"There’s nothing in the text suggesting that Olivia sold sexual favours, but other characters have referred to Olivia in terms that demonize her sexuality."
Seemingly in the same manner that the sexuality of the black woman is routinely demonized? There is a perceived power in a woman’s sexuality, particularly in that of a black woman, that is threatening to who hold a particular world view. I’ll leave it at that.
“the woman behind the Feminist Ryan Gosling meme writes the Vulture recaps, if anyone were to come at it from that angle it would be her, but nope.”
I have no idea who this person is, but generally speaking, if those writing recaps are unable to acknowledge something because it is invisible to them, how can you expect them to address it? This reminds me of how some writers approached the whole “you have to work twice as hard to get half of what they have” that Rowan delivered to Olivia in 301. That went over the heads of many, but struck home for those who are familiar with the refrain.
“And my takeaway from this is that people don’t care to critique because on some subconscious level, we think that it’s Mellie’s right as the scorned wife to call Olivia a whore, that Olivia shouldn’t defend herself against the verbal denigration because she’s the mistress. That so many people ( again, just from what I observe on twitter and in dicussions with friends who are casual fans) seem to have no response to this “whore” refrain is troubling to me, and I’m inclined to believe that it’s because such behaviour towards Olivia has been normalized.”
Do you think maybe your reaction is what was intended? That maybe as audience members we should be asking ourselves these kinds of questions and be outraged by the lack of response that comes when things like this transpire? Calling someone a whore IS normalized. Calling and viewing a black woman as a whore has long been an acceptable image/idea. It is time to change that.
"And the media recaps and reviews that followed just reminded me that Olivia’s feminism isn’t praised in the same way that Mellie’s or Josie’s feminism is praised."
Who are the people writing the recaps?
"It just further reaffirmed that Olivia thinks of herself as Fitz’s whore and that she deserves it. It’s troublesome to me that Olivia has been stuck in the same mindset from when she left the campaign trail to the point that we’re at now. At some point, there has to be a change in this dynamic because it’s getting tired."
Given what we have come to know about Olivia thus far, are you arguing that it is wrong for her to view herself in such a way or to feel the way that she does? I do agree that it is frustrating as a viewer and I’d much prefer for her to stand up for herself when such is tossed in her direction, but given how much we have been shown of Olivia’s need to be tied to this “white hat” concept, my feeling is that she believes that she deserves this word being leveled at her. She may on some level understand that this isn’t her and that her relationship with Fitzgerald is far more than people from the outside comprehend, but I do think that her lack of response to the word is in keeping with her character.
Now to backtrack to the “no lessons learned” statement, I can’t speak to why Shonda chose to respond to that tweet in the manner that she did, but the situation with Jake in 218 was left intentionally ambiguous to me. Did he push her or did she fall from struggling with him in her panic? Based of what we have seen since, it would seem like the writers have settled on it being the latter. At the time that the incident transpired, we were left to view Jake a particular way. I, too, thought he had violently pushed her to the ground, but have since pulled away from that because there has been no material to support this point of view.
As for what happened with Huck, it would be nice if Olivia had addressed his behavior, even if it is for the benefit of the audience. However, at the same time, from a character point of view, selectively moving on from ugliness that has been afflicted upon her seems to be an active thing for Olivia. This could be one of her character flaws that she must overcome before she can experience true happiness. I don’t know.
As perturbed as I was by seeing these things on my screen, I took everything that followed it in to help me understand the characters’ reactions (or lack thereof) as indications as to how I should move forward with it.
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