I watched this a few weeks ago, and really liked it. I don’t really understand Kevin’s critique, unless he is being sarcastic. The male characters seem fairly drawn to me too.
There was something about the show that irritated me. Unlike all the hand wringing about distortions of fact in the HBO Lakers series, that mostly did not bother me very much (in context of it’s almost magical realism that clearly identifies itself as a caricature) Julia indulges in a kind of high minded, well intentioned distortion that really irritates me. A key supporting character is an African American woman who is shown as an associate producer whose idea it was to syndicate the show. Obviously, there was no AA producer at WGBH in the early 1960s. I get that they wanted to avoid criticism that the series was #sowhite, and wanted a way to explore racial issues, but pretending that racist Boston in 1962 was dealing with race at a level of say New York City in 1992 is IMO worse than ignoring race completely- especially when ignoring race completely would likely be closer to an accurate telling of the story. On Wed, 8 Jun 2022 at 1:11 PM Marti Lawrence <[email protected]> wrote: > We usually wait until all episodes of a series are released so we can > watch one or two per night. We just finished *Breads* the sixth episode, > and while the sexist portrayal of men may feel exaggerated, I lived through > those times, and misogyny was the norm. I had bosses who felt like groping > any female employee was their right, stealing our good ideas and claiming > them as their own was acceptable, and advancing less qualified men over > women was not an issue. I think the men in *Julia *are being portrayed as > “seeing the light” as in her boss Russ realizing what a treasure Alice is, > or Julia’s husband Paul, coming to understand the sacrifices she made to > follow him wherever his diplomatic career took them. I can appreciate your > point of view though, and enjoy reading the comments on this site very much. > > ~Marti > > On Saturday, May 7, 2022 at 9:54:08 PM UTC-5 Kevin M. (RPCV) wrote: > >> Julia gets a second season >> >> I like this show, but I again voice the criticism that the portrayal of >> the men is… well… the only word for it is sexist. I suppose the argument >> can be made that the percentage of sexist portrayals/depictions of women in >> media vastly outnumbers this single series, but this show does so >> unabashedly as if it is daring… well… men to voice the criticism. So I’ll >> take the bait. It is telling a good story… a story that is worthy of being >> told, and it is well acted and produced… all reasons to watch it. I’m not >> offended by the depictions of men, but if I was one of the men portrayed, >> or if I was related to them or knew them, I suspect offense would exist. >> What I do feel as a viewer who knows at least a bit of the events depicted >> is that the story feels incomplete in its unfair treatment of the male >> characters. >> >> >> https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/julia-renewed-season-2-hbo-max-1235258119/amp/ >> >> >> On Tue, Apr 5, 2022 at 9:23 PM Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Apparently all the men in Julia Child’s life were either easily >>> manipulated rubes or misogynistic neanderthals. And all the women were >>> progressive go-getters. Costarring Frasier’s family. >>> >>> On HBO Max >>> -- >>> Kevin M. (RPCV) >>> >> -- >> Kevin M. (RPCV) >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/a3083fc9-cb4c-483f-b00f-57710d6a7d9fn%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/a3083fc9-cb4c-483f-b00f-57710d6a7d9fn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYLn-S6KxgKT79iq80Avz7YcU_zonEv43cpwL4NyrHwpyA%40mail.gmail.com.
