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greysramblings · 2 years

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Cristina Yang is a survivor.

TW: domestic violence, abuse

Cristina Yang is a survivor and it pisses me off so much that the show never talked about it. Owen Hunt abused her. Their relationship was abusive from the start--S5E8, she walks up to him, touches his shoulder, he flinches. From PTSD, fine, we get it. But then he's angry. Then he's a strong white man who's angry and Cristina Yang is in an alley, at night, alone. And he approaches her, he gets in her space, she presses against a wall when backing up, trying to calm him down. You can see how she looks to the side, for help. Then he kisses her. But I don't care, because she was scared. Because he was a big man and she was a woman and they were in an alley at night alone.

I can obviously go on about this. We all know that this peaked with him trying to strangle her. But there were so many red flags before and after (even up until the kiss--the way he holds her to double standards, the way he treats her abusively, etc etc). She should not have stayed with him. Callie and Mer should have forced him into rehab, forced him away from her. He should have been fired from the hospital.

He gets his redemption arc. He gets to be a better person. And that doesn't get to be an excuse for his abuse. For the fact that Cristina survived domestic violence. The show doesn't portray it, but a woman is never the fucking same after that. Nobody is.

And what always pisses me off is how he always has that stupid look of regret, pity, feeling bad, feeling helpless, lost, whatever. After he abuses her.

The show should have made it very fucking clear that his behavior was not okay, was not redeemable, and was not justifiable. It's explainable, sure, but I don't care where in the world he is or how many times he was almost killed. He almost killed her. The show should have provided warnings, social media posts, and a hotline to call for domestic violence.

Grey's should have explicitly said this, so I'm saying it for you:

Guess what. If anyone tries to hurt you, no matter the circumstance, that is not okay. You are the survivor. Your story is important and valid. Your story is the one that is important. You do not owe your abuser the time of day, or a hug, or a therapy session.

You are the important one.

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greysramblings · 2 years

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And you can't kind of be a lesbian.

TW: biphobia

The rampant biphobia among characters in Grey's Anatomy is infuriating. If it were followed up with a comeback, or an apology, or dialogue about how it's inexcusable, then it'd be important and admirable to include. But apart from the first major biphobic incident, it's not. And that fosters an environment of justification and normalization.

The first big time that it happens is the last scene with Erica Hahn in S5E7. "There is no grey area here," she says heatedly. "You can't kind of think this is okay...And you can't kind of be a lesbian." The thing is, she's wrong. Her character never reappears on Grey's Anatomy. And Callie looks at her dead in the eyes, and says "Yes, I can." There is a grey area, there's a whole rainbow. Callie acknowledges that, the show acknowledges that, and that's powerful.

But in her relationship with Arizona? There are occasions when she's blatantly biphobic, and one of the worst instances of it is when Callie's father comes to her place of work with a priest to talk about her sexuality. At first, it's handled beautifully. Callie walks away after telling him, "you can't pray away the gay."

Then she rants about it to Arizona, her girlfriend, who should be supportive. Instead, she asks "are you done?" and when Callie says she isn't, Arizona interrupts her again later, saying, "he hasn't done anything here. You're the one who changed the game." She told her girlfriend, to her face, that her father--the one who isolated her from her family after she came out, the one who cut her off financially when she came out--hadn't done anything.

That would've been bad enough, but it goes on. "You didn't expect a little understanding when you came out to your parents?" Callie asks, visibly taken aback. "I never had boyfriends, ever," Arizona says, cheerfully condescending. "But you, you dated men your whole life...all of a sudden, you're a whole new girl. So, cut him some slack."

I can talk more about the biphobia on this show--Owen's reaction when Teddy came out, the fact that Amelia's bisexuality is always treated like a joke or an experimentation, the fact that Teddy was a serial cheater. But I'm just mad on behalf of Callie right now, and on behalf of all of the bisexual watchers, especially the young ones, like me who were a little horrified and a little scared, maybe thinking, am I supposed to allow my parents to treat me like this?

So here's the response that Grey's was supposed to give you.

No.

You deserve unconditional love, support, and respect from the people who are closest to you. From your parents. You are not obligated for one second to put up with biphobia just because you deviated from the heteronorm. You are allowed to cut people off. You are allowed to be angry. You don't owe them a conversation or an apology or forgiveness.

You are beautiful and valid and so is your anger--or whatever other reaction you have.

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greysramblings · 2 years

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I know when I'm being manipulated, and I know when I'm being made fun of.

Can I just say hats off (kind of) to the writers in S5E8 when the cardiologist with autism, Dr. Dixon, visited the hospital?

Every time I watch it, at first, I forget how it ends. and I'm endlessly pissed off. I'm still pissed off at the end about how an actor who doesn't have autism played a character with autism, and how writers who don't have autism wrote a character with autism. Like, she's in three episodes, it pisses me off.

But this is what I love. Bailey and Karev and Webber, and everyone else at the hospital who interacted with Dr. Dixon, were condescending, or sarcastic, or manipulating. They were treating her like she was less of a person and deserved less of a behavior or attitude towards her.

Then at the end of S5E8, she tells Bailey, "I'm not good at cues like condescension or sarcasm, but I do know when I'm being manipulated, and I know when I'm being made fun of. I don't think I like this hospital very much. I don't think I like this hospital at all."

And THAT! Like YES. Yes for calling out Bailey and everyone's behavior, instead of letting autistic people being the butt of yet another uninspired and ableist joke. Yes for having her say that instead of being the "weird" "quirky" character that got some laughs in the episode. THAT was cool of them.

#greys anatomy #greys #meredith grey #autism #autistic representation #representation #miranda bailey #alex karev #greysanatomy #greys abc #derek shepherd #richard webber #neurodivergent #neurodivergent representation #mary mcconell #greys fanfic #ableism #disability

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greysramblings · 2 years

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Meredith Grey is a survivor.

(tw emotional abuse)

The show, her family, and her friends never seem to acknowledge that. Meredith was emotionally abused, and probably neglected, by her mother for over twenty years. There's no way she would name her youngest daughter after her abuser instead of her deceased sister.

When Ellis is hospitalized, nobody has sympathy for Meredith. Cristina says she's in love with Ellis, Derek encourages Meredith to be nice to her mother, and Meredith's avoidance of her isn't understood at all. When Ellis is lucid, she emotionally abuses Meredith again, screaming that she's ordinary because she's happy with Derek.

But S3, E23? When Susan, the fake mom and Thatcher's new wife dies? That makes me the most mad. Not a single person took care of Meredith. First of all, the fact that Webber and Bailey let her into the surgery at all is a major red flag. Family doesn't take care of family, and at that point, that's what Susan was to Meredith. But then, Bailey and Webber make Meredith tell Thatcher that Susan died. They put Meredith in a horrible position--they should have gone to the waiting room where both Meredith and Thatcher were, to break the news.

Then, the worst part, it comes out that Thatcher is an abuser too. He slaps Meredith. This was grossly underemphasized in the show, so I'm going to emphasize it now. Thatcher hit his daughter, and nobody does anything about it. Derek, the love of her life. Richard, her surrogate father. Bailey, her teacher. They all sit idly by, watching it happen. Even if they didn't know Meredith like they did, even if Thatcher wasn't her father (which is what makes it such a big deal), they would not sit idly by when a physician at their hospital is assaulted by a patient. They would not.

Bailey, Webber, Derek, and everyone else were supposed to keep their doctors safe, and Meredith safe. They didn't, and they actually enabled the abuse from her mother and father.

The aftermath is only slightly less horrifying. Thatcher comes into Meredith's place of work, clearly drunk. He should not have made it to Meredith, he should not have been able to speak with her, find her, or enter the hospital after assaulting Meredith. But he did, and Richard was literally right next to Meredith--with Derek, Bailey, George, Izzie, and Cristina all watching idly--as he emotionally abused Meredith.

I have written a lot about one episode, and on one hand, it's just a show and these characters weren't actually hurt. What actually hurts is the diminishing of emotional and physical abuse, which is done far too often already.

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