Stokes and Wrather finish out Skins Series 1, beginning with listener feedback and continuing through the Michelle, Effy, and finale episodes, touching on the nature of Tony’s advances toward Maxxie, the gendered aspects of American swearing, Tony as artist, the limits of his artistry and control, the horrifying spectre of sexual violence, some good reasons to get religion, and the many meanings of the truck.
There will be no spoiler warnings and there will be many naughty words. If either of those things bothers you, don’t click!
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References
Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
The beginning discussion of gender made me think of the Crazy Awesome Sex Montage article which you should all read if you haven’t.
http://www.overthinkingit.com/2010/04/21/glee-sex-montage/
The iTunes of this doesn’t seem to be working yet, just letting you know.
Et voila: Should be fixed.
The reason I thought they took on gendered roles is because when a traditional heterosexual couple has a sexual encounter, they are treated along gendered lines the way Tony and Maxxie were. The fact that it’s “the kind of thing Tony does” is part of why. They’re totally shocked that Maxxie would do something like that, but Tony? Meh, Tony will be Tony, in a way similar to, “Boys will be boys,” gets thrown around. But I concede the point that perhaps reading gender roles into it creates more problems than actually exist. I was by no means saying it’s okay, either.
Oh, and the ostracizing of Maxxie wasn’t from the Anwar party thing, it was how they acted in class when he called himself a “slut-” instead of telling him it wasn’t his fault, they all dropped their jaws, gasped, and started comforting Michelle, nor did they try to smoothe things over between Maxxie and Michelle- so it was more through inaction and passive aggressive. Again, I could have been reading too much into it, though.
While not shown, it was HEAVILY implied that Tony made physical contact with Maxxie’s penis- the way Maxxie comments implies there was contact and no reaction. And the way Tony looks so crestfallen implies heavily that he had done more than just stare while on his knees. But, if nothing else, Maxxie’s pants were open. I consider it sexual assault because of that (the contact, not the pants), and something else I said in the email: that Tony did, indeed, prey upon Maxxie in a weak moment after being rebuked previously. Maxxie had said no before, and Tony, when there wasn’t as much vocal protest, jumped the gun and made unwanted physical contact with Maxxie in a sexual way. The predatory nature and the fact that there was contact makes it assault in my eyes. I can understand why “coercion” may be more acceptable for others, but I just wonder where the line between “assault” and “coercion” is- does there have to be VIOLENCE for it to be assault? I’d say no because of the psychological damages that can be done (and think about it: people say they’re “verbally assaulted” when chewed out all the time, so why can’t a person say they’re “sexually assaulted” if a sexual encounter they didn’t want occurs?), but others say yes, so that is a personal definition and choice thing. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know what it would be classified as in a police report or if charges were pressed, and yeah, I do sometimes go victims’ rights!-crazy, so I could have just had too strong of an emotional reaction to the scene and the fallout. Because as I said in the email, I stress how Maxxie calls HIMSELF a “slut,” even though he 1) did not want the encounter, and 2) ENDED IT himself by pushing Tony away and dismissing him. He blames himself for it, and that’s so utterly tragic to me, I just can’t fathom how else to interpret it except as an example of how fucked up society is with regards to unwanted sexual encounters, be they against women OR men, and the shame and guilt still placed on people that actually need support, love, and justice; and how so often, the ones doing the victimizing don’t get their portion.
The reason I think Tony is a sociopath (up until the stuff with Effy): he uses people as objects to achieve his ends. He wants to have a good time, so he uses those around him as puppets to do so. The redeeming stuff felt very trite and while probably meant to be genuine by Tony, it came across as sloppily contrived by the writers who were just doing what they thought people would respond to because “we can’t get behind” a person that is a genuine asshole/sociopath.
I had the same reaction about Anwar’s dad as you, Stokes, and I’m *of* faith, so there ya go. But because faith is, ultimately, so deeply personal, some people have absolutely visceral and opposite reactions to the same things.
I hate to keep bringing up sexual assault and such, but when Cassie was so blase about her pills in that first episode, I absolutely fell in love with Sid for *not* doing anything with her. I’ll leave it at that.
Of course, now I find this:
http://kottke.org/10/07/periodic-table-of-swearing
I find it interesting that the vengeance acts both had an incest theme to them. Incest is apparently one of the few remaining taboos that we have.
I think that the Tony character would actually consider fulfilling the incest coercion that Josh poses. Apparently the one person Tony actually cares about is Effy, and he is given a situation where in order to save her, he must commit this forbidden act (and be able to excuse it away later as a forced thing to save a life). He automatically dismissed the thought.
Likewise, it seemed ridiculous that wealthy Josh goes to the trouble of kidnapping and drugging someone, then just lets his hostage get carried out the door. It’s utterly inexplicable.
Josh apparently
Not related to this episode of the podcast, but I happened to notice that you “retweeted” a tweet I sent to you on Wednesday that unfortunately was time sensitive. Alas and alack, the movies I was referencing have already come and gone on TMC’s Teen Movie Thursdays for the month of July. It was a real panoply of 80’s movies as well. Next week’s batch involves all movies I’ve never heard of, but Mickey Rooney and Doris Day are involved, so there’s that.
British show Wire in the Blood (adapted from novels) may be the most obvious example of the focus on the killer a la Criminal Minds… but I think the crimes are shown in such detail to emphasise how far removed from human society the profiler who can catch them is.
You didn’t mention the song! The song was a big thing!
@Chris
Ah well. There’s always the waffles.
@Timothy J Swann
It’s true. And it is indeed a wild world.
I kind of wanted to make a big deal about the song, and how we had actually chosen Skins not because it resembled Gossip Girl but because it resembled Glee. But then we ran out of time. It’s a common problem.