say, Elementary, another show that deals with addiction sensitively and thoughtfully).
I suppose you could argue about whether TJ was a positive portrayal of a gay character, considering how often gay characters in fiction have tragic lives (and TJ has the triple-whammy of romantic breakup, suicide attempt, and drug addiction). Still, I love the character & the way Stan portrayed him.
Hmm...now (on a somewhat different note) I'm thinking about gay/lesbian characters in fiction and pondering about the fact that bisexuality often gets erased in the process. (Oh, and let's not even get into how allosexist 99.99% of TV and fiction is...)
