this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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Hmm I may actually re-watch it and keep an eye out for these but you are more correct than I remember. I would say Bones does seem a little bit autistic, and some of the people in power are women, but it's in a little bit of a hamfisted way (look at these badass women!).
I think the episode where one woman got pregnant with someone else's kid she was thinking of not keeping it but got convinced to keep it by her husband (fiance?), the message still being "them keeping it obviously good."
Seems like the writing was mostly fine but sometimes very conservative-coded when the director wanted to insert some spiel about life values. I appreciate the examples, I think I immediately forgot about those episodes specifically because of the weird messaging.
Oh, bones is def ok the spectrum, but that's explained away by being caused by her upbringing.... Since she was in the adoption system due to her dad iirc.
She's also rich due to her stubbornness and "pulling herself up by her own bootstraps".
She also is drawn to Booth, a childish man who constantly makes fun of her peers, and has a derogatory nickname for people in her profession (squints), but he's an old values man (reads the paper with his coffee and prefers it to bones' iPad, sleeps around pre-bones but loves every woman he does sleep with, he basically rebuilds their house himself, is a company man who regards the bureau above all else, and he likes guns but keeps his safe like a model citizen should)..... and is hot.
There's also an embarrassing amount of obvious product placement in the show (the cars, the diff apple products they use and comment on throughout the show) that I'm pretty sure they were self aware of it and making fun of it later on. ....
The woman who is in charge s2 and later is not nearly as smart as any of her subordinates, meanwhile the guy who is in charge during season 1 always seems to have more respect given to him than his successor. Other women who are in charge also usually turn out to be the big bad at the time.
I don't remember the woman deciding to keep her baby. Was that one of the one-episode people who are adjacent to a victim?
Sorry. Went down a rabbit hole here. But yeah, as a kid I was always curious how such a conservative leaning news channel like Fox could have such shows that are either super liberal or super raunchy.... Turns out a lot of them have a lot of conservative coded messages. The writing was pretty standard for a crime procedural.
Still trying to figure out how such a gay friendly show like X-Men got made......
I think the reason I didn't see booth as conservative-coded, is because he seemed to be portrayed (or maybe just regarded by bones) as foolish and outdated (and usually also wrong) for basically every reason you said, but he was a good guy who always showed up and did the right thing. Though I definitely remember some times where he was doing some "hard working man protects the woman" stuff and that was seen as "good" which I thought was very out of place, especially bones reacting to it positively.. Maybe the times he looked foolish were meant to be serious and they just couldn't make it not sound ridiculous lol
Hearing this makes me really want to re-watch it as I wasn't thinking about any of this... hmm....
https://bones.fandom.com/wiki/The_Proof_in_the_Pudding here's the episode, Angela is pregnant (thinks she is pregnant) with Wendell, but is dating (?) hodgins, who tells her to keep it. I guess maybe this is still a bit conservative coded? Hard to say maybe it's pretty neutral
Right. And he's a man's man. Does things because he has an internal code he ascribes to vs makes him feel cool. He doesn't have to play at being a man because he's the epitome of a conservative coded man. He also was very cut and dry, and knows the limit of his power/his strengths. Every time it's a science or medical thing he puts all the weight on bones and never tries to influence her or tell her she's wrong about science.
When it comes to his domain, the interpersonal/political/legal stuff he knows his area of expertise and takes over. In every episode, when bones says "this is a murder" or "we need this stuff at the Jeffersonian" he instantly kicks into gear and gets his people to scoop everything up and GTFO. Him and the new orleanian DA lady come to blows every so often, but that's expected for cops vs lawyers.
The Angela thing was a similar way when it comes to code. iirc she chooses hodgins at the end because while they'd both do the same thing (take care of her and the baby to the best of their ability) hodgins did it because he loved angela, his internal code, and that's "just what guys do" Whereas Wendell said "I'd do the right thing" and she wanted someone who did things because he wanted to. Not to have her as a burden. Again coding IMHO that you don't just need to know societal values, they need to be second nature.
In the whole show, when pretty much all the women either have a scare or get preggo. The topic of keeping it/not keeping it is never up for debate or takes on the Uber complicated topic of abortion. It's just "they're keeping it"
That being said. This is not meant as a "this show is bad" comment thread. Enjoy what you want. I just would've loved to hear from the writers/producers of the show to see how much weight Fox put on them or on any other show they make/produce/etc. to be more pro-conservative.
Sorry this ended up a lot longer than I intended lol
I went back and watched through most of the first season, and I really do find it strange, it's like overtly left leaning text pretty often, but consistent conservative subtext. By that I mean they will have hodgins and bones saying "tax cuts to the rich instead of giving that money to poor neighborhoods like this so they stay poor, and minimum wage hasn't budged in 8 years, and it's even worse if you're an illegal immigrant." They'll talk about people being gay and just treat it as normal but don't ever show it on screen(I would say this is neutral/a little positive?). Bones likes rap music, they're constantly asking "are you threatened by working with a woman?" and she knows martial arts and self defense and shows it off very regularly. Angela is very independent as well.
But at the same time, bones is consistently showing needing support from booth and angela (hardly ever the other way around), women are usually dressed in pretty revealing ways (angela and bones pretty consistently wear low vnecks), one episode someone plants a carbomb and they think it's a muslim, then pretend "how dare we think it was a muslim" and then it turns out it's his brother who is also muslim and says he did it for his god? Every time Booth mentions christianity it's seen as positive and heartwarming for him or people he meets, and bones even becomes the damsel in distress and Booth has to rescue her, which makes all her punching and fighting seem irrelevant.
It's very weird it feels like it's all plausable deniability where they could say that's just what we wanted to write an episode about (other than the Booth is a strong man who cares about real american values) I didn't even realize they explained away brennan's autistic coding by saying it was her upbringing, like that's the only way someone could be like that (or with the autistic kid being autistic only because he's >160 iq, otherwise he'd be normal).
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I think the only things I would disagree with is, Bones didn't become rich by pulling herself up, it was just because she worked as an escape, and then I think the writers just wanted to show that she is successful in everything she tries because she's just awesome that awesome (possibly conservative coding?)
I would also say Bones feels in charge half the time, even more in charge than the administrator really. She'll ignore Booth and all the laws and all the rules and do what she thinks is right, and then Booth usually ends up following after her (to protect her of course). The Administrator started off as above everyone but later in the season it feels like he's their colleague who deals with the press and tells bones that she has to go with Booth sometimes. I think if you replaced him with a woman no one would really notice unless it was in the first few episodes. I also think Booth isn't quite a perfect conservative American, maybe a perfect soldier, specifically because he will lie to people, do the wrong thing, etc, but it's what his boss told him to do. At least that's what it seems like, the writing for him and Bones are probably the most inconsistent in the whole show. Also the autistic kid, I think it literally was just the writers wanted to kill off a main character, and so they just decided on him because it was easy. To be honest if I was the writer I would've done the same thing, most episodes it feels like he doesn't add anything unique or interesting, just a "look I'm smart." Lots of interesting stories to tell with an autistic character, but if they don't know how to tell them and it makes the character unpopular, time to get rid of him I guess.
Other than that I think you pretty much nailed it, I just wanted to say that I found pretty often the show is surprisingly progressive, just maybe not in the subtext of the show. It's just such a weird mash-up of "look how progressive we are, we have a badass woman, the guy is getting bossed around" that somehow turns into "the strong man learned to do the right thing and also saved the woman." I think since Booth is always in focus and always showing he's a strong conservative man, they can get away with saying whatever they want, because the progressive words don't matter, what matters is how it feels. (Note this is all based off season 1, later seasons they definitely lean in to what the fans want and a lot of conservatives were definitely watching)