It’s not Claire’s fault that The Bear fans hate her
The Bear second season addition Claire (Molly Gordon) may be a manic pixie dream girl, but that's by design
Aux Features The Bear
The Bear is perhaps even more of a sensation in its second season than it was in the first. The reviews are glowing, and the series as a whole just surpassed one billion minutes watched, according to Nielsen (via The Hollywood Reporter). The beloved returning characters are even more beloved, and the cameos—Will Poulter’s sexy pastry chef, Olivia Colman’s surprise turn as Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) former boss, everybody in that chaotic Christmas episode—were all embraced with open arms. There’s only one negative aspect to the season that everyone seems to agree on: nobody likes Carmy’s love interest Claire, played by Theater Camp’s Molly Gordon.
Within the world of the show, Claire Bear is almost universally liked. Carmy’s family and oldest friends support the relationship, continually warning him not to fumble a good girl like Claire. Maybe that’s part of the reason fans can’t stand her: on X (née Twitter), she’s been called a manic pixie dream girl and a “sentient laughing dead wife video montage.” She is compared most frequently to TikToker Delaney Rowe, who has a recurring character called “Absolutely insufferable female lead of an indie movie, who says things like, “You look different to me. You look older. I mean, you don’t look old, you just… look like you know more.”
Rowe’s reenactment of the Insufferable Female Lead running into her old love interest does look a lot like Claire and Carmy’s meeting in The Bear’s second season. (For the record: “I haven’t seen it yet but I keep getting tagged in clips lol,” Rowe responded to one of her commenters after she posted the sketch in early July.) And yes, Claire does fit the definition of a manic pixie dream girl, as coined by The A.V. Club’s Nathan Rabin back in 2007. “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures,” Rabin wrote. “Audiences either want to marry her instantly… or they want to commit grievous bodily harm against them and their immediate family.”
Claire, clearly, falls into the latter category. But does Claire deserve all the hate? Put yourself in her shoes: your high school crush is back in town, and he’s a hot chef. You give him your best banter, but he still holds you at a distance. Wouldn’t you agree to drive him to Winnetka if it meant you had a chance? Wouldn’t you remind him that his whole family knows and loves you if you thought it would give you an in with this guy?
More to the point, Claire’s manic pixie quality serves a narrative purpose. Carmy doesn’t really want to get to know her—that’s why he gave her a fake number at the start of their re-acquaintance. When he does give in, it ultimately seems to be more about engaging with a socially acceptable idea of “fun” than what he really wants. What Carmy really wants is to dedicate himself wholly to his restaurant and his partnership with Syd (Ayo Edebiri), which is why he ultimately breaks things off with Claire in the finale. With Claire, he tried out a version of himself that his family could understand and support, but that’s never really been who he is.
We don’t get to know Claire well, but there is a suggestion of a more well-rounded character hiding at the edges of The Bear’s second season. She’s a damn emergency room doctor, for crying out loud! Maybe The Bear should have fleshed her out more, but ultimately, the audience experiences her through Carmy’s eyes, and he never does get around to seeing her fully. Claire Bear is more idea than person by design. Maybe we’ll get to know Claire better if she returns in the third season—or maybe she’s just an idea that Carmy had to let go of.
116 Comments
“Put yourself in her shoes: your high school crush is back in town, and
he’s a hot chef. You give him your best banter, but he still holds you
at a distance. Wouldn’t you agree to drive him to Winnetka if it meant you had a chance?”No, but that’s only because TV shows have largely led me to believe that professional chefs are weird workaholics that are inordinately proud of working 23 hours a day and spending the last hour chainsmoking while squatting by a dumpster, drinking straight vodka out of a plastic pasta container, and talking about how no one else understands work.
Believe me, a lot of them absolutely are.
Except replace the vodka with amphetamines and coke.
I’d substitute “mix” for “replace”
That’s an entirely good and accurate edit, thank you.
lmao!
If it makes you feel better, I’ve never been in a kitchen that was anything like the crap I saw in what little I suffered through of the Bear in my 30 years of working in restaurants. Any chef that acts like that boychild in the show is going to be working by himself pretty quickly… That is NOT how chefs/owners act.
The rare case of truth in television
I forget if Claire confesses to Carmy that she liked him in high school also, but it was hammered home by all his friends that he was.Your analysis is good; he doesn’t want to be with her because the restaurant is the most important thing (which he says to Syd throughout season 2) but he does because it’s the girl he’s been in love with for years.
I want Claire to marry the Bear so she can change her last name to Bear and then she can be Claire Bear.
Am I alone in thinking that they Ted Lassoed the fuck out of this show? The Richie episode in particular could have been sponsored by The Fine Dining PAC.
“on X (née Twitter), she’s been called a manic pixie dream girl and a “sentient laughing dead wife video montage.”- The tweet they are mentioning is from a 20 yr old with 90 followers. The tweet got 223. The other 1 mentioned has similarly low numbers. This is another case of culture sites making up a trend, citing 3-4 tweets, and then fighting against it so they have something to write about. At least its better than the cited Independent article, which this AVClub one is almost verbatim ripping off. The tweets they cited had between 2-10 likes total.
Yeah I’ve literally never heard anyone anywhere complaining about the character until today.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/claire-the-bear-manic-pixie-dream-girl-tiktok-b2373334.html
https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/the-bear-season-two-clairehttps://www.themarysue.com/fx-and-hulus-the-bear-we-need-to-talk-about-claire/
https://decider.com/2023/06/28/claire-the-bear-season-2-most-irritating-manic-pixie-dream-girl/https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/the-bear-season-2-claire-manic-pixie-dream-girl/…on and on. You’re welcome to your own opinion, of course, but don’t pretend that everyone on the planet agrees with you. If you google her character or her real name, you get dozens of these.
These aren’t people involved in a widespread discourse, these are writer’s coming up with a discourse to have something to write about. Every single one of the articles you posted quotes tweets with 2-100 likes at max as proof this discussion is being talked about everywhere. It isn’t. Its cultural writers talking back and forth.
What part of her character was “Manic”? She didn’t do anything to get in his way at all. It’s all his fault that he didn’t call the walk in door repair guy… what’s crazy is that his whole team left him in there instead of actually thinking on how to open the door for a fucking second. I’ve been to friends and family soft openings for restaurants before, no one has a problem waiting a few extra minutes for their food knowing that it’s the first night and there are kinks to work out. Claire was the only normal person in this whole crazy show.
Yeah, this take is really weird. And Mary Kate isn’t usually THIS far off the mark.
Yeah the fact that people (and seemingly even this article) seem to have taken a reading of “Yeah Carmy just needs to pour himself body and soul into only his work, when he was beating himself up verbally in the fridge about it being a mistake to even have a relationship at all, he was correct and that’s what’s best for him, and also totally healthy” out of the show is uh, an eye-opener.
From what I saw of the series, she actually seemed like more of a whole person than just an idea. Obviously since the perspective is through that of the chefs, you probably won’t spend a lot of solo screen time on those in their orbit. But Claire made time for Carmy in the midst of her own crazy schedule when she could spare it. She wasn’t just some Peta Pan trying to encourage Carmy to “live in the moment” or whatever the trope is nowadays.I honestly liked her, and I also completely expected Carmy to lose her. That’s just the type of series it is.
Yep. I don’t understand this take, especially given the episode where she’s at her friend’s party basically being the stabilizing element for multiple guests.
I liked her too. Sometimes you can trust that a person has a full life outside of their interactions with you. Claire can be a kickass ER doc and still have that part of her that has an adolescent crush on a friend from the old neighborhood. And we can allow Carmy, whose aloofness, focus, and fear of getting close (with a mom like that, and following the death of his brother with whom he had a complicated relationship – who could blame him) to be slow in catching up to where Claire is emotionally. It’s also a good thing to see someone else rooting for Carmy in a personal, not professional way. Is what she sees in him only about his ability to reach his potential as an artist and business owner? Or is it about an overall growth?
I get the criticism but my impression was that they were in the honeymoon phase of dating. I’d expect season 3 to confront the realities of two high-pressure, overworked professionals trying to actually have a relationship. And dear god I hope Claire’s mission isn’t ultimately to “fix” Carmy.
“I’d expect season 3 to confront the realities of two high-pressure, overworked professionals trying to actually have a relationship.”This doesn’t appeal to me at all.
I mean she’s not a manic pixie dream girl, just like a well adjusted person in a show about being not that.
I’m not a fan of her storyline with Carmy because I don’t give a shit about his love life BUT I was a little disappointed that they didn’t do more with this core difference between them. They both have high-pressure jobs that require a lot of managing human beings but Claire seems to have figured out how to manage her stress while he has not. I think he could *learn* something from her.
The whole point was that everyone *else* at the Bear put in the time and the work to figure their shit out, and Carmy played a significant role in putting them in the circumstances to do that, but he never did work on himself, not really — he *lost* himself in an immature relationship. It made him feel good and maybe it’s an experience he needed, but it was not compatible with the needs of his colleagues and his business, and he lacked the maturity to navigate that tension honestly.
People blaming this on Claire or the writers are dumb and/or misogynistic. This is hating on Skyler White all over again.
Ehhhh… I dunno about the Skyler parallel. She was actually, demonstrably antagonistic to Walt. Granted, she had every right to be! But as far as the actual characterizations go, Claire was never in opposition to Carm. They didn’t really get far enough in their burgeoning relationship for it to be an issue. Skyler cheated on Walt and was willfully ignorant of his resentments towards his teaching job and his former partners. That didn’t merit the hate she got from weirdo hero-worshipping Walt stans but then again they were as willfully ignorant of his shittiness as she was.
Obviously Skyler’s character was different than Claire; the parallel is in fans’ unreasonable hatred of the characters. As you said, Skyler had every right to oppose Walt.
Sydney is extremely messed up imo
Exactly. She’s absolutely not a MPDG. She’s basically a normal person, trying to help Carmy be normal too. Almost the opposite of an MPDG.
This. I didn’t get Manic Pixie Dream girl from her. Maybe it’s because I thought the actress played her lowkey enough(in a great way) but she was in Carmy’s life and we only saw her through Carmy in fleeting moments. And it was always “oh she’s a distraction for him” and a bit “Oh she’s kinda too good for him”. My biggest issue with her is she was definitely undeveloped. He gave her the wrong number and she’s like “you sly dog you, wanna still be my boyfriend?” And that felt a bit..Manic Pixie, I guess. Or at least ‘Dream Girl’(since she isn’t ever manic or wacky. She’s the most mature person on the show).Honestly, a lot of this could have been solved by doing a bit of a focus on her maybe calling out that she’s a FREAKIN’ DOCTOR AND SAVES LIVES, while he’s chef. So I just would have loved for her to be like “Oh shut the hell up about not being able to balance being a chef and in a relationship. I SAVE LIVES. YOU MAKE CHICKEN. GET. OVER. YOURSELF” And just walk off, with her head held high.While I didn’t love the storyline, I enjoyed Claire and I thought Molly Gordon did an excellent job.
Being a chef is actually the most difficult, high-pressure and high-stakes job in the whole world. Not many people realize this.
Agreed. She also has an unrealistic amount of free time where she’s not too exhausted to hang out with him.
the whole season I kept thinking yes, a professional high-end chef and a young ER doctor — two professions renowned for their stable hours, leisure time and mental health — what a perfect romantic match!more I thought about it though, the more it made sense for the theme — Carmy’s life at that moment was relatively self- or un- structured so he just put off everything he needed to be doing so he was available on Clare’s schedule. What’s more teenage “fun” but destructive for an adult than that?
She also has an unrealistic amount of free timeI think that describes almost everyone on a TV show.
She kind of is though. For starters I don’t know any woman who would receive a fake number and internalize that it means the person is simply just shy instead of not interested. Especially when women give out fake numbers as a safety practice. But she just instinctively knows he needs a form of stability in his life and immediately asks him to help her move shit lmao. The other part of that is she is a doctor in residency. Would she even want to waste time on someone who signaled that they didn’t want to talk to her? She seemed to have a LOT of free time for Carmy despite how busy residency is.Also her line at the party about how she is an expert and comforting people (paraphrasing) is straight out of the MPDG playbook. She would have beaten the allegations had we seen her have any motivations/struggles of her own like the literal rest of the cast.
The wrong number thing is a great example of why she’s definitely not a MPDG. She still chases after Carmy because she had/has a huge crush on him but that’s a terrible start for a relationship where one person had a major infatuation and the other is just looking for human intimacy and normality. Its far too unbalanced. Carmy is 100 percent at fault in the show for his behavior towards Claire and the concomitant results it has on the restaurant and especially Sydney.
It’s not Carmens fault that Sydney doesn’t know how to talk to people. They way she jumped to conclusions about him discussing the menu with Claire when he never said that he did is a prime example. Her and Carmen are both messed up people
Yeah, as someone who has been given a fake number you feel the need to avoid the person when you see them because you read the vibes wrong and its just…embarrassing. Plus being given a fake number is a very clear answer of “no.”
I don’t think a well-adjusted woman would pursue a man who gave her a wrong number, c’mon!
100% this. His reaction to Richie comparing him to Donna is supposed to make that clear, probably why I disagree so fervently with “manic pixie dream girl” take. Claire isn’t the problem, Carmy is. His meltdown in the freezer is intentionally framed as similar to Donna’s in “Fishes.”
She didn’t strike me as a manic pixie dream girl. My first thought when she was introduces was that she inherited what I think of as the “Thankless Michelle Monaghan Role” where she, like so many before her, isn’t given any character notes to play besides “nice.” It wasn’t the only role MM got to play, she just got stuck with it a lot. Dead wife flashback montage is spot on.
No she’s not. Like… at all. There’s nothing manic about her. She’s a stable influence on several people in her life. I didn’t like the *story* involving her but the character herself is quite compelling. I just think “anxious messy boi-thot chef fucks up love life” is a boring-ass B plot for this show. I absolutely give NO SHITS about Carmy’s romantic life. There’s plenty of that drama with the supporting cast.
I agree that she’s not at all manic nor pixie. But she resembles a manic pixie dream girl in that she’s more of a plot device than an actual character. Her entire existence in the show is centered around Carmy. She doesn’t seem to have any hopes or dreams of her on and she’s seemingly dismissed in the finale as part of a hacky multi-camera sitcom plot.
Ehhhh… I dunno about that. She definitely put more focus on him than he put on her but she’s clearly busy in her residency. The fact that her story is so wrapped up in Carmy is only a function of the show’s focus on the restaurant. I wouldn’t say she has no hopes or dreams of her own. Between the performance and what little info we got smattered throughout the season I think her medical career is pretty important to her.I think the problem is really just that the cast is *already* pretty big and it’s not an hourlong dramedy. Matty Matheson moved up from guest to main cast, there seemed to be more focus on Sugar this season, some of the characters got spread out to do their own development, etc. Throwing an entirely new character into the mix seems like a mistake, particularly a love interest for Carmy. I was kind of looking forward to the show developing the flirtation between Syd and Marcus but they only hinted at it, which made me even more frustrated at the Claire/Carmy story.
But you can say that about Sydney’s dad too, can’t you? He serves no purpose in the show but to propel Sydney to have something to prove, to have lingering doubts about this career path she’s devoting everything too. It’s just, unlike Carmy, her storyline this season with her ‘outside person’ had a happy ending/victory for Syd.
I haven’t seen this show (so pass the salt), but what you’re talking about is essentially how all secondary characters function in literature – they’re supposed to stand in contrast to the main character, underlining the protagonists own personality traits or propelling their narrative forward.There is even a rule to adhere to in writing that secondary characters are supposed to be static (unchanging) while primary characters should be dynamic (changing). If she’s introduced as a side plot to a main character, doesn’t get much screen time, doesn’t have an arc of her own, and is discarded from the narrative upon her separation from the primary character, I think you and most of the comments I’ve seen so far have to be correct – it’s not the actress nor necessarily the character that are annoying people. It seems to be that people either enjoy the character to a degree that they want her to be a primary character, or they are bored by the doomed narrative sidebar of the actual primary character that the lack of suspense in the relationship’s conclusion made the time investment in the arc unentertaining. That has nothing to do with the actress. If anything, it seems like viewers enjoyed watching her craft enough that they want more given to her character.
she’s an adult. Shes a doctor. She made her dream happen. Carmys still working on his.
Didn’t he win 2 Michelin stars before s1? I don’t think his lack of satisfaction is really a result of not making his dream happen, so much as a deep aspect of his personality. It’s kinda the whole point of his character, no?
We literally don’t give any focus to any characters outside the restaurant unless it relates to the people in the restaurant. Every single wife, ex wife and husband get the same treatment.
He’s the manic pixie.
Manic Pixie Dad Guy
I guess people can think what they like; I found her delightful.
UMMMMMM, put yourself in her shoes? “Put yourself in her shoes: your high school crush is back in town, and he’s a hot chef. You give him your best banter, but he still holds you at a distance. Wouldn’t you agree to drive him to Winnetka if it meant you had a chance?”I have a huge problem with this, especially from a female writer. She’s done a bunch of stuff, she’s a medical doctor, she banters… No.
Her self-esteem blows, so I guess there is that? Maybe the most manic-pixie girl thing about her is she doesn’t drink and goes to cool parties but also doesn’t drink and is a cool bestie, but really for a show about cooking NO ONE drinks.
Followup comment to my comment, WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE WITH CARMY? For real? I guess that’s a manic pixie girl thing.
I’m pretty sure the show explains that she’s had a crush on him since high school. That doesn’t feel “MPDG” to me, it feels like people I’ve known. It’s even more reason I was okay with her persistence despite him being an aloof douchecanoe. It can be extra hard to let go of a nostalgia love. If my high school crush showed up in my life and was single, I can’t say I’d be immune.
“I guess that’s a manic pixie girl thing.”No. It ABSOLUTELY isn’t.
I like Claire a lot as a character but I always root for Molly Gordon.
Triple-A!
She’s hated by women who think Jeremy White is going to bang them. He’s not. Molly is insanely good and I’d bang her silly.
I thought she was cute and nice. I dunno. Maybe give her a viewpoint episode next season. She’s an ER doctor. Bet that’s stressful.
I think it would have been really cool to either have a hospital episode focused on her, letting Carmy come to visit her in the cafeteria; or a whole episode focused on food in a hospital and letting Claire be more visible throughout, to keep it on theme for the series. Idk how you would execute it, but in a more traditional longform series you could have time for it. (I didn’t watch all of the show so if they did this in some way my bad)
I would actually have loved it if they examined hospital food from Carmy’s POV. And I bet Marcus could have had something to add to that storyline, too, given his mom’s health situation.But as you point out, this is not a traditional longform series. To its occasional detriment.
Agreed, she was fine, I think she’s more a victim of a lot of people just not wanting a love interest at all. I do think exploring how a girlfriend would fit (or not) into his life could be interesting but there was already so much going on I’m not sure season 2 had enough room to get into that in a satisfying way.
I think The Bear is a perfect example to use when discussing why show length/page count/categorization actually matters in writing TV. Because it’s trying to be both a half-hour workplace comedy AND an hourlong character dramedy. And you can’t fit the latter into the former. The half-hour format ratchets up the tension due to time constraints but that means the show sacrifices some character development.
Claire is a perfect example of right person, wrong time. Carmy is not nearly mature enough to be in a romantic relationship (with ANYONE). If he had met Claire a few years down the road, once he had grown up a little… then it might have worked. But he didn’t. And it didn’t.
When did Rami Malek change his name?
Lol. I do see it
Who cares? Just give me my Fak Brothers spin-off when the strikes are over.
This is the only thing that matters. “Just the Faks”
No Francie, though. She can go fuck, my love.
The Faks of Life.
For Fak’s Sake!
Bleh. Matty is fine in small doses. I didn’t like that he became main cast.
I’m convinced most of this discourse comes from how stylized her introduction ended up being. She pops up out of nowhere, with an ethereal glow in the freezer aisle, framed insanely closely with no other context provided. It feels dreamlike, like something Carmy is experiencing subjectively, and that makes her seem very unreal. This was clearly a choice.I don’t think her actions or characterization feel totally unreasonable in general, but we never get strong insight into her perspective, which is probably a mistake. My headcanon is that while Carmy is projecting a ton of shit onto her, she’s doing the same thing: just like her, Carmy was some quiet high school nobody from the same blue collar place. And just like her, he wasn’t content to stay there like all their peers did; he became a respected chef, trained in Europe, was celebrated in NYC. He picked a difficult, aspirational life, and he achieved it, and so did she. An equal who gets who she is and where she’s from.But Claire is actually functional, while Carmy has absolute trash mental health. So, where she thought she found an equal partner, he thought he found some angelic prize. Some kind of respite from his stressful life, that he doesn’t deserve because he doesn’t deserve nice things, and that he cuts out to punish himself because he acted like a human being for 10 minutes….ugh, just go to fucking therapy, Carmy. Al-Anon isn’t cutting it.
Having read the article and the comments, seems like I am the only only one who read Carmy giving her the fake number as embarrassed and ashamed of who he is compared to who she is. It’s interesting, while I think he warms to her, he never really feels particularly devoted to her until late in the season, after she talks him down over the fire suppression test. At that point, he starts to think he has something, and almost immediately Uncle Jimmy says you can’t not think about the restaurant 24/7, so he freaks out while locked in the walk-in.
I feel like you’re associating her with MPDG because they always shot her in close-ups and she only spoke in whispers.
This is a pretty preposterous column. Starting with “one thing everyone can agree on” and then getting 30 comments that mention we all like Claire seems to show that speaking in hyperbole is usually a fail.I liked her just fine. I knew Carm wasn’t going to be able to focus on the restaurant to the level needed as a start up, but I am very confident she will be back in S3 and they will figure something out. I also have no clue what a manic pixie girl is anyway. Can someone give a better example than this?
Yeah, it feels pretty consistent to me that people aren’t objecting to her character, they’re objecting to her storyline, which isn’t the same thing.
Natalie Portman in “Garden State.” It’s basically a woman or girl who’s crazy, but the “good” kind of crazy, like it makes her free, helps the male lead reach his potential, free his mind, find happiness and/or love. And she’s only really considered crazy because society is so uptight, etc.
Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown.
think that wasnt meant for me but i got the reply, nm
AV CLUB: “Fans of The Bear hate this character.”FANS OF THE BEAR: “No, we don’t.”
Claire was fine. If her arc just winds up being a reason for Carmy to understand he needs close relationships to humanize him, and then winds up with Sydney I say we all riot.
Every writer on this website is terrible.
God I love female envy. “MPDG” lol, what is this shit..
… Ah, Nathan Rabin (https://www.nathanrabin.com/). Remember when this site had … writers?
There’s only one negative aspect to the season that everyone seems to agree on: nobody likes Carmy’s love interest Claire, played by Theater Camp’s Molly Gordon.Everyone? Since when? Maybe that’s part of the reason fans can’t stand her: on X (née Twitter), she’s been called a manic pixie dream girl and a “sentient laughing dead wife video montage.” She is compared most frequently to TikToker Delaney Rowe, who has a recurring character called “Absolutely insufferable female lead of an indie movie, who says things like, “You look different to me. You look older. I mean, you don’t look old, you just… look like you know more.”Sigh. Twitter (I’m not going to fucking call it “X”) is not people. Twitter is not a representative sample of people. Twitter is a bunch of terminally online losers clinging to a social media platform currently being catapulted into the ground by a delusional, idiotic billionaire. Stop writing stories about what “fans” and “people” think when you really mean “what Twitter randos think.”
Equal sigh. Since we don’t have viewership numbers to compare to Twitter engagement we don’t have a proper “representative sample of people” who watch the show. So there’s really no point getting all snarky at this article for citing Twitter. Because those are LITERALLY fans and LITERALLY people. Your quotes don’t actually make sense. Even if two people posted about their enthusiasm for the show on Twitter, they would still ACTUALLY be both fans and people. That’s how words work.
If the article was about “some” or even “many” fans having an issue with the character, sure, toss in a couple of tweets. It’s still lazy as hell, but whatever. But no, the article is about how LITERALLY NOBODY (hey, I can shout too) likes the character—in which case, no, a tweet and a tiktoker aren’t nearly sufficient to build a case. This is a common error with internet writing types—assuming whatever issue du jour on Twitter is what EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT (HEY, IT’S FUN TO SHOUT), when in reality it’s what a handful of people in a subset of a subset of the internet are talking about.
I don’t agree with the premise of the article.I also think it’s stupid to complain about Twitter.I don’t think it’s necessary to stupidly complain about online discourse, in which you are currently participating, to counter the article’s point. Because there’s plenty of proof to counter the article’s point. Some of it available via the very same online discourse.As tired as you may be of the terminally online, I am just as tired of people like you pretending that you aren’t, yourself, a member of said group and bitching about it. Heal thy fucking self, bruv.
Look, I took potshots at Twitter because, well, I genuinely think it’s bad for people because it creates the illusion of being the discourse when it really only hosts a discourse. But my overarching point was that “people say” articles are lazy writing and bad journalism.
Your argument isn’t bereft of merit. But I see similar arguments made about politics. “If 50% of the voting eligible public doesn’t vote than government is not really representative.” Okay, but the half that does vote gets their representatives to push policy that they care about. So from a practical POV does it really fucking *matter* that they aren’t “representative”? If you’re mad that politicians don’t represent your values, fucking vote! If you think Twitter is too narrow in its discourse, get on there and participate! Alternately, don’t pay attention to it and have the discourse you want to have elsewhere. What doesn’t make sense to me is getting on a different online platform to complain about Twitter. You know what helps to give platforms like Twitter relevance? Talking about them! You know why places like AV Club will keep linking to Twitter? Because you keep responding to articles wherein they link to Twitter! One of my cynical ex-roommate’s favorite sayings was “Engagement is failure.” I was never a fan of that particular idiom but it does seem to apply more than we might like.
People on Twitter want Carmy and Syd to fuck and that’s a horrible idea, so I don’t put a lot of stock in their opinions on Carmy’s love life.(Speaking as an industry lifer, dating someone outside of the life is healthier, but infinitely more complicated, so Claire in an equally chaotic profession is a bonus.)
I assume a lot of the people rooting for Carmy and Syd were Shameless fans and this is some transference. They saw Lip fuck every lady in his orbit so of course this character needs to as well. Consequences to the overarching storyline of the show, their partnership, or the restaurant’s dynamic be damned.
This is the first time I’ve heard that I’m supposed to hate Claire. Fuck off, Mary.
Did you just make this shit up? I’ve been looking around and no one hates her. Go fuck yourself.
People who gave up on the show are probably less likely to continue reading articles about it. But this is far from the first article saying this kind of stuff, and all of the articles do quote people who find the character exhausting. “Go fuck yourself” is an insane thing to say! Why are you so devoted to a fictional character on a television show that you’re not even a part of? Come back to reality!
Whoop there goes gravity
Whereas you do not sound unhindged at all.
I’m not convinced her more than passing resemblance to Zooey Deschanel and adorkable lisp aren’t the actual causes propelling her to the moniker. Because otherwise her character description is not MPDG and it demonstrates a real lack of media literacy; almost like a post-modern idiomification of tropes where most using them don’t know what they originally meant.
I rewatched their fist scene together to see if my memory of her was accurate. She’s an ER doctor who immediately spots him (from profile), a person she hasn’t seen in years. As a doctor she sees hundreds of faces a week, but okay. Maybe she’s amazing with faces. After being cutesy about how he took a beat to remember her name (as far as I recall they never dated in HS so it’s entirely plausible he wouldn’t remember her name, he’s traveled the world and worked in many kitchens), she asks, “So how’s your life been, Berzatto?” He answers, “I have no idea.” Then he asks her the same question, she says “I have no idea.” An ER doctor says she has no idea how her life has been. Toss me in the cinema illiterate camp, that’s some MPDG shit. Later in the series, she takes him to a party with old high school friends (lol wat?) and consoles her friend over a breakup. Assuming it took her 8 years of undergrad and medical school before she started her residency, she’s somewhere in the realm of her late twenties. Instead of fucking her high school crush and going back to the hospital for her shift, she sits for hours (!) consoling her idiot friend after driving all over the suburbs? (I’m from the suburbs, it’s a sprawling motorist nightmare) This is an MPDG. This isn’t a criticism of her performance. The show needs to take narrative shortcuts to arrive a pre-determined finale (their breakup at the end of the season). It was easier to make her a magical, unbelievable character to show how much Carmy isn’t ready for a relationship.
Claire was fine I don’t see the reason for the hate. Sydney. Now Sydney in season 2 become completely unlikable. Constantly confrontational prone to her own version of hysteria and imo openly autistic. She was grating, annoying and childish in her demeanor. Also the minute the chefs planted the seed of discord (about bad partners) she was completely overwhelmed by that and only that. She held onto that thought and instead of talking about it to anyone became hostile to her coworkers and Carm
Ugh, casual spoilers, guys (article). But I guess it’s my fault. Just came here to say that it’s like 5:30 am and I can’t sleep because I’ve binge-watched this show yet again. It’s even better than the first season. I work in the industry, and it’s the closest thing I’ve seen to something that truly appreciates it. The TikTok video is spot-on, but I even like her character, too.Spoiler/challenge for you guys, then. Notice the Gene Wilder resemblance in Jeremy Allen Weir, then try to un-notice it.
A good informative post that you have shared and thankful your work for sharing the information. I appreciate your efforts and all the best. Got some appealing information and would like to give it a try. Applaud your work and keep sharing your information.it is very interesting and full of information
If you must hate someone on The Bear, let it be Richie. I’ve known guys like that my whole life, and the more distance you can place between yourself and them, the better. And NEVER bail them out of jail.
wow.. the whole point of the finale is that the things Carmy cares about (using the wrong kind of mustard, the labels in the walk in being torn instead of cut, etc) DO NOT MATTER. things were chaotic and tense in the kitchen until he got locked in the walk in, and then everyone works together to figure it out. he isn’t living up to an insane standard in his own head when actually him and his team created a great restaurant. if he could just get out of his own way then he could have it all but he fucks it up because he thinks it’s not good enough. the whole season, everyone else learns something about themselves, becomes a better person/chef/whatever, except for him. let’s hope the next season allows Carmy to figure out his own shit, finally.
They should call her Claire Bear Stare.
Adding my voice to the chorus: Not an MPDG, a perfectly likable (if underserved) character, played well by a charming actor.Also I don’t think that’s where this is headed but I really, truly do not want to see Carmy and Syd hook up.
I have spent more hours of my life than I would care to admit on TV Tropes but I’m beginning to think that website and all of the very online terminology it catalogues was a mistake, because a distressing amount of film and TV commentary on the internet nowadays seems to be lazily, and often incorrectly, invoking tropes in place of engaging in more substantive and nuanced criticism.
Who cares what a bunch of weirdo twitter shut ins think?
Another reason I’m glad to be largely disconnected from most social media is this is the first I’m hearing about supposed Claire hate
“I haven’t seen it yet but I keep getting tagged in clips lol,” And yet she found herself qualified enough to make a video about the character. And then AV club commented on that.I say this at least once daily, but Christ the internet was a mistake
The person who made the video is not the same person who compared it to Claire’s character. She made the video in reference to many indie film meet cutes. Others are apparently tagging her when discussing Claire.This is a poorly written article, though, so the confusion is understandable.
I didn’t dislike her as a character per se, it was mainly that it always felt a bit tacked on and I never quite saw or felt any chemistry between them on the screen. Suddenly they are this item but it always felt like they were on awkward first dates every time they hung out.
Wow – the number of people (mostly men) defending and upvoting pro-Claire comments is mind blowing. There are plenty of folks on Twitter and Reddit who agree with the author of this article, giving credence to the perspective that many Bear fans are not on board with the character.