#edit from when i drafted this earlier: i talked to my mom about the vet thing without my dad around

[samtheflamingomain]

hello wisconsin!

Okay, I'm garbage and have been putting this off for ages. I finished binging That 70's Show like a month ago and have been building this post for just as long.

I started this post at the beginning of season 6. Read it as such. I'll let you know when the part I wrote at season 6 ends and where I pick it back up in the present. If that makes sense.

I'm starting at season 6 mostly because I'm pretty sure the shark is going to be jumped at some point soon. Just like MASH, which lasted longer than the Korean war, 70's stretches 2 years of high school into 5 seasons. Plus another 3 for some reason.

And that's my first point. New rule: if your TV show appreciates in time and the events in the show don't line up with that, you've fucked up. I just watched 5 seasons of the kids in high school. You're telling me this shit goes on for another 75 fucking episodes?

Look, MASH I can give a pass to because they don't mark specific points in the war to give the watcher any time reference. MASH gives no dates - it's feasible that a 5-year war could span 10+ seasons, if we guess that each season is 6 months long. (That's not how it really works, but you get the point).

70's STARTS THE SHOW at the end of grade 11, and we know this. To a rational person, that means "One season of grade 11, 2 for grade 12, maybe another for summers." Then. They. Graduate. And. Leave.

But that's... not happening. For ANY of the main characters. They just decided to extend a show about high schoolers into their *supposed* college years. Which I wouldn't even have minded much - if ANY of them ACTUALLY WENT TO COLLEGE.

If they hadn't made things so cut-and-dry regarding timeframes, They could've kept being 12th graders for 10 seasons for all I care. But they CHOSE to follow defined timespans. And I think that's what's got me feeling that season 5 might've been the last "good season".

So everything you've read, I wrote before I finished the show. And, well, turns out I was right. This is also from before I finished the show (with a few things I’ve thrown in now):

There's a lot to disect from 70s, but there's one I want to focus on: Red Forman.

Why? Well, these characters are static and uninteresting: Donna, Fes* and Bob. They're pretty useless in terms of character development. These ones have simple character arcs: Hyde, Eric and Kitty. They change and grow, but in pretty predictible ways. In terms of change, Jackie obviously takes the cake, with Kelso at a close second.

*It is actually spelled Fes, because that's not his name. It's an acronym for Foreign Exchange Student.

But there's only one character that never seems to change or grow at all: Red. I said "seems" because he does change and grow, but it's instantaneous and doesn’t come for a looooong time.

It takes place immediately after returning from fishing, after Eric tells him he and Donna are engaged. He reaches a very sound, strong position: he made Eric run the gauntlet on everything he shit his way, but Eric never gave up. So he gives Eric the blessing to marry Donna. (There's another very pivotal change in his character, but that's later.)

I would've called that a nice wrap-up to the series.

But then they had to give him a damn heart attack to keep all the kids here. Why? Fuck if I know. (Jackie's still in high school and Hyde has a job he likes at home, but there is literally no reason for any of these other kids to still be here.)

The stupid heart-attack got Eric to push back college. I was fine with that. Then the whole Casablanca shit with Donna not getting on the bus, well, it kinda pissed me off (like, girl, don't let a fuckin weak ass ferret man determine your future) but it was a pretty sweet, moving moment. Another one that would've been great to end the show on.

But they didn't. So now we have Kelso, future cop; Fes, unemployed illegal immigrant with ZERO CHARACTER TRAITS THAT PEOPLE CARE ABOUT; and Eric “Dog Food” Forman.

Anyway, back to Red. It was that one heartwarming moment when he came back from fishing that made me realize that, while this is obviously fiction, Red is the epitome of a psychologically abusive parent. And THAT'S when I realized that literally not one of the characters HASN'T gone through significant trauma. Red's a vet; Kitty's an alcoholic who lost her father; Eric has an abusive father and alcoholic mother; Donna has a mentally retarded ball of pubic hair as a father and her mother ran out; Hyde's parents split; Jackie's dad's in jail and mom fucked off. I refuse to talk about Fes anymore cuz he's just the stupidest, most irritating "character" on the show, Randy notwithstanding. "He's brown! And has a funny accent! Hahaha" - nobody, ever.

It's when I realized that we NEVER see ANY of Kelso's home life did I realize that he was likely the sanest of the group. And, like him outscoring both Hyde and Eric on the SATs, that's very, very sad.

Back to Red. We know he became traumatized and hardened by serving in two wars. We know he's treated Eric like garbage his entire life... yet Eric is pretty well-adjusted. And that is where, 5000 words in, we get to my point: abuse is played for laughs and it's fine because Eric has a snappy comeback to Red most of the time.

Eric Foreman's a sarcastic wit with great comedic timing. So that, according to the show, cancels out of all the times Red's told Eric he was stupid and degraded him in front of his friends.

Of course, conflict has to come from somewhere, and one's parents is that major source for most teens. But to an extent.

"Red's a hardass," as the kids say regularly. But no, being a hardass is refusing a kid candy till he finishes his broccoli. Not telling him he's worthless over and over and over for 17 years

And I don't care what anyone says: that amount of abuse over a child's life does not a snappy, well-adjusted Eric Forman make.

It makes me. A crumbling, shattered, fragmented person with no sense of self-worth or accomplishment.

And now, we’re caught up. Back in the present, having finished the show.

My point ended up being made.

If the show had ended at season 5 with Donna missing her bus, we would've missed a lot.

Look, I still firmly believe the show itself would've been better if it had ended earlier, but my complaints about the effect of Red's abuse of Eric would've gone unanswered.

I spent the next 3 seasons mildly annoyed that they existed - first, Eric doesn't go to college. Then neither does Donna. Why are they still around? Why do we still care? The whole point of the show was to show us high schoolers graduating and going off to college. To me, it felt like how it would feel if MASH continued after the war ended.

I was absolutely irrate when Eric announced the theme of season 7 would be "I'm taking a year off to eat and watch TV and sleep!" There was a great scene that's often seen on tumblr in gif form: at breakfast, Red asks Eric what he's going to do about: moving out, Donna, his job, and his future. He replies "I 'unno" to each question. Red tells him to have a plan by the end of the day if he wants to eat. And I said "Finally, some good fucking Red Forman." Then, at the end of the day, Eric announces: "Donna? Hanging out. Job? Quit. Future? None. When am I moving out? Make. Me."

To which I said, "THAT'S WHAT YOU DID LAST SEASON BITCH!" Only apparently I was wrong; Eric Forman could and did become even more useless than before.

But at least it gets us to my absolute favorite point in the entire series. Season 7, episode 9, 18 minutes in. (Thanks to Reddit for helping me locate this scene). Red is bitching at Eric for not knowing what to do with his life. Let's go straight to the transcript (with side jokes edited out):

E: Did it ever occur to you guys that I don't know what I'm doing? I'm scared, okay? Look. My whole life, I've been trying to please other people. So I feel like I don't know who I am. Or know what I want to do with my life. I just don't want to wake up in five years and hate my life.

R: That's unavoidable.

E: Okay, I just need more time to think.

R: You know what I got for my 18th birthday? A draft notice and a Malaria vaccine. I never had time to *think.*

E: Yeah, but Dad, don't you think it would've been helpful if you did?

Then the camera zooms in on Red, and no laugh track, no jokes, he thinks for a good 20 seconds. Then he says, "Okay. I'll give you six months."

It's my favourite scene. Even more than the one we get after fishing or the one before leaving for Africa. Because unlike those few heartfelt scenes, this one relies on Red. Being. Wrong. And admitting it.

There's a reason Eric's spent his whole life trying to please others: Red. There's a reason Eric doesn't know who he is: Red.

Throughout the entire series, Red's been a Conservative Republican veteran who, as Kitty puts it, "Thinks the only way to become a man is to DIE." Just 500 words ago, I called him abusive. And, let's be real, he is.

But I also had an abusive father. That's why I picked this direction for this post to go. I saw Scott in Red Forman. But they are NOT the same.

Red Forman will admit to being wrong. And that makes up for a whole goddamn lot. Going through abuse is not something I'd wish on my worst enemy. But if they did and their abuser ADMITTED HE WAS WRONG, that is NOT nothing to the abused. If my dad had admitted he was a dick, my life would be a LOT different.

And Eric is the epitome of that feeling. His eyes light up when Red says he'll give him six months. Because Red knows he's done Eric wrong. He knows he owes him at least this much. At various points throughout the series it's been pointed out that Eric is who he is because of Red. It was inevitable that Red, too, would eventually reach this conclusion.

Anyway. That's that.

I do want to talk about other things than Eric and Red Forman, so let's play all the hits: fuck Jackie and Fes, fuck Randy with a chainsaw, the moment the show jumped the shark was when Eric bailed on the wedding, fuck Randy with a hot curling iron, Fes is the most annoying and useless character on the show, LOVED the episode where they finally Green Out™ and Kelso calls the White House, and FUCK RANDY WITH A CEREMONIAL JAPANESE KATANA.

Look. I can't in good conscience indulge in a 70's review without talking Randy.

But I hate him so much I don't want to waste energy on him so let's get this over with: useless, Gary Stu, want to put his hair through a blender, fuck him for being in the cirle in the theme song.

Okay, but let's play one last one: Tommy Chong.

I was curious as to why he was absent for 3 seasons so I Googled it. Dude was in prison for selling bongs. He said, upon getting out and returning to the show, "I thought they would've made that a part of the show!" I think that says it all about Leo and why he's my favorite character, with Hyde as a close second. But FUCK Danny Masterson and FUCK Scientology. Look it up.

Well, to finish off, an interesting tidbit: at the end of the theme song, it is Hyde who shouts "Hello Wisconsin!". The entire time, for 200 episodes, I would've sworn on my life that it was Kelso.

Stay Greater.

#70's show #that 70's show #hello wisconsin #eric forman #sam