#linking
The 20th Anniversary of Attack of the Clones
I love this movie, I will always love this movie, sorry never sorry.
112. Thanks, I Hate It (One specific subplot of PIC 2.07) – Antimatter Pod
Anika and Liz had such strong feelings about episode 7 of season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, Monster, that they organised a quick out-of-schedule catch-up to rant.
Accordingly, this episode (and its show notes!) contains much fresher spoilers than usual.
We discuss:
- Our concerns about the Yvette Picard plotline came true, with a fun domestic violence fake-out twist!
- Multiple ableist tropes: the tortured artist whose creativity depends on their mental illness; the “having a mentally ill parent is SO traumatic” story
- Imagine being a bipolar Trekkie right now
- Brief mention of suicide from 8:14 to 8:26
- This is not AS egregious, but they got Freud all over our Picard/Crusher
With the next Big Twist still up in the air, I’ve seen a number of people say we should wait before we judge this episode too harshly.
And I agree that there are several things the writers could do that won’t leave us with the image that Maurice Picard Did Nothing Wrong. (Although, despite the appearance of an old Yvette Picard in TNG, my suspicion of what the Big Twist might be is very similar to the one mentioned here )
But even if the writers turn the greater storyline around and have the general lesson not be egregiously horrific, the fact that we are left on this note at the end of episode 7 (after 6 episodes of build-up to this Surprising Twist) is still tone deaf at the very least. More like outright malfeasance.
One thing: while I have found that growing up with mentally ill parents can actually leave pretty deep marks that take a lot of work to overcome, I still agree that the media trope is deeply harmful. Not because it’s always untrue, but because it’s the only perspective we ever get on this issue. In the overwhelming number of media depictions of mentally ill parents, these parents are only props for their child’s trauma and development. Very rarely are they people with a life that extends beyond their illness. So while, in my experience, having mentally ill parents (especially of the variety who resist treatment) can be somewhat harmful, the trope is extremely reductive. There are tons of mentally ill people who are great parents (or are shitty parents due to factors unrelated to their illness). And even the people whose mental illness interferes with their parenting deserve to not be reduced to props in their children’s stories.
The way Yvette Picard is depicted as of S2E07 is the worst possible combination of a lot of bad tropes.
So yeah, this episode is definitely worth a listen!
Couldn’t say it better.
Here is the essay I mention in the podcast:
