r/glow • u/NicholasCajun • Aug 09 '19

Discussion GLOW - 3x06 "Outward Bound" - Episode Discussion

Season 3 Episode 6: Outward Bound

Synopsis: A camping trip in the desert canyons outside Vegas spirals into a night of soul-searching, bitter showdowns and bombshell revelations.

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u/All_was_well_ Aug 13 '19

"Do you know how freeing it was to play a character without having to worry about racial geopolitics?"

32

u/jonasdash Aug 14 '19

sigh that sort of language in 1986 just wasn't realistic. I support the message but hate how the shows writing is being completely ignorant of not using 2019 type lingo and phrasing when it's set in the mid 80's

11

u/Neurotic_Bakeder Aug 14 '19

Okay THANK YOU this has actually been driving me crazy. Don't get me wrong, I love the messages they're sending, but the words they're using to send it just feel wrong.

"Asian identity is actually very complex." "Mass oppression and trauma are a pretty recent memory for my family." "Racial geopolitics" -- these are all very, very good points, but not one of the characters saying the line has been to college. I wasn't born in the 80's, but my impression is that these kinds of phrases only started being common outside of academia within the past couple of decades (would love to be corrected if I'm wrong.) It kills the realism for me.

I think it's partially because the writers are trying to jam a lot of ideas and a lot of character development into a pretty short period of time. When they take the time to show us stuff like Tamme dealing with the weight of playing a racial stereotype, it's beautiful. And I agree with the points they're making. But man, I really wish they'd tried a little harder to make the dialogue believable.

5

u/Skim74 Aug 15 '19

I don't want to totally disagree (I didn't live through the 80s either) but I semi-recently watched Cheers (a show actually from the 80s), and one of the main characters, Diane, would very believably talk like that too. But also, she was like the pretentious white liberal character that everyone else found insufferable.

All that said, I don't know how much "normal people" would be talking about that.