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(Right up front: I have only watched two seasons of Numb3rs and thirteen episodes of season one of Criminal Minds--though by the end of the day it'll probably be fifteen--but I do not care about spoilers. I do not request that people avoid them in comments, so if you do care about spoilers for these shows, be careful about reading the comments section.)
Among the results of the vertigo is that I can't read while riding the stationary bike any more. I have to hang on so I don't fall on my head. So I've been watching DVDs while I exercise. For my birthday I got the first two seasons of Numb3rs and the first season of Criminal Minds, just for me to use as workout videos. They're trying to do very different things, and I'm glad, because mostly that means I can just appreciate them both rather than seeing one as a worse version of the other. But there are some commonalities. They're both about FBI agents, of course. And then there's the matter of Dr. Spencer Reid and Dr. Charles Eppes.
( two very different geeky little brother figures and the handling of geeks on their shows, with digressions of course )
So one of the things I was thinking about is, why is this idea of geek-as-younger-sibling (who am I kidding: younger brother) so prevalent? I know a lot of geeks. Really a lot. And most of us are oldests and onlies. Of course there are geeky middles and youngests; naturally it's not a universal thing. But the numbers are really pretty striking: the majority of geeks look a lot more like Mac in Veronica Mars in their family lives than like Charlie in Numb3rs. But we don't have a corresponding "geeky big brother/sister" screen type to go with that reality, and I was wondering why that is. Even in Veronica Mars, we got Mac, but we also got the Casablancas brothers doing the "geeky little brother" stereotype thing again. What's the deal? I have half a theory germinating, but I'm not sure quite how to put it or whether it applies beyond crime/mystery shows, so I'd be glad to hear alternate theories for the popularity of this type.
My half a theory says that geeks know stuff, and when you're more experienced and you know more, that's a pretty big imbalance built right in structurally, so if you want a comparatively balanced team or group, making the geek character younger means that they don't end up knowing everything.
My half-assed theory says that it's a way for writers who are not fundamentally threatened by geeks themselves to make geeks look less threatening to other people.
What do you think? Other examples/counterexamples/thoughts?
Among the results of the vertigo is that I can't read while riding the stationary bike any more. I have to hang on so I don't fall on my head. So I've been watching DVDs while I exercise. For my birthday I got the first two seasons of Numb3rs and the first season of Criminal Minds, just for me to use as workout videos. They're trying to do very different things, and I'm glad, because mostly that means I can just appreciate them both rather than seeing one as a worse version of the other. But there are some commonalities. They're both about FBI agents, of course. And then there's the matter of Dr. Spencer Reid and Dr. Charles Eppes.
( two very different geeky little brother figures and the handling of geeks on their shows, with digressions of course )
So one of the things I was thinking about is, why is this idea of geek-as-younger-sibling (who am I kidding: younger brother) so prevalent? I know a lot of geeks. Really a lot. And most of us are oldests and onlies. Of course there are geeky middles and youngests; naturally it's not a universal thing. But the numbers are really pretty striking: the majority of geeks look a lot more like Mac in Veronica Mars in their family lives than like Charlie in Numb3rs. But we don't have a corresponding "geeky big brother/sister" screen type to go with that reality, and I was wondering why that is. Even in Veronica Mars, we got Mac, but we also got the Casablancas brothers doing the "geeky little brother" stereotype thing again. What's the deal? I have half a theory germinating, but I'm not sure quite how to put it or whether it applies beyond crime/mystery shows, so I'd be glad to hear alternate theories for the popularity of this type.
My half a theory says that geeks know stuff, and when you're more experienced and you know more, that's a pretty big imbalance built right in structurally, so if you want a comparatively balanced team or group, making the geek character younger means that they don't end up knowing everything.
My half-assed theory says that it's a way for writers who are not fundamentally threatened by geeks themselves to make geeks look less threatening to other people.
What do you think? Other examples/counterexamples/thoughts?
