Rescue Peter Tolan

Originally I was going to start delving into my Rx for Canadian TV makers, based on the interview with Diane Kristine.

But I mean, enough with the Canadian TV already, right?

(Note to readers bored from places like the USA: it's an easy habit to get into this time of year, since your networks aren't showing anything new and ours are dumping all their new Canadian stuff on the air right now.)

So what to write about. Sure, I could talk about how, from the moment I first watched Huff, I knew that the phrases "Russel Tupper" and "Dead Hooker" had to come together in some way.

But that doesn't seem to grab me. And besides, I'd much rather talk about Oliver Platt once I get back from New York. (I'll be seeing him on Broadway in Conor Macpherson's Shining City next weekend. Yay!)

So there I am, wondering what to talk about, and then, lo and behold, Peter Tolan (Rescue Me) goes on Television Without Pity last weekend.

Oh boy.

*A note for Canadians. Over the next few paragraphs, I'm going to be discussing things from the third season of Rescue Me, which has yet to air in Canada. If you're spoiler averse, you should probably stop reading.......now.



(l'il bit o' spoiler space)





At the end of the episode, Tommy went to meet Janet to discuss divorce arrangements. The whole thing went down calmly -- too calmly -- with Tommy acquiesing to most of Janet's requests.

Then he forced her down on the couch, ripped her blouse open, and forced himself on her. She fought back, but at some point, clearly gave in. After it was over, Tommy apologized: not about the rape -- about ripping the shirt.

Janet's answer: "It wasn't one of my favorites."

Tommy got going because he knew his brother, (who's now sleeping with Janet) would be home any moment. He left, the brother rolled up, and Janet was sitting on the couch (having changed her blouse) chipper, and smiling like nothing happened.

It was a horrifying scene. For a lot of reasons.

Most of the TV writer coverage has focused on the rape itself, understandably. But there was so much else to be horrified over. His cavalier attitude. Her cavalier attitude. Her willingness to cover it up. And, of course, the suggestion that the attentions -- though unwanted -- were not entirely unwelcome.

Editorials have taken Rescue Me to task for "its pattern of misogyny," and a lot of writers seem to be suggesting that this episode crossed the line.

So Tolan -- in a fit of I don't know what -- decided to try and go explain himself.

From the L.A. Times:

Before posting his first comment, "I sat there and thought, 'Should I do this? My gut is saying no,' " he said in a phone interview Friday. "I thought maybe I could explain some things.

"But all you do," he has since concluded, "is paint a target on your back."

So what did he say?

From the TWOP forums:

This is Peter Tolan. I learned about this site a few days ago while reading an article in EW, so I checked out the RM forum. I'm amazed about the quality of our fans. Some really interesting takes on things - even the people who take us to task do so in a consistantly thoughtful manner. And to the person who saw the World Series ring on DL's hand in the truck near the end of last season's finale - you made his day. He didn't think anyone would ever notice.

Let me affix the target to my back - there - now I'll continue. About last night's episode and the scene near the end between Tommy and Janet. We tried to be extremely careful about that scene. I did not direct the episode, but I did my most careful writing in preparing the scene. Our feeling has always been that Tommy and Janet are in a highly dysfunctional relationship (obviously), a negative vortex fueled by only one positive - a faint glimmer of love that is constantly overshadowed by truly fantastic physical attraction. In terms of the scene last night, I never wrote the words 'don't' or 'no' at any point in the scene, and when I talked to Andrea about the playing of the thing, I pretty much told her that she had to stand up to Tommy - that he had taken so much away from her over the years, that she had to stare him down from a position of strength while he was forcing himself on her. I told her to shame him with the words she was given - to let him know she couldn't hurt her anymore, no matter what he did.

Did this come across? For many viewers, obviously not. I was not on set the day the scene was shot (I live in California and am only in NYC when I direct episodes), so maybe those ideas weren't followed through as well as they could have been. I'll admit this is extremely dicey stuff. The idea of any woman 'enjoying' being raped is repellant, and caused all of us (and the network) a great deal of concern. But again, these are seriously damaged people who are unable to express their emotions - and so expression through brutality has become expected.

I don't want to answer to many other questions - although I'm sure I will in the weeks to come should anyone care to ask. But I do want to clear up the Probie story issue, which no one seems to be enjoying. I also want to clear up a quote that was attributed to me, about torturing Mike Lombardi with this storyline.

I came up with this story idea during one of our first story sessions of the year. Many times on this show, I'll pitch something that seems a little out there - even to me. This was one of those stories. I don't want to go into too much detail, but it was never pitched as a joke to see Lombardi discomfitted. Hey, we're moronic at times, but that's going too far. The truth of the story is - we've sort of bailed on the original pitch and now we're neither fish nor fowl. The original pitch had Probie much more invested in the relationship with the guy. When the crew found out about what was going on, they joked and slowly accepted it, but something else happened - they all started to chip away at him, questioning him, breaking his resolve about his choice. Soon he'd be so uncertain about what he was doing, he'd go to the guy with the intent of breaking things off. The guy - in love with Mike - would respond violently - and I can't say much more. It was very dark and much more interesting than what we've got now. Honestly, we disagreed about the story among ourselves - and now we're stuck with a much more shallow story that's played, sadly, more for laughs.

Welcome to writing a television drama. We're trying to do something different with RM - straddling a thin line between heart-wrenching drama and balls-out comedy. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't. Again, sorry if anyone was offended by the scene last night. That was not our intention.

And to the person who's had so many lovely things to say about me the last few hours, I wrote this whole post with both hands securely on the keyboard. Thought that might help you lighten up a little bit.

From there the conversation devolved. You can read the whole thread (starting with Tolan's post as "Jim Spriggs" here)

After a while, it started to devolve. You can see Tolan enjoying some of the adulation -- complimenting posters on analyses and details noticed...but eventually it all goes south. It got bruising, inevitably.

We've been here before, of course. I wrote about LOST fans sometime ago, and how demystifying the writing process is a non-starter that shouldn't be attempted. (At least not in that kind of unmediated environment.) Aaron Sorkin got his ass handed to him at TWOP, and eventually worked it into his show.

But this kind of stuff is only going to get worse. Because drama is at a point where it has now got to be more brutal, more raw, and take more chances. More chances mean more people not liking what you have to say.

When you're surrounded by lies every day -- when your culture is threatened by doublespeak and division, the choices seen on TV are going to reflect that.

It doesn't stop with Tony Soprano. Characters are going to die now. They're going to get fucked up. They're going to make terrible choices. They're going to do things that they wouldn't have done ten years ago. Jack Bauer will torture people. Tommy Gavin will rape his wife. And Janet Gavin will enjoy it on some sick level -- because she's still hot for Tommy, and that's probably why she's fucking his brother in the first place.

I was horrified by that rape scene. (And I won't entertain any of the idiots saying it wasn't rape, either. It started as rape. Ergo, It was rape.) But you know what? I was horrified the episode before, when Tommy beat his brother bloody because he discovered the brother was sleeping with his wife. I was horrified by Tommy's little girl having to look at her beaten-up Uncle, and him reassuring her that it was OK, and not to be scared of her daddy. I was horrified by the conversations between Tommy and his brother where their violent way of working things out was treated as normal -- and no big deal. I was horrified when the son died, and Janet blamed Tommy. I was even horrified by the comic subplot, when the Probie got a blowjob from his roommate and then insisted he wasn't gay -- cause he was only getting a BJ -- and rather than talk about it to a place of understanding -- they too got into a drag out fight. I'm horrified that the brother was probably coming to the house to confront Tommy. I'm horrified that he carries a gun. I'm horrified that he probably would have used it.

This is what Rescue Me is. It's about people bottled up and twisted by grief, who can't express themselves and who act out in stupid, self-destructive ways. It's about people thrown together who would probably be better off apart. It's all horrifying. Which is why it's such compelling viewing. The point isn't that they crossed the line. In the very first episode, we find out that Tommy is sleeping with his dead best friend's wife. We're told right off the top that among firefighters this is a great big no-no. Tommy has crossed the line. There it is, right from the beginning. Rescue Me is a show about characters who will set lines, and constantly cross them, and never, ever, ever be honest or stop to think, "what am I doing and why?"

Melodrama tells you what to think. You can watch an hour of melodrama, and at the end, the moral is, "racism is bad." Great. Nice. Next. You can now go feel really smug and have not have been moved one iota.

Drama, on the other hand, is supposed to raise provocative questions and get you thinking. You can't do that and not have a variety of opinions. YOU WANT PEOPLE TO HAVE DIFFERING VIEWS ABOUT IT.

People are restless today because their media is constantly telling them what to think, and the background white noise is buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, and telling them that it's all bullshit. Some people hate this. They want to have an easy answer, especially from TV.

But the best dramas: Six Feet, Sopranos, Rescue Me -- are not about giving you answers. They don't let you off the hook that way. Why should they? Life doesn't let you off the hook, either.

But there's always going to be a sector of the audience that hates that. Just like the fans of the old, cheesy 1978 Battlestar Galactica who complain that they want the shiny campy original, rather than the dark drama of the re-invention. These fans will go so far as to insist things that are just not true: like the new series is a failure (even as it's renewed) and no one likes it (even as it makes top ten lists, and is singled out by TIME and the New York Times.)

There's no talking to these people.

Some of 'em, anyway. And you know what? The moment you write something that doesn't have an easy, melodrama-like interpretation, that's what you've signed up for.

Andrea Roth, the very smart, very beautiful actor who plays Janet, had her say about the scene in a recent interview. You'll notice that Tolan, though he seems out on a limb on this one, actually is pretty in step with the people making the show, who may have a deeper or different view of the central relationship. She spoke to TV Guide, and said:

It has a dark, dysfunctional soul, mixed with a lot of light, funny drama. The audience has no idea [what will happen], so it's like a big kids' roller-coaster ride. There's enough alcohol, swearing and sex involved so it's a good ride. Every once in a while, because it can get so outrageous, I wonder if people think it's just too over-the-top or soapy, but they just eat it up. The crazier it gets, the more obsessed people get.

Interestingly enough, in the TVGuide interview, Roth seems to indicate that she was far more disturbed by the anger she had to play in the wake of her child's death than the rape scene. That makes total sense to me. She wants to connect to the human emotion, the thing that lets us get through times of grief. But Tolan said, "stay angry." That's hard. Because that's not how we want to think of people in times of sorrow. It's counter-intuitive. But that is also the absolute dysfunctional DNA of Rescue Me.

So where does that leave things? How did Tolan come through his online experience? From the L.A. Times again:

Meanwhile, Tolan has gotten a bit of karmic payback himself. He clearly feels a little burned by his online adventure. But his experience may prove useful for future producers who find themselves squaring off against an empowered fan base. He also can't say he wasn't warned.

"I've actually talked to some friends, some of whom are actors who are very well known and other writers, and I've said, 'How do you find it to be dealing with your fans of your shows?' To a person, they said, 'You know, it's probably not a good idea to get involved.' "

So does that mean farewell to the message boards?

"I think I'll go back to say I won't be back," he said.

This is now a well-established pattern. Simpsons writers, Aaron Sorkin, Tolan -- each has been through the fire of TWOP and come out burned. At what point do you concede that it's not that you presented yourself poorly, but maybe -- just maybe -- it's a function of the kind of unmediated experience a board represents that you are going to come out the loser?

You have your say. It's on celluloid, or HD, and people watch it. A little mystery and mediation in your interaction with the audience is a good thing. Because once you put yourself down on the level with the audience -- eventually someone will turn on you.

I don't want to say that the audience is Mark David Chapman laying in wait outside the Dakota for John Lennon, but...

...well, wait a second. Will that image keep you off the boards? Will it keep me off the boards, trying to justify my work?

Fine.

The audience (or part of em, anyway) are like Mark David Chapman waiting for John Lennon.

If you are an actual, honest-to-mergutroid writer: Message boards are not for you. Stay away. As much as the fans may say they want your feedback, they really don't. The nature of the social experience will be that once you are a voice among many, and eventually, they will take you down. Partly because you've introduced a power dynamic to an area that's supposed to be "equal." Everybody on a message board is entitled to their opinion. Some are stupid, some are trenchant, but so long as they don't P.O. the moderators (who they bitterly resent, BTW) they get to have their say. And they fiercely protect that right. But if you come in with more knowledge, or first-hand knowledge, sure, at first they might like it. But after a while, they're going to think that you think you're better than them. That's just the way it goes. Eventually that accusation comes out. You may think it's true. You may think it's not. But it doesn't matter. You're not on the dais. You're not being interviewed by the NYTimes or Entertainment Weekly -- you're in the bearpit with the groundlings. And they smell blood.

You get your chance to express yourself through art. This is theirs.

As much as it may be tempting, as much as you think it's a more egalitarian way to interact than answering mail on a website (filtered) or podcasts that go one-way, or screenings with Q&A's, it's not.

Leave it alone.