Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Side-show Musings: Mother, Daughter; Girlfriend, Boyfriend

Last night I caught the pilot of the new ABC super-hero drama, No Ordinary Family.  For the most part it was a mediocre show with some fun highlights and a few poignant moment.

One scene took me right out of the show, however, and I’ve been thinking about it all night. 

The set up: Daughter has just found out that her boyfriend is sleeping with her best friend.  Daughter says tearful farewell to Boyfriend, and storms out of his house.  Mother talks to daughter to find out what’s troubling her.

DAUGHTER: Boyfriend is sleeping with Best Friend!

MOTHER: That b***h!

DAUGHTER: I know, right?

Well, sure.  Best Friend is a not-nice word.  There’s a level of trust, implicit in the relationship between best friends, that you just don’t DO that.  So yeah…  But what ISN’T said is what goads me to write this post.

What about Boyfriend?  Why isn’t she railing at him?  Is he incapable of taking responsibility for his actions?  Are men seen as somehow non-culpable when it comes to the destruction of relationships?

Because if they are, someone TOTALLY forgot to tell the women in my life that I have ZERO control over the way I interact with others.  The excuse, “Eh.  I’m a guy.  Whaddaya want?”  is never heard spoken in my home. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the opposite situation, either—where the guy is the scapegoat for everything wrong in the relationship (cf, Everybody Loves Raymond).  But the mother and daughter’s reaction to the boyfriend’s relationship to the best friend just seemed…unrealistic.  In a show where a woman can run 700 miles an hour, where a middle-aged police sketch artist can jump 1/2 a mile and catch bullets…that was the scene that got me thinking, “Unbelievable.”

Maybe I don’t understand women.  I’m pretty sure I understand men, though, and I guarantee: Boyfriend needs to be held accountable for his actions, just like Best Friend.

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