Bones - Research for Bones Bachelor Thesis

Ourania · 10-25-2009, 12:25 AM

Hey girls

I'm logically more used to the spoilers forums, but today, I got to ask you one or two things about what you think of our favorite show. I mentioned it quickly when posting in the spoilers board, that I am writing a thesis on "Family Dysfunctions" in Bones, and I am trying to figure out what the audience makes of it all. So the first question is general:

Do you think the depiction of such a concentration of characters all having suffered from a difficult childhood, or at least “original” childhood, in one show and one reduced environment, is realistic? (Bones and Booth obviously, but also Sweets and to a certain extent, Hodgins as an orphan, Angela with such a particular father -and no mother ever mentioned) And what message do you get from it? That in spite of a complicated childhood one can succeed in life? Or that the choice of career of them all is linked to their various ways to cope with said childhood? (Violence for Booth, Rationality for Bones, Introspection for Sweets, Dirt for Hodge, etc...)

You're obviously invited to develop your thoughts!! Thanks

Ourania · 10-25-2009, 12:29 AM

Hey

Second question (I don't put everything in the same thread so that the debates do not get mixed up, or that the subject changes too much (for the sake of organization lol). So, here it concerns the image of workplace in Bones, here it is:

What do you think of the image of “workplace” in Bones? Is is realistic or do you feel there is an emphasis on the idea of recreating a family network away from home? Do you think this would be possible in real life work, to recreate such a network?

You are obviously (once more) invited to develop your thoughts and draw upon your personal experience in the workplace (or even school)

Thaaaaanks!!

Ourania · 10-25-2009, 12:33 AM

Hey (again)!

Third question, last one for now today lol!! Thanks for your patience, and I am sorry to crowd the section with my threads!! But as I know you, and I know you are thorough and dedicated fans, I know I can count on your expertise. If I chose this board to post it's because I always felt comfortable posting here

, and I trust your judgement. So! This one, as the title says, is about family:

What do you think of the depiction of “family” in Bones? As opposed to many shows today describing a “typically” post-modern and fragmented family (single mother, non-existent father figure), Bones puts an emphasis on more extreme cases: foster care, abuse and the quasi constant absence of mother figure. Do you like the originality? Why?

And as for the two other questions, you are more than invited to develop! I will certainly come back later with more questions, but for now, I will stop the invasion of this board

, thanks gals

effielive · 10-26-2009, 12:13 PM

1) To be honest I had never really thought about them all having unusual backgrounds in the same thought, if that makes sense. I knew that they all did but hadn't realised they all did. I know I'm not making any sense. I do think it's realistic, to a degree, that they all have family issues as most people do if you look hard enough. Theirs are all on the surface but that comes form being a TV show and every aspect of your life is explored in that instance. We actually don't know a great deal about Hodgins and Angela and realistically each of the family issues aren't that uncommon but seem worse in such a concentrated environment. What I'm trying to say is that in a concentrated way it is unusual but individual not abnormal. I get the message that no matter where you come from you can succeed at what you do and be very succesful if you want to be. Also that you don't have to do what is expected of you because of what your family did.

That was a rambling load of nothing but it may prompt someone elses thoughts. I'll come back and do the others later.

smurfette729 · 10-26-2009, 10:05 PM

Hi! I just ran across this and it seems really interesting (and totally like the kind of stuff I like to do), so I thought I'd throw in my two cents. I'm going to start with the first question, because I've thought about it a bit and already kind of have an answer developed anyway. I may tackle the others, but probably not right now.

Do you think the depiction of such a concentration of characters all having suffered from a difficult childhood, or at least “original” childhood, in one show and one reduced environment, is realistic? (Bones and Booth obviously, but also Sweets and to a certain extent, Hodgins as an orphan, Angela with such a particular father -and no mother ever mentioned) And what message do you get from it? That in spite of a complicated childhood one can succeed in life? Or that the choice of career of them all is linked to their various ways to cope with said childhood? (Violence for Booth, Rationality for Bones, Introspection for Sweets, Dirt for Hodge, etc...)

While at first glance it may seem unrealistic to have such varying types of "atypical" childhoods represented in such a small sampling of people, I need look no further than my own family and acquaintances to realize that the very reason these sorts of pasts are appearing on television is that it is becoming more realistic to come from such backgrounds. I live with two roommates, friends of mine from college who happened to moved to the same city I did at varying times in our lives. One of us is the child of divorced parents who no longer speak, the father a criminal and the mother overbearing and judgmental. Another of us comes from the picture-perfect, nuclear family. The last comes from a family in which the parents have a mutual disdain for one another, haven't been on good terms in over 20 years, and still have remained married despite years of resentment. One or both of them have been involved in extra-marital affairs. If I look a little further into the social network of myself and my roommates, I find a friend with divorced parents and an absent mother, and a friend who was adopted as an infant and has never known either biological parent. I also have close friends and acquaintances who were abused (physically, sexually, and/or emotionally) by relatives or family friends, or abandoned, or ignored by their parents. I know one person who's mother abandoned him at an early age and who's father allowed his step-mother to place him in a children's home for two years simply because she didn't want him around. These all seem "original" childhoods and are all represented in my very limited social circle.

My point is, it's becoming increasingly common to come from a family that doesn't follow societal norms. In fact, I might go so far as to say that every childhood is traumatic and "original" in it's own way. There are things in every childhood that aren't necessarily part of what one would consider a "normal" childhood.

While unfortunate, having an emotionally stable, mutually encouraging and beneficial, two-parent family for the duration of one's childhood is the ideal, and increasingly rare.

I would think it unrealistic if they didn't all have things in their past that seemed to set them apart from the norm because, really, that's not normal.

As to the effect I believe it has on their respective careers, I want only to say that our past shapes who we become. You can lie down in the face of adversity or you can stand up and fight. Obviously each of these characters are fighters because they would not be where they are in their careers if they weren't. I believe their childhoods contributed to that.

Okay...so it turns out I have more to say.

While it wasn't my initial reaction, I do agree with what you said about their respective careers being an outlet for dealing with the difficulties of their upbringings. We don't know much about Cam's family other than that she and her sister are competitive, her mother died when she was 23, and her father is still living and wants her to be in a relationship. That's not much to go on and doesn't really give me any indication as to why she chose her specific field, so I will skip her, but every other character I will mention briefly ,or as briefly as I am able.

Booth - He was the child of an abusive father. He felt the need to protect his brother while they were kids. As an adult he sought out a way to continue to nurture that protective instinct, and, possibly, an acceptable outlet for the rage he felt within himself (as opposed to his father's outlet - abusing his children). He joined the army, became a sniper, and later joined the FBI. He found a way to protect people as part of his career not only because it was something he did as a child but also because it was something he sought while growing up - someone willing to protect those who had no one.

Brennan - Until she was 15 she was part of what she thought was a typical, stable family. Her world fell apart when he parents disappeared. She turned to academia - perhaps because of her father's career as a science teacher - and began to see the world in black and white. She excelled in school before her parents disappeared (Season 1, The Girl in the Fridge, "I never got a 'B' and I never will.") and threw herself even further into it when she lost her parents. She began to believe only in the things she could measure and prove, while developing a need to understand people and the way they behave. Despite everything she says to the contrary, her discipline intersects in a large way with psychology. She uses science to uncover facts and do the majority of her work, but her background in anthropology is heavily rooted in much the same subject matter as the psychology she so disdains. Psychology is the study of the mind and human behavior. Anthropology is the study of human behavior in specific cultures as well as the development of human behavior throughout cultures and time. There is a great deal of overlap in these two disciplines. They have stated in the show that the reason Brennan became interested in forensic anthropology, specifically, is that her parents disappeared and she figured it would take someone of a similar expertise to find out what happened to them. I won't argue with that. But I will add that she chose anthropology partially out of a desire to understand human behavior, driven by the need to know what became of her parents and how they and Russ could just leave her behind.

Angela - She is an artistic soul, a wanderer, and a free spirit. She spent her life struggling to find time alone with her father (The Man in the Fallout Shelter). She may have developed her artistic talents as a way to grab his attention. It's possible she began doing facial reconstructions as part of a subconscious effort to fight the invisibility she felt as a child, playing second-best to her father's career. She felt invisible as a child and uses her work to make sure no one else is invisible, alive or dead. She, like Brennan but to a far lesser extent, shields herself from becoming too attached to people, not believing she has people who are in her life permanently. Her father's absence growing up contributed to this, as may have her mother, though we know almost nothing about her.

Sweets - This one is fairly straightforward. We already know that Sweets was abused as a child and adopted by an older couple when he was six. His career in psychology is obviously a result of his efforts to understand what would motivate different people to behave in different ways - his abusive parents and his adoptive parents representing opposing behaviors. His early success and astonishing achievement at such a young age (trust me, a PhD at 22 is astonishing) may have been fueled by a desire to live up to the expectations he felt placed on him. Children of abuse often believe the abuse is a result of their own shortcomings, punishment for not being good enough. Perhaps Sweets simply wanted to prove he was good enough.

Hodgins - This one took me a moment, but I believe his fascination with bugs and slime may be a result of his privileged up-bringing. As a child he was extremely wealthy and so may have lacked the typical exposure to adult realities - for example, that one often does specific work merely because it's necessary. A person takes a job they don't enjoy simply because it pays the bills and provides for his or her family. But Hodgins, as a result of his wealth, felt the freedom to pursue a discipline that he loved. He may also have been frozen, to an extent, in adolescence due to never having dealt with the worries and stressors that often accompany adult life, i.e. money, security, balancing passion with career. He may have simply frozen at a time in his life during which he had the typical childhood love of all things gross. He later turned this into a career by being free to pursue this passion, while driven by those extremely successful types around him - those involved with the Canteliever Group (if not his parents, at least the business associates). Thus he was able to obtain three doctorates in the things he loved and find a way to turn it into a career.

Yikes.

Did I leave anyone out?

fanvidfan · 10-28-2009, 08:12 AM

Great thread.
Here's my two cents.
I think that their shared difficult backgrounds are a big reason they work together so well as a team. They "get" each other and they struggle with a lot of the same stuff.

Ourania · 11-04-2009, 04:07 AM

Wow thank you for those answers; smurfette, you blew my mind lol. Your analysis joins mine at 100%, I am more than thrilled! It makes me think I was right after all!!

What do you think of Booth and Bones' reaction to the "American System", both had it as a surrogate family in their late teens (through the Army and the Foster System) and both reacted very differently to it. One rejected it entirely and the other found a sort of safety valve in it, although he has to face his own shortcomings and rebel against the system in order to find his own personality (gambling issue and ties/socks); is it something you believe comes from their very families? One is the perfect American family faithful to the banner and the other is the family of con people who robbed banks and threatened the integrity of the US government (Judas on a Pole)?

Other question, to what extent do you think that Booth slowly introduces Bones to the typical American behavior (more faith in the country, in its culture, in religion, in family) and how it makes of Bones a show that somehow, in spite of its depicting the ups AND downs of American way of life and ideological rootings, still defends it as the way to go, seeing Booth as the "example" of it all and influencing every other character in what is considered "the right way"?

Thank you for your time, again!!