you've said before about how Frank's addiction is not a moral failure but that doesn't excuse Frank cause being an addict isn't his only trait. in that same line, I would love to read your opinion on Monica, considering that other than being an addict she's bipolar and has never been properly medicated before as said in the show. maybe a character analysis too as the one you did to Sheila?
i have no idea if i can repeat the style of what i had to say about sheila, it took me by surprise that i had all that in me. but i can tell you my opinions on monica. also i don't know all that much about bipolar, just that it's intense and difficult. disclaimer.
i found her really charming. like i definitely wouldn't want to hang out with her at all ever, but she made episodes good invariably
maybe i want to start by saying here that monica doing so poorly by her children isn't necessarily just because of her illness (though, i mean, it didn't help. i don't think there's a way to be that sick around kids that won't screw with their heads) it's to me because she couldn't allow herself to look past her insecurities to take care of them first. i also want to give monica credit for the possibly the saddest and most evocative line in the entire show: "i don't wanna be me anymore"
i guess part of my belief about her is that her approximately level-headed, clear-minded impulse is to leave. sure, she leaves a lot when she's manic and not thinking clearly. but it's more painful to see her leave after escaping a hospital where she was seeking treatment. so it's her belief that she's inherently harmful that causes the harm. this is also something that ian winds up repeating. horribly enough, the insecurities that he's running from are usually to do with being like her.
crucially, also, she wants to be nice! she wants to think she's nice, but she just wants things to be easy more. this is sort of where the fanciful idea comes from that gets people's hopes up when she's around - that if she's feeling good, maybe she can come heap some love on her kids, and everything wrong will just go away. i remember also after she died, seeing all of her little "i love you!" notes and being struck with how much of a kid-like thing that was to do.
so monica's behavior towards her kids was exacerbated by but not due solely to her bipolar. i mean of course, being sick can't MAKE you treat people badly. it can make it easier though
there's a bit of a personal stance of my own in here: though it's an obligation to try to minimize how much you hurt others, it's never an obligation to get sober or seek treatment. part of my stance on bodily autonomy is that people even have the right to do things that are potentially harmful to themselves. if monica had the resources or motivation to manage her symptoms the hard way and minimize how much she hurt others in the process, she'd have as much right to staying unmedicated as bianca did to not trying to treat her cancer.
it does, however, seem she was at some point following some sort of semi-regular treatment in the past. probably never long enough to get past the hurdle of finding a balance that doesn't make you feel god awful (i have spoken to people about how lithium feels if it's not right for you. fucking brutal, apparently) but when frank complains that she's a zombie or ian expresses resistance to taking meds for the rest of his life i think this indicates she was just, occasionally medicated.
monica is also one of the most static characters in the show - in part because she doesn't have that much screen time compared to how much she influences the plot, and in part just because the instability she brings BECOMES its own form of monotony.
WRT: her wanting things to be easy, i think this is something she shares with frank. it's a slightly different form of selfishness but yields similar results. they really are suited to each other and can understand each other in a handful of ways, even if it mostly manifests in a handful of really painful honeymoon phases.
i remember fiona complained that lip was her "favorite" in season one, and maybe (maybe) it was true pre-series, i think it's more likely that this complaint says more about fiona than monica. that fiona might not see that monica has such favoritism for ian, because to me it seems like fiona shares the same soft spot for ian. it's perfectly well possible that monica's fondness for ian became MUCH stronger when she learned he was gay - because she could pretend he was just like her, so she could sort of play around with the idea of a new version of herself
i also think complaining that lip was monica's favorite was, more than anything, an early parallel between frank and lip. so monica's "favorite" is really none of her kids, no matter how much she loves them, but in fact just her frank, or herself again, when she realizes she can project onto ian.
there are a lot of these, and again, this isn't just about lip's alcoholism. lip has a lot of school-style smarts and is the only one of their children to go to college - we learn later that frank was in and dropped out of college. lip also gets more credit than debbie or liam for being academically successful, because he's a white boy with those traits, like frank. also, lip and frank's chase scenes fit together well. one of the bigger differences between lip and ian is that ian is much more likely to stand his ground for a fight than lip is. there's a vague argument to be made for this being a monica trait (having something in common with a shitty parent doesn't have to be a bad thing!) - she does insist frank apologizes, or she does kick him out of the car when he really pisses her off. also, though, it could just be an ian thing.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
fiona sees a lot of monica and frank throwing aside the well being of their kids to play in their fantasy perfect romance before things fall apart. instead of concluding that peoples kids should be their first priorities, she just concluded that when she was someone's girlfriend she was going to be their first priority. this is kind of what i think bit her in the ass with sean. i understand why she was upset at the wedding but taking offense at sean putting his kid first isn't fair.
jimmysteve, btw, is probably the only love interest who was enough of an asshole in the right way to work with fiona. also! the only kids he prioritized over fiona were her younger siblings. this pissed her off but it was in a context she could appreciate. i'll never get over how stupid of a choice it was to retcon his death. so unsatisfying.
i've seen a lot of really weird debate online about frank and monica's whole deal - like because monica, when she's upset with frank, loves to throw in his face that "he almost destroyed her", and then oddly there's the occasional claim that "monica ruined frank". IMO they're very evenly matched. they have a lot of really similar impulses, and are both some of the most wildly unreliable narrators out there. you can't get the full story, because it doesn't exist objectively.
like monica, also, the most difficult to watch parts of frank's character are the parts where he's kind. you can see so clearly that things didn't have to be this way! he's perfectly capable of extending kindness to people while he's drunk, in the same way monica is capable of care while unmedicated. it's a handful of choices, not an illness or innate state of being that make them act the ways they do.
1 thing shameless does really well is giving me things that make me extremely uncomfortable in parallels that i later decide i adore. the frank/monica to mickey/ian comparison might be at the very top of that list. i just love comparing how well suited both these couples are to one another, how desperate ian is not to be like that because he is so intimately familiar with the pain caused by the fallout of something that intense, the ways that ian and mickey manage to sidestep the things that really made frank/monica so bad for each other.
best comparison here is probably, sorry if this has been said before/better, just watching frank break monica out of the hospital whether she wants it or not VS watching mickey try to get himself locked up just so ian wouldn't be alone in there. monica drives away at the end and she's still alone, ian comes home after his hospitalization and doesn't have to be. this is also just one of those parallels that is so much better viewing the show as a whole and not serialized. my deepest condolences to anyone watching seasons 5-8 live
anyway, all my love to shameless for their horrible complicated fucked up mothers whose children are fully permitted horrible complicated fucked up feelings about. hate her if you want, she's in you, and that's a good thing.
