9 1 1 Spoilers - Tumblr Posts
Athena Grant and Copaganda in 9-1-1
okay, so I love 9-1-1 and like everyone, I am frothing at the mouth over the Bi Buck of it all.
But I want to talk about Athena Grant for a minute. Athena is a fascinating character, because she is a great friend, a loving wife, a caring parent - and then, on a regular basis, she and the show will forcefully remind us that she is a Cop First. And all cops - including Athena Grant - are bastards.
As a character choice, I don't inherently have a problem with this framing. I think it is interesting to look at the ways that a character who is otherwise a good person, becomes a bastard as a cop, because there is no such thing as a good cop. The show repeatedly depicts Athena throwing her weight around, abusing her power, and intimidating civilians. Sometimes that is framed as a bad thing, sometimes it's framed as her standing up for the little guy. But rarely does she face any meaningful consequences for those behaviours.
Where it comes to the systemic racism of policing, 9-1-1 has a long history of trying to have their cake and eat it too: they want to demonstrate that they understand the realities of systemic racism in policing, but they don't actually want to acknowledge that one of their main protagonists is contributing to a system that kills people.
And more importantly, the show still wants her to be right. It's telling to me in 7x04 that Harry apologised to Athena but she never apologised to him. And, even more telling, neither she nor the show answered Harry's question: what was he supposed to do in that situation? Based on what we're shown, there was no safe way out of that interaction for Harry. But rather than acknowledging that the justice system first puts Black men in danger and then punishes them for responding to that danger, we have Athena saying that she's a parent first, but in all of her actions she shows us that she still puts the system first. For evidence of this, we only have to look at how the plotline ultimately resolved: via police intervention, and without a single lawyer present.
I'm not saying we can't still enjoy the fun wee woo show, but I would really like fandom to talk a bit more about the uncomfortable tension at the heart of Athena's character and how the show frames her behaviour.
Self-reblog because this is still extremely relevant and I’m more annoyed about it now than I was a month ago
Athena Grant and Copaganda in 9-1-1
okay, so I love 9-1-1 and like everyone, I am frothing at the mouth over the Bi Buck of it all.
But I want to talk about Athena Grant for a minute. Athena is a fascinating character, because she is a great friend, a loving wife, a caring parent - and then, on a regular basis, she and the show will forcefully remind us that she is a Cop First. And all cops - including Athena Grant - are bastards.
As a character choice, I don't inherently have a problem with this framing. I think it is interesting to look at the ways that a character who is otherwise a good person, becomes a bastard as a cop, because there is no such thing as a good cop. The show repeatedly depicts Athena throwing her weight around, abusing her power, and intimidating civilians. Sometimes that is framed as a bad thing, sometimes it's framed as her standing up for the little guy. But rarely does she face any meaningful consequences for those behaviours.
Where it comes to the systemic racism of policing, 9-1-1 has a long history of trying to have their cake and eat it too: they want to demonstrate that they understand the realities of systemic racism in policing, but they don't actually want to acknowledge that one of their main protagonists is contributing to a system that kills people.
And more importantly, the show still wants her to be right. It's telling to me in 7x04 that Harry apologised to Athena but she never apologised to him. And, even more telling, neither she nor the show answered Harry's question: what was he supposed to do in that situation? Based on what we're shown, there was no safe way out of that interaction for Harry. But rather than acknowledging that the justice system first puts Black men in danger and then punishes them for responding to that danger, we have Athena saying that she's a parent first, but in all of her actions she shows us that she still puts the system first. For evidence of this, we only have to look at how the plotline ultimately resolved: via police intervention, and without a single lawyer present.
I'm not saying we can't still enjoy the fun wee woo show, but I would really like fandom to talk a bit more about the uncomfortable tension at the heart of Athena's character and how the show frames her behaviour.
Eddie Diaz × Evan "Buck" Buckley
"Cause you've got me and you know
That I've got you and I know
If the tide takes California
I'm so glad I got to hold ya
And if the sky falls from Heaven above
Oh, I know I had the best time fallin' into love
We've been livin' on a fault line
And for a while, you were all mine
I've spent a lifetime givin' you my heart
I swear that I'll be yours forever, 'til forever falls apart
'Til forever falls apart"