Post by anne12 on Apr 13, 2022 8:06:28 GMT
Using TV therapeutically to absorb Healthy Re-Fathering...
How many reparative fathering moments can one mainstream show have, when it’s not billed that way at all? (This one has moments in MOST episodes.)
It’s got bitching action scenes. It’s smart, romantic, funny AF, and there is an ABUNDANCE of healthy re-fathering… which is what makes me cry in a happy, touched way.
The show is called Scorpion.
Basic background: It was on for 4 seasons from 2014-2018, and now it’s on Amazon Prime.
The basic premise is that there are 4 geniuses who are friends and colleagues in their own business. But their EQ (Emotional Quotient) is low, and their anti-social-ness makes it hard for them to interact with other people, so they tend to lose jobs, offend people, have addictions, and generally struggle in life.
It’s loosely based on the real life story of a genius, Walter O’Brien (whose current, real-life company, Scorpion, actually does jobs similar to what’s in the show), who got arrested when he was 11 in Ireland for hacking NASA to get their blueprints for his bedroom wall. In the show, a single mom joins their team to help them interact better socially (and they help her with her genius son). They do a bunch of jobs for the US gov’t, and their liaison, Cabe, who helped Walter get out of trouble when he was young, has recently reached out to now-adult-Walter again. As Cabe works to repair his relationship with Walter after a fallout when Walter was a teen, Cabe winds up re-fathering the whole team.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect… there’s still a certain amount of “Man up!”s and insults to non-traditional masculinity, but I’d say that those are dwarfed by these MANY exquisite trends of healthy fathering on the show:
- 3 of the 4 geniuses have reparative moments with their biological fathers. That’s a LOT!
- Walter leans toward fathering the little boy on the show
- it is proposed that Walter is doing that to reparent himself
- the little boy’s father asks to come back into his life, and the boy benefits
- now the little boy is getting mentoring/ male care both from Walter and from his biological father
- Cabe clearly expresses to Walter that he will care for Walter, while Walter cares for the boy. (Fucking beautiful lineage of care.)
- When the little boy’s biological father isn’t in the picture anymore (which is fine in the show, as the single mom decides it’s more important for her son to be in the Scorpion family, with fellow geniuses), she starts to date a Navy seal, who teaches the little boy lots of non-genius things… AND the little boy still has Walter.
- When one of the geniuses gets abandoned on a group job, Cabe risks his own job to set a boundary that that will never happen again.
- When a woman Cabe is dating does something that hurts one of the geniuses professionally, Cabe breaks up with her, explaining “How can they learn loyalty from me, if I spend time with someone who hurt them?”
- The team pulls together to help Cabe when he is being wrongfully prosecuted, and even helps him through intense repressed memories (one of the geniuses is a psychiatrist) about his own dad. They deal with Cabe’s feeling overly responsible for his dad’s death, overly responsible for the team, and helps him receive help from them.
- Cabe talks about his own dad giving him such a great example of being a father, even though he died when Cabe was 9.
- Walter has a professional male role model who he looks up to, sets boundaries with, and receives approval from… while that man also reveals the errors he makes, and how he keeps going.
- The male team members initially reject therapy, then benefit from therapy, and then seek it out on their own.
- There’s a theme of Cabe (and another guy) training the geniuses in self-defense.
And, while this is not fathering, but it IS healthy masculinity... everyone on the show who needs to, gets slowly more and more in touch with their emotions. The show also deals with the liability of becoming overly emotional… and how it can be a confusing balance to navigate.
Through the show it is possible for people to recognize the #HealthyMasculinity that is already all around us… this show was a great way to see the quiet, never advertised, near constant examples of healthy fathering all through the show.
youtu.be/mKVsE4Co_jc
How many reparative fathering moments can one mainstream show have, when it’s not billed that way at all? (This one has moments in MOST episodes.)
It’s got bitching action scenes. It’s smart, romantic, funny AF, and there is an ABUNDANCE of healthy re-fathering… which is what makes me cry in a happy, touched way.
The show is called Scorpion.
Basic background: It was on for 4 seasons from 2014-2018, and now it’s on Amazon Prime.
The basic premise is that there are 4 geniuses who are friends and colleagues in their own business. But their EQ (Emotional Quotient) is low, and their anti-social-ness makes it hard for them to interact with other people, so they tend to lose jobs, offend people, have addictions, and generally struggle in life.
It’s loosely based on the real life story of a genius, Walter O’Brien (whose current, real-life company, Scorpion, actually does jobs similar to what’s in the show), who got arrested when he was 11 in Ireland for hacking NASA to get their blueprints for his bedroom wall. In the show, a single mom joins their team to help them interact better socially (and they help her with her genius son). They do a bunch of jobs for the US gov’t, and their liaison, Cabe, who helped Walter get out of trouble when he was young, has recently reached out to now-adult-Walter again. As Cabe works to repair his relationship with Walter after a fallout when Walter was a teen, Cabe winds up re-fathering the whole team.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect… there’s still a certain amount of “Man up!”s and insults to non-traditional masculinity, but I’d say that those are dwarfed by these MANY exquisite trends of healthy fathering on the show:
- 3 of the 4 geniuses have reparative moments with their biological fathers. That’s a LOT!
- Walter leans toward fathering the little boy on the show
- it is proposed that Walter is doing that to reparent himself
- the little boy’s father asks to come back into his life, and the boy benefits
- now the little boy is getting mentoring/ male care both from Walter and from his biological father
- Cabe clearly expresses to Walter that he will care for Walter, while Walter cares for the boy. (Fucking beautiful lineage of care.)
- When the little boy’s biological father isn’t in the picture anymore (which is fine in the show, as the single mom decides it’s more important for her son to be in the Scorpion family, with fellow geniuses), she starts to date a Navy seal, who teaches the little boy lots of non-genius things… AND the little boy still has Walter.
- When one of the geniuses gets abandoned on a group job, Cabe risks his own job to set a boundary that that will never happen again.
- When a woman Cabe is dating does something that hurts one of the geniuses professionally, Cabe breaks up with her, explaining “How can they learn loyalty from me, if I spend time with someone who hurt them?”
- The team pulls together to help Cabe when he is being wrongfully prosecuted, and even helps him through intense repressed memories (one of the geniuses is a psychiatrist) about his own dad. They deal with Cabe’s feeling overly responsible for his dad’s death, overly responsible for the team, and helps him receive help from them.
- Cabe talks about his own dad giving him such a great example of being a father, even though he died when Cabe was 9.
- Walter has a professional male role model who he looks up to, sets boundaries with, and receives approval from… while that man also reveals the errors he makes, and how he keeps going.
- The male team members initially reject therapy, then benefit from therapy, and then seek it out on their own.
- There’s a theme of Cabe (and another guy) training the geniuses in self-defense.
And, while this is not fathering, but it IS healthy masculinity... everyone on the show who needs to, gets slowly more and more in touch with their emotions. The show also deals with the liability of becoming overly emotional… and how it can be a confusing balance to navigate.
Through the show it is possible for people to recognize the #HealthyMasculinity that is already all around us… this show was a great way to see the quiet, never advertised, near constant examples of healthy fathering all through the show.
youtu.be/mKVsE4Co_jc