The Pitt and My Despair

Teal Deer (TL; DR)

The Pitt and My Despair

Media fandoms have always been obsessively devoted. There’s always been a subset of fans that jumps so far over the line that they could qualify for the Olympics. I say this as someone who got an Orb tattoo for the WB’s Roswell when I was 19 (and had it inked over two years later). I have done some silly shit, and I have seen some ludicrous shit. There’s not much that surprises me and there’s a lot that disappoints me. And  of course there are things that speak to me of larger problems—societal, educational, etc.  

But why The Pitt? What the hell is even going on here? HBOMax’s award-winning runaway hit has more than just broken containment. It’s vaporized the blast doors. With almost every character being shipped with someone else and the cast being shown fanart and asked shipping questions in interviews. This is a very tense, fast-paced show that has very little screen time focused on personal relationships. These doctors and nurses are too goddamn busy to fuck, okay? And I think that’s precisely the reason fans have gone overboard in filling in the blanks. Analyzing a few innocuous lines of dialogue, imbuing brief glances and touches with all sorts of hidden meaning, and basically making up entire canons in their heads—which, by the way, is called fanon. It seldom aligns with a writer’s true intent.

There’s a lot of critical pieces covering the decline of media literacy. I think there’s a corollary with an emerging sort of media hyperliteracy. A heightened consumption that takes things far beyond what’s actually there. Something even more juiced up than “Omg, Jared Padalecki wore the same shirt in April that Jensen Ackles wore to that con last August, so they’re clearly secret lovers.” Yes, many Supernatural stans were/are still that bananas. But they had multiple seasons to work up to that level of delusion. The Pitt just premiered its second season and the first only had 15 episodes—the bulk of which, again, featured an ER staff working their asses off under incredibly stressful conditions during a single shift. People are extrapolating from one day in the life of these characters and inventing scenarios that were not seeded by the writers, directors, or actors. Sometimes the curtains—or, in the case, the scrubs—really are just blue for the sake of being blue.

The overwhelming push to believe otherwise, especially with a new series that features a lot of previously unknown performers, feels like a red flag. What are you people doing to these poor newbies? I can’t imagine having to memorize pages of medical jargon, remember blocking, work under hot lights, trying to knock your first high-profile gig out of the park, and then have it all boiled down to “Omg, you looked at Shawn Hatosy for five full seconds, do you think Dr. Abbot and your character will bang in a supply closet?” It’s invasive. Bad enough to invent things that aren’t there, but to involve the cast in it as well? That’s tantamount to sexual harassment. (See also: Heated Rivalry and the treatment of the actors as well as real hockey players.)

Back in my day, as I walked that fandom hill in the middle of a snowstorm, uphill both ways, we kept our perversions to ourselves. Fanfiction.net, LiveJournal, MySpace, FanForum, the early years of AO3…wherever we were, it was relatively contained. If showrunners or actors found us and our questionable fanworks, it was rare. (Remember Rob Thomas on TWOP?) Those who brought binders of fan fiction or fan art to events were pretty universally derided for it. The first rule of Fandom was that we didn’t talk about Fandom. Rules have since evaporated. We’re now in a period of nonexistent boundaries. Of mainstream attention. Of media outlets linking to hockey RPF (Real People Fic) and asking actors questions that blatantly cross professional lines. Thanks to increased access via social media, the parasocial relationships fans have with actors and showrunners are more toxic than ever.

Alas, this laser-focused stanning does not equal comprehension. All too often, I find myself wondering have these people ever watched a TV show before? Frankly? In a lot of cases? No, they haven’t. We’re in an era of TikTok and IG reels and 30-second clips going viral sans context. It’s all “content,” often viewed on phones, and taken at face value. What you see is what you get. That 30-second clip tells you everything, right? (No, it does not.) So longform storytelling, be it in print or onscreen, is an alien format. Everything has to be black and white, in simplified broad strokes, tailored for easy consumption. The concept of waiting, of watching arc play out over several hours, is harder to grasp. What do you mean this character is going to grow? There’s no room for nuance or change. Clearly, the writers are telling us who is good and who is bad and that’s that. (lolsob.)  

I’ve seen posts wondering why Dr. Robby doesn’t wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle in the season two premiere. “He’s a doctor! That’s so irresponsible!” There’s people asking why the ER staff is so terrible in their handling of a homeless patient. “Because that’s so wrong and offensive and gross of the writers!” Orrrrr maybe The Pitt’s writers are depicting a bunch of flawed hot messes who still have to show up for work? Maybe it’s not a documentary or a morality tale? And being the protagonist doesn’t mean Noah Wyle’s character will always make the right choices? I’d say Jesus wept but these kinds of viewers would probably conclude Jesus Christ went around crying all the time. The idea that there is more than one note being played, more than one layer to perceive, just doesn’t penetrate. Because that would involve thinking it through and drawing one’s own conclusions, instead of assuming you’re being spoon-fed straight facts. It involves paying attention to the story actually being told instead of the one you’re inventing because two hot people made eye contact.

The good and bad news is that there’s nothing unique about this fandom behavior. We’ve seen it before and will see it again. Media trends are cyclical, hit shows come and go. The pendulum will swing for The Pitt soon enough.