(no subject)

[owlectomy]

yifu asks, "Maybe it's because I just watched BBC's Sherlock, but I wonder what is supposed to be so appealing about blithely arrogant geniuses."

Which made me think, oddly enough, of Gossip Girl and Jackie Collins and that kind of book about people who are rich and glamorous but have miserable drama-filled lives. With those, you get the thrill of a life that's more glamorous than your own, and you get the hilarious trainwreck factor of the drama, but on another level it's very reassuring: the subtext is that it's GOOD that you're not rich because you have values and relationships that matter to you, and rich people have lives much sadder than yours.

Isn't it the same with these arrogant-genius shows? The thrill of the intellectual problem-solving, with the subtext saying, It's good that you're not a genius, because you have actual social skills and a moral compass, and geniuses have lives much lonelier than yours.

If you can be convinced that ambition is always a trade-off, a zero-sum game, where all the effort you put in inevitably distances you from your real relationships and the things that matter... you probably won't turn off the TV and write your novel.

Comments

[starlady]

That's an interesting point, about ambition and about the pains of being a genius--and I use that word with invisible quotes, because I think more characters get labeled genii than actually are. Ambition isn't really nice to talk about, is it? I've lost count of the times it's been used at me in a vaguely disapproving way just in my grad program (by fellow students, not profs). And as much as a show like Sherlock or House shows the burdens of being that intelligent, they're not very interested in exploring any of the possible compensations.

[stephanieburgis.livejournal.com]

Although the flip side of that is, watching (IMO) brilliant shows like Sherlock, in particular, actually makes me want to turn off the TV and write as soon as the episode is over, because I feel so inspired by writers like Steven Moffat, and I want to become as good as them!