Discuss The Fall

Stella speaking with Jim Burns about Specter and the advisability of her speaking directly to Specter in a formal interview disagrees with Burns' description of Specter as a monster.

"You can see the world that way if you want. You know it makes no sense to me" she tells Burns. "Men like Specter are all too human, too understandable" she says. "He's not a monster, he's just a man".

"I'm a man" says Burns. "I hope to God I'm not like him."

"No, you're not. BUT you still came to my hotel room uninvited and mounted some kind of drunken attack on me."

Stella is referring to the night a drunken Jim Burns visited her room and tried to rekindle the one night stand they had with each other some years earlier, saying she still drove him crazy with desire. As Stella says she did tell him "no" quite clearly, and he continued to try to kiss her, reminding her of the night she spent with him once before, professing his infatuation with her, almost begging her for another night together.

I won't argue whether most women would call that an attack. I know many women would not. Burns wasn't violent with Stella, and had no intention of hurting her. He was emotionally immature for a grown man, and he was drunk. She wasn't interested. I think calling his advances an "attack" requires a broad and loose definition of the word, but I can understand that from her point of view, since she wasn't in the mood, like she was before, it was an attack.

What I find outrageous however is that this is the rationale Stella gives for saying Specter isn't a monster: he's just a man. He's not a monster for torturing, murdering, kidnapping women and taking pleasure in their suffering, that just makes him a man. After all Jim, you tried to kiss me after I clearly told you no, see what I mean?

Stella did say his actions were "different", and "not the same" as Specter's actions...BUT... (I could tell there was a 'but' coming) Jim tried to kiss her after she clearly told him she wasn't in the mood.

'THAT is why I don't see Specter as a "monster", or as an aberration. There is already a word which explains Specter's murderous and despicable behavior: MAN. Specter is a man. Specter does what men do.' That is Stella's message.

She didn't bring up Jim Burns' unwanted drunken advances out of the blue; she was explaining by example why she finds Specter's behavior "all too understandable"; he's just a man. She was almost equating the two (after she grants him that they are "different" and "not the same"...but...) she basically equates them with her broad brush.

Specter isn't aberrant. He simply behaves like men behave. I cannot call him a monster because there is already a word that describes what he does, how he acts, and what motivates him. Man. Specter is a man.

Holy shit, that is some serious anti-man talk. That is some ball bashing, man hating talk.

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a man coming unwanted into a woman's room, making uninvited advances breaks a LOT of rules of consent!! just because she said yes YEARS ago, doesn't negate her repeated no in the NOW. just because he wants her, doesn't mean he's got a right to get her.

Sounds like the beginning of a story of rape? No? well it does to me.

The murderer was a rapist as well. He did all these things, rob women of consent, equality, the right to choose.

She was talking about crossing boundaries, lack of respect, invading another peoples space.

She was talking about calling someone a monster, takes away responsibility to ask for consent, to be respectful, to treat others in a humane way. It can be interpreted on a more gender free level but in this case she pointed out that the man she was criticizing had been displaying self entitled behavior. His motivation was based on his desire didn't show any consideration for her.

Imagine a the scene in reversed roles .. the woman coming on to a man years after a one night stand ... i have no problems visualizing the internet being up in arms about that trollop, whore, etc .. throwing herself at this poor man.

But now she's being attacked for calling the attacker out. Yes they had consensual sex before but that doesn't give him any right of access to her body. No one has an inert right to someone else's body because they lust for it or for any other reason, IMHO.

Spector is a man, a human being, who felt entitled to take other people's lives. to rob them of their choices. To call him a monster, takes the responsibility away, it devaluates him of his choice of treating others in his chosen way. i understand that she wanted to point that out.

sorry for rambling! and no i don't hate men. however i do believe that women and men are equals and should therefore be held to the same standards and treated equally.

I'm not saying Burns wasn't wrong, he obviously was. Burns was a very immature man, to be sure, and I think that other policeman was on the money when he called him a "weak man". Burns was very weak, emotionally, and in his character generally speaking. He acted almost infantile, like a baby wanting his mother. He was almost begging for sex. Stella was right to strike him.

But I still can't equate his drunken, immature advances with the sadistic, tortures and murders Specter committed in a sober state.

I don't agree that calling him a monster takes the responsibility away. Would calling him evil take it away? Would calling him a sociopath take it away? Does examining the abuse he suffered as a child take away his responsibility as an adult? I can't see that any of these labels have the effect of taking away his responsibility because none of them speaks to his understanding of right and wrong, none of them questions his grasp on reality. What he did was monstrous, evil, and sociopath-ic. And he knew his acts were wrong when he did them. But I wouldn't describe his actions as being those of men generally, or as some characteristic of men.

And I would not equate premeditated torture and murder of women with the drunken, unwanted, whimpering, advances Burns displayed. Stella didn't want to call Specter a monster because, well, he was just acting like a man. He was going too far, just like Burns went too far. Well, that is reaching pretty far to find that common denominator, both are men. See Burns? they're kind of equal, huh? 'You're a man. Specter is a man.' The significance of that comparison isn't lost on anyone, she doesn't have to spell it out. Sure murder is unwanted, and sometimes sexual advances are unwanted. But traffic tickets are unwanted, and I wouldn't equate them on that basis.
Most men don't murder and torture women, and there is a big difference between that and unwanted sexual advances. (Most men don't act like Burns did, though many more than act like Specter did.)

What is common between those actions? Both are unwanted. But think how many things can be equated if we are going to use something like that as the common denominator. Both were committed by men. But that is just as low a common denominator as the unwanted descriptor.

I think the show was written to showcase the double standards women face, whether on the sexual front where women are either frigid or sluts, or in the work place where their choices may be scrutinized or criticized more because they are women. And that is fine.

But this scene did something else. Whoever wrote this scene had a serious man hating beef and it crept into the script. I understand the need to defend the writing here. You feel like you're defending Gillian Anderson, or the other issues raised. But this scene generalizes the Specter's actions with those of men in general. This scene went far past showing hypocrisy in the workplace or double standards. It was a slight of hand, broad brushed, assignation of the male gender, specifically. Anyone is technically capable of committing murder. But Stella wasn't talking about anyone, she was talking about men. That was her point. Don't call Specter "monster" (or presumably "bad", "evil", "twisted", etc.), just call him a man. Because men can do these things.

Thanks. I was unaware of that documentary film. I just watched some youtube clips about Cassie Jaye, her work, and the despicable way she has been treated since making that film, The Red Pill Movie. I have not seen the film yet. But I am very impressed with Cassie as a person. She seems very mature, honest, and sincere. I am saddened but not surprised by the awful treatment she has received by the media. The group think/group conformity nature of leftist groups involves peer pressure and punishment of individualism or independent thought. Cassie found that some of her preconceived notions were wrong, and was honest about that. For that she has been treated unfairly, to say the least.

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