Sympathy for Brooke Logan

Six years ago I expressed frustration with The Bold and the Beautiful:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-is-not-beautiful.html

Actually, I am watching it more now than I did then. That's mainly because it is an easy afternoon break, paired with The Talk. CBS really did me dirt by replacing The Doctors with The 700 Club. Too much television is not good, but I need some breaks where I don't have to lead the engagement.

Let me say that the embarrassment that I have about the show is not that I am watching a soap opera, but that it has the same viewing problems that bothered me six years ago and I am still watching it. That they keep making the least interesting choices, repeat the same scenes over and over (sometimes via flashbacks, sometimes through characters rehashing the same conversation) and then dropping everything abruptly in favor of a new pairing, decreasing the motivation for emotional investment. (Although, if this is to be my easy viewing, maybe it's better to not be invested.)

Anyway, currently Brooke and Ridge are having conflict in their marriage. It started with their adult daughters competing over a man, then was exacerbated at work when Ridge pulled funding from her daughter Hope's line to fund his daughter's, and now is focusing on Bill, Brooke's previous husband, whom Ridge hates. In addition to recently having influenced a judge against Bill in his custody case and pushing Bill off of a second-story balcony, Ridge is constantly bad-mouthing Bill, including a recent joke that they should see if the judge can help Thorne and Katie adopt Will (Bill's son) and change his name.

One of my main complaints with the show is that there are many things that should be brought up that aren't. Ridge keeps returning to Bill pursuing his son's pregnant wife (Ridge's daughter) and that was true and gross, but no one is mentioning how Ridge stole Bill's niece from Brooke's son, even though Ridge's son was interested, and then pretended to be the father of his grandson, not letting his son even know he was a father. True, that story line was a mess in general, so the writers might want to forget, but it's still hypocritical.

(It's a super-incestuous show, by the way. Not genetically, perhaps, but in every other way.)

In this case, the repeated argument is that Ridge hates Bill and can't help it, but it bothers Brooke.

What bothers me are all of the things that Brooke should say but does not.

"I told Bill that I'm your wife and I chose you. He can't come between us, but you can."

"I left Bill because of his behavior. I can't stand seeing that anger and manipulation from you."

Brooke has tried pointing out that Ridge does not have the moral high ground, but he is not hearing it. She could express herself more strongly, I suppose, but Ridge is really good at not hearing it. Huge ego.

On one level, you would not really expect Brooke to be good at taking a stand with Ridge. She has always tended to defer to men in general (some abandonment issues from her father), and Ridge especially has been her destiny (in her mind) so it would be hard for her to assert herself against him.

Historically that has not been good for her. Ridge has abandoned her again and again, for various reasons, which I guess makes him the most likely match for her unresolved daddy issues and the least likely person to help in her healing.

It is still frustrating to see her try and express her feelings and to see him keep knocking them aside:

"I made that decision and it's done."
"I already apologized for that."

He does this when he can't even refrain from criticizing Bill after seeing that it upsets Brooke every time. His emotions can't be helped. Her feelings should change.

I was thinking that this relationship diminishes her. That's kind of par for the course on this show, but beyond that, I was thinking today that Brooke does not have the language to explain herself to Ridge, and that a lot of women don't. We need to learn how to talk about things to deal with them. That can be difficult when everyone is cooperating, but when only one side really needs the change, that allows the other side to make it much harder.

This ultimately is what television is like when you view everything through a feminist lens.

No regrets.