What I noticed was how much was done to show how conflicted she was. She tried, and failed, and blamed herself. She kept doing it. There was confusion, there was pain. But I do not recollect scenes where she was deliberately, intentionally cruel to him, and experienced relief or pleasure at his suffering. What, perhaps, you mean by "glowering or cackling demon." Except that's the crux of how hard it is to *actually* depict abuse, because IRL this behavior is ubiquitous, and ubiquitously minimized and rationalized.
We don't see a moment where he's in pain and she's satisfied, or where she deliberately humiliates him, because if that was depicted, we would lose sympathy for her. Instead, we see her fantastic loyalty. Her grappling to appreciate the extent of her responsibility.
I'll re-emphasize: the abuse that will cause sequelae is so much more likely to be deliberate cruelty and deliberate aggression. What she did was destructive, but it's not going to cause psychosis the way that experiences of intention-to-harm are going to cause psychosis. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23327756). What she did would hurt, but it's not going to cause premature mortality the way that intention-to-harm emotional abuse, sexual abuse, refusal to provide medical attention, etc. will. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19840693)
The true iron law upheld by the film is that the parent must attract the sympathy, and the child is the monster. Over and over I am asked to sympathize with the parent's fear of creating a monster. What I do not see is a pause, or any retreat from the brink of identifying the monster as the child.
Trauma-flooding, sure, but what causes the flooding? I will hold with perception of intention to harm. Over coldness, conflictedness, discomfort, what overloads your thalamus is a trusted person's pleasure at your pain, and when you're young your brain is going to be open to that damage, kind of forced open. But who do we witness engage in the behaviors? Kevin. Only Kevin. Of course Kevin; that's the genre. The movie knows what the real damaging behaviors are, and it knows they'll really kill audience sympathy, and so it knows who to give them to - the child.
She tries to play that game with the ball with him? And he's mad, and she'd discomfited, because she's doing it wrong as usual, and is keenly aware. If they'd had the guts to have her mock him for incoordination, to laugh at him, you'd have something. Because his experience of that could be intentional harm, and it's a behavior which would seem normal that most people could condone. And then he could cry at the confusion and pain of being humiliated, and she could respond with anger, and there we have an average traumatizing day.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-04-30 02:42 am (UTC)We don't see a moment where he's in pain and she's satisfied, or where she deliberately humiliates him, because if that was depicted, we would lose sympathy for her. Instead, we see her fantastic loyalty. Her grappling to appreciate the extent of her responsibility.
I'll re-emphasize: the abuse that will cause sequelae is so much more likely to be deliberate cruelty and deliberate aggression. What she did was destructive, but it's not going to cause psychosis the way that experiences of intention-to-harm are going to cause psychosis. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23327756). What she did would hurt, but it's not going to cause premature mortality the way that intention-to-harm emotional abuse, sexual abuse, refusal to provide medical attention, etc. will. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19840693)
The true iron law upheld by the film is that the parent must attract the sympathy, and the child is the monster. Over and over I am asked to sympathize with the parent's fear of creating a monster. What I do not see is a pause, or any retreat from the brink of identifying the monster as the child.
Trauma-flooding, sure, but what causes the flooding? I will hold with perception of intention to harm. Over coldness, conflictedness, discomfort, what overloads your thalamus is a trusted person's pleasure at your pain, and when you're young your brain is going to be open to that damage, kind of forced open. But who do we witness engage in the behaviors? Kevin. Only Kevin. Of course Kevin; that's the genre. The movie knows what the real damaging behaviors are, and it knows they'll really kill audience sympathy, and so it knows who to give them to - the child.
She tries to play that game with the ball with him? And he's mad, and she'd discomfited, because she's doing it wrong as usual, and is keenly aware. If they'd had the guts to have her mock him for incoordination, to laugh at him, you'd have something. Because his experience of that could be intentional harm, and it's a behavior which would seem normal that most people could condone. And then he could cry at the confusion and pain of being humiliated, and she could respond with anger, and there we have an average traumatizing day.