Took a peek at The Pitt maintag for the first time and was tbh baffled to see that Robby/Whitaker is so popular, with a strong presence in both the top and recent posts. Despite the textual possibility that Robby is bisexual, this pairing never once occurred to me in my watch of both seasons to date because it has absolutely no sauce. So I was initially surprised, and then remembered this is tumblr and in fact I cannot be surprised, only weary and annoyed. Like. to me, Robby is a solutions guy and offering housesitting to Whitaker is just applying a solution (person who wants housing) to a problem (wanting to give responsibility for his house to someone, and Whitaker needing boundaries with the farmgirl) and this and their other work interactions are simply laced with classic homosocial reproduction (this may sound like a sexy term but it is not). Robby's positive work interactions with Whitaker are more important in their contrast to say, how he treats the women he works with, as opposed to being independent queer subtext. Robby has more tension/chemistry with so many other characters up to and including Langdon and Abbott and even his motorcycle shop buddy if you want an m/m pair for him. I suspect of course the popularity is more about people adopting Whitaker as a sad baby wet cat blorbo and shopping for a big strong man for him, to which I can only sigh. I don't have a compelling pitch for a different m/m pair for Whitaker but this does not mean that this one is good.
More on homosocial reproduction actually. For those not in the know, this is a sociological concept from Rosabeth Moss Kanter describing the tendency of people in power - usually white male managers - to hire, promote, and professionally support people who are socially similar to them. Robby is planning on leaving the ER for his sabbatical (or for good...) and is anxious about it being in good hands because he wants it to be run like he'd run it. There is a key scene where Robby watches Whitaker give the exact same speech to the new students about taking a moment of silence when a patient dies; he smiles to himself and leaves Whitaker to continue. He is literally offering Whitaker his house (again, for house sitting, but like. what if Robby doesn't come back...). If Whitaker is house-sitting, it also creates an expectation that he is going to stick around. Whitaker is not a romantic interest, he is a textual mini-me that Robby is investing in. Whitaker can be a good doctor and deserving of support and still all of this be true.
A final and very petty but correct note. Every text post I have seen supporting Robby/Whitaker is bad. The shipping lens absolutely obliterates normal interpretation of the text and makes it about The Men. In 2.12, Javadi's glee in observing the conversation between Whitaker and Santos, in which Santos stubbornly will not admit to liking Whitaker as a roomie & storms away saying "have fun with Robby's plants!" is NOT about her shipping Robby/Whitaker. It's because Javadi has her own longstanding interpersonal tension with Santos and is enjoying Santos being the uncomfortable and vulnerable one for once. This is extremely obvious. Even Whitaker's acceptance of the house sitting was because he thought Santos wanted it; it's based on his relationship to her. This is about the women. Why are we making this about the men. WHY ARE WE MAKING THIS ABOUT THE MEN.
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