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Photo courtesy NBC.com/© jpistudios.com
Pan of the Week
- Eyes Without A Face
My least favorite part of this whole last week of DAYS comes from the fans. Anyone who has written off Abe Carver’s behavior as him being an “angry black man” or criticized the show for highlighting JJ Deveraux’s “white guilt,” has completely oversimplified everything this story is trying to portray. That reaction is such an offensive disservice to what I believe to be a great umbrella story, one that this show has not seen in a very, very long time. The focus of each emotional facet held by each character on the canvas feels balanced to me. No one is being drawn as an outright villain nor is anyone being hailed as a hero, in my eyes.
There may have been a break-in, a shooting, family drama and comas – but at the core of the story, I feel that it’s all about that metaphorical gray area within human relationships. This major event has thrown the town of Salem into a chaos that has them questioning close friends and family in ways they never would have done so before! It’s very easy to think the show is trying to portray the black man as bad and the white man as a good because unfortunately, that is what a lot of our minds have been conditioned into thinking from years of racist propaganda in the media. But this story is not that!
I’ve never known Abe to be calm and collected when it comes to someone hurting his family. He’s always been fiery, a little self-righteous, jumped to conclusions and has always had to reel it in at the end of it all. I do believe that him thinking JJ breaking into Theo’s hospital room to kill him was just as insane as the rest of you, but it also felt like a knee jerk, emotionally triggered reaction. He’s grieving, but that’s also no excuse to make that kind of accusation. Rest assured, I do think he will face some sort of retribution for firing Hope Brady this last week because she wanted to stick to the rules. While I can understand and sympathize with Abe, letting his personal matters trickle into work was a bad move. It would have been smart for him to hire someone with no familial ties to the parties involved to direct the investigation instead of getting rid of Hope. That probably would have been the smarter, more mayoral move instead of letting his heart lead his head.
Similarly, some fans believe the show is catering to JJ’s white guilt… even though the show has not written this as a racial crime. White guilt stems from a Caucasian person feeling guilt over racist treatment of minorities by other white people. Again, this is not the same as that! JJ’s remorse is an important factor to this story but I do not believe it is because he’s being penned as a white hero to Theo’s black thug. If anything, JJ’s guilt is being used to No matter if he was committing a crime that night, Theo is an innocent soul who only would have been in that situation had someone with far less pure intentions (looking at you wicked wench, Kate DiMera!) talked him into it. Abe made a beautiful speech during Theo’s candlelit vigil about his determination to adjust to the sometimes harrowing world of young adult social situations but how Theo never let his autism set him back, but chose to work with it instead. Because of their inescapable bond through this tragedy, we’re going to be seeing a lot of that kind of juxtaposition – JJ is the hot-headed cop while Theo is the innocent autistic teen. Because of that, I think JJ feels the most guilt for shooting a differently abled young man. Not white guilt for the plight of the American black man.
However, that could absolutely change. I was stunned when Eli Grant school Gabi Hernandez on racial tension in the United States. I never expected DAYS to even hint at the racial element to this story, so I am curious to see if the next step to JJ’s guilt will tie in with those awful statistics highlighting excessive police force and young black men. But as of now, I think the show is equally showcasing the different effects a tragedy like this can have on such a highly connected community and I’m loving it. You can keep hating it, if you choose to!
As usual, if I missed something you really wanted to talk about or something you felt was important, let’s start a discussion! Comment below, tweet me and let’s chat!
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