Maude Nificent<p>continuing my first ever binge of <a href="https://aus.social/tags/ER" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ER</span></a> — one of those shows it is easy to zone in or out of.</p><p>the first 5 or so seasons were good, then for a few seasons the calibre of writing plummeted. </p><p>one of the characters (a physician assistant) early on is infected with HIV by her husband, and we get to see how (in late 1990s) people with the virus were stigmatised. the storyline has a positive outcome.<br>although the show is set in chicago, occasionally one of the episodes is set in another state altogether</p><p>from about season 10 on the episodes are a mix of absolute crap, and brilliant.<br>— S11 Ep15 the main story is told from POV of a patient experiencing an embolic stroke<br>— several episodes take place in Africa (Congo?) when US doctors do volunteer work and in the process, show the extent of the AIDS epidemic <br>— later, one of the main characters works in an Internally displaced persons camp in Darfur, so we get to see the impact of war in Sudan<br>— another character is in the military and his wife is shunned by other wives for dissing the Iraq war (something along the lines of “do these weapons of mass destruction even exist?” ) - for a US show, there is relatively less patriotic rah rah than one might expect</p><p>———<br>an astonishing number of episodes involve shootings, shootouts, guns, bullets, military weapons. <br>nobody in the “illegal drug” storylines seems to be mellow or relaxed, all the drugs induce violence or the trade in drugs leads to violence etc</p><p>if there was anything realistic about this show, all white people are clueless racist arseholes, all the not-dominant-culture people are passive in the face of all this offensiveness (I tell myself they are telling themselves in ten years white people will be a minority, and to just hang in there)<br>the show ran from 1994-2009, so a lot of people are homophobic </p><p>but my goodness… in episode after episode people are just plain rude and aggressive. there is a point where expecting good behaviour or manners is a form of oppression, but at another extreme, using bad behaviour to create dramatic moments on screen is just normalising it.</p><p>i have met some truly obnoxious blokes over the years but, dare i say it, <a href="https://aus.social/tags/NotAll" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>NotAll</span></a> of them think women exist only to be mauled or hit on. a lot of the men on this show are just phuking rapey. if i was raising children i would not let them watch this show for fear they would think it’s natural for people to be arseholes to each other.</p><p>anyway, started this rant because of an episode about people selling organs…<br>/2<br>continued in sub toot</p>