The Big Not Very Wee Hag

No matter how you shake it, book canon or tv canon, Shane has a loving, involved family. They are a positive force in his life. I personally have a very loving, involved family. In the show, Yuna is Shane's manager. In the books, she's less involved, but it's implied that she's involved in the Foundation in TLG, and keeps tabs on Shane getting things done in regards to that (why these billionaire hockey players are doing paperwork for their 401c, I'll never understand, but you gotta have them do something, so as a writer I get that lol). Focusing more on show-Yuna though, I don't think she's like this crazy controlling presence in Shane's life. I don't think she pushes him into anything. He wants to be an elite athlete, and I think he sees the necessity in cultivating a public image, both for money and for his longevity as a public figure. Shane wouldn't get sprayed down and hold a can of orange bullshit if he didn't see the reason for it. I don't think show-Shane, even if he's a little milder than book-shane, is so easily pushed around. (I don't actually think he's that much milder, I just think Shane's internal monologue in the book makes him edgier to the reader, but that's beside the point)

The way I interpret Yuna (and David, to some extent), is that they aren't pushy, they're involved and knowledgeable parents to a very accommodating, respectful, successful son. The lunch scenes in episodes 1 and 4 are so important here. We can see that Shane has set a standard in how he interacts with his parents. He's on time. He makes time for them, these meetings are both business and quality time he spends with them during the season.

The first lunch in ep1, Shane is in decent spirits, but he's late, and it's implied that it's because he was watching YouTube videos of Ilya and lost track of time (animal videos, my ass, Shane). Yuna and David don't give him a hard time about it, but they do point it out. And Yuna makes sure to point out that it's not normal for Shane to be late. Shane has established a baseline of behavior to his parents. He's not a wild card. He's not unpredictable. He's punctual and reliable. It's weird to them if he steps outside of that baseline.

The second lunch ep2, Shane is visibly stressed. He's quiet, a little short in his responses. Yuna brings up Wimbleton and the Rolex box. Shane is adamant that he doesn't want to go. David and Yuna both try to convince him, showing that they are comfortable stating their case to Shane and are secure in their knowledge that he will see things "their way" once he listens. Shane doesn't want wine, which is commented on. He snaps directly at both conversations, "Why, because I don't want wine?" and "What am I supposed to talk about, Swedish politics?" To me, David and Yuna are pretty shocked by Shane's behavior. Not enough to lash out, but enough that we can assume that this isn't a common occurrence for Shane at their lunches. They know something is wrong with Shane, but they aren't asking the right questions. They're just trying to cheer him up or "solve" the immediate problem. They're pretty visibly choosing to stay surface level about it.

It passes. Shane softens, settles, hedges, says okay, maybe let's think about going to London, maybe it could be fun. And then he goes to the bathroom to fully end the conversation. So that he can come back calm, happy, and in control of the situation.

What I find relatable here, especially as someone with caring, involved, sometimes too involved, parents, is that while Yuna and David are showing concern and care for Shane, they are ignorant or unable to address what he needs. Let's talk about Shane as a child. We know very little. My interpretation is that Shane was an intense, driven, serious kid who had a dream. Parents of kids with big, serious dreams are under a lot of pressure themselves, but I think what made it easy for David and Yuna is that Shane was just an easy kid to care for. I don't think Shane had big loud tantrums, I don't think he cried a lot, I don't think he needed a lot. Just hockey. New skates, new sticks, new pads, money for the leagues, money to travel—everything to hockey.

But Shane never gave them any trouble! We know he had nice high school girlfriends that he, notably, didn't impregnate. He gets to the top of his sport, the absolute pinnacle, and is drafted young into the NHL. He's going to be a star! I could see, in interviews, David and Yuna saying things like "we always knew he would do whatever he set out to do."

So, back to episode 4 lunch. What does Shane need? Or, what does Shane need to do in order to actually get help from his parents? Simply put, Shane needs to come out of the closet. He needs to tell his parents he's gay, if not tell them everything that's happening with Ilya. Ilya is the elephant in the room. Ilya is why he's late in episode 1, and it's why Shane is snappish in episode 4. The missing link to Shane's parents knowing him completely, is, in a simplified sense, ILYA, because to Shane, Ilya represents choice, desire, rebellion, assertion, and adulthood. Grown up decisions made by a grown up.

David and Yuna are good people, Shane has no reason to believe they'd react with homophobia. The Ilya of it all would be complicated, sure, but he knows they'd come around.

So it's not Yuna and David, really, driving the Shane Hollander closet express. It's Shane. Because Shane has never failed them, never disappointed them, never given them reason to wring their hands and worry, until now. It's uncomfortable for him! But this is in part because while David and Yuna took care of their son's external needs (hockey, health, shelter, etc) and his financial needs (endorsements, financial responsibility), they have failed to understand any dark parts of their son. They have failed to see that he grew up lonely (my interpretation, I don't know if canon supports this wholly), that he didn't really care for the girls he was dating, that he isolates himself when he's upset (leaving tuna melt-gate, going to the bathroom during lunch, breaking away from JJ's friend group right before he meets Rose).

Tarantino’s “favorite editor” was Sally JoAnne Menke who edited all of Tarantino’s films until she died.

Because naming and credit is important, especially when you’re talking about women not getting credit and recognition of their work as named individuals.

If you want to know more about women in early filmmaking (emphasis American) and the sociology of how different roles were divided, gendered, and re-gendered in the first decades, I highly recommend Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood by Karen Ward Mahar.  

Man ranting on the internet about the Superbowl halftime show or complaining that something is "woke"? Hobbyless Behaviour. Girls mocking another girl for not looking right? Hobbyless Behaviour. Mindless vandalism? Hobbyless Behaviour.

A lot of high control groups use this tactic to isolate their members. It’s absolutely not just evangelizing Christians. New age wellness cults often encourage their members to make outlandish and offensive accusations regarding the mental and physical health of other people or their children, because they know that the backlash their members receive will reinforce the idea that the “mainstream” simply has no room for people who like crystals and essential oils. White supremacist cults will seed the vocabulary of new recruits with Nazi dog whistles that fly over those recruits heads, specifically so that they will get clocked as possible neo-Nazis and shunned by anyone who might offer them another perspective and help them to get out before it’s too late. And a lot of left-leaning political cults strongly encourage members to share their views in the most inflammatory ways possible, and then say “you see? everyone outside of this small circle is evil and cannot be relied on” when, inevitably, that produces bad results.

Sometimes I think that activists fall into these patterns completely accidentally, either because they were raised in culturally Christian evangelical environments and never unpacked it, or else because they just aren’t any good at approaching things in a non-inflammatory way and no one’s shown them how.

…But sometimes, these structures emerge in activist circles because those circles are legitimately becoming high control groups.

I think some things to watch out for especially in this regard are:

Are you being directed to behave in an extremely hostile and alienating way? (even if it’s by someone who you trust!)

Does the group you are in immediately shut down any conversation about the effectiveness of an antagonistic strategy? In particular, do they shut that conversation down using in-group stock phrases?

Is experiencing harsh rejection seen as something of a rite of passage?

Do you receive more validation from the group you are in after you have been rejected by someone outside the group than at any other time?

Have you ever been concerned that the antagonistic strategy you are using hurt someone you cared about, only to be quickly advised by members of the group that that person was toxic and that you should actually completely cut them out of your life?

These to me are all pretty significant red flags about the group in question, whatever the specific thing that brings people together there is. If you start noticing them in a group that you are a part of, be that an in-person activist circle or a Discord server or anything in between, take a step back and seriously consider the possibility that the good thing that you joined is turning into something different, and possibly dangerous.

Ok, I actually want to talk about this for a moment.

Jonestown, one of the most infamous cults in history, with a mass suicide / mass murder that left more than 900 people dead of cyanide poisoning, hundreds of whom were children… was a leftist political cult. That fact is an unambiguous and completely undebatable matter of historical record.

This isn’t a footnote in the story of Jonestown, and it isn’t a weird anti-leftist gotcha either. Jonestown attracted people to their cause with anti-segregation and anti-poverty activist work, and they did actual, meaningful good for those causes. The People’s Temple was a leftist org, unambiguously. They created mutual aid networks for food aid, and rent assistance, and job placement services, and clothing donations, and winter heating. They leaned heavily on the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission in order to push desegregation, and led sit-ins and boycotts and protests. They participated in significant voter registration efforts. They led the fight against the eviction of tenants from San Francisco's International Hotel.

People joined The People’s Temple because it was a good thing when they joined it. They didn’t start out as brainwashed cultists, and they didn’t gravitate towards the leadership of Jim Jones out of masochism, or inherent submissiveness, or a perverse love of creeping authoritarianism. They fell in line under Jim Jones because he’d built a community that was genuinely helping people, and was advancing a political cause that seemed worth fighting. They followed Jim Jones because he earned their trust.

Jim Jones then used the trust and the social capital that he had gained from all of the above in order to elevate himself to the status of a messianic figure, and abuse and profit off of his followers. Slowly but surely, he boiled the frog. It was all good – and then it was mostly good – and then, well there was some abuse, but it wasn’t that bad, and it wasn’t really his fault – and then there was a lot of abuse, but the outside world would destroy them if given the chance, so wasn’t it the lesser of the two evils? And then, eventually, it got so bad that hundreds of people poisoned themselves and their children at his command, and murdered everyone in the compound who refused and resisted.

Your cause of choice is not immune from abusers taking advantage of it!

It doesn’t matter if you’re right. It doesn’t matter if your cause is just. It does not matter if your good thing really is a good thing, because there is always the possibility that it will one day be co-opted by a monster. And if the fact that it started good is enough for you to ignore that gradual, subtle change, you could end up in a truly horrible situation.

One of my best friends in undergrad got sucked into a cult. Years later, we talked about it, and he told me something that I’ll never forget which is, it’s only when you look all the way back at things that they seem crazy. You start off with things that are totally normal and innocuous: “we’re stronger together”; “oppression is bad”; “you can accomplish more if you believe in yourself”; “empathy is important and we should all try to bring more of it into our lives”; etc. Then, you move to something that’s just a little step away from that. And then again. And then again. And then again. But it never feels like a big jump, because it’s not! A -> Z is crazy, but A -> B wasn’t, and B -> C wasn’t, and C -> D wasn’t, and…

This friend was smart, and rational, and independent, and normal, and by the time he and his wife left, they’d gone from just thinking that we should all practice more emotional mindfulness, to being terrified that leaving the cult and the cult leader would literally kill them, via the cult leader having magical powers.

If your only analysis is “Where I started was good, and no single step since then has been crazy” that is utterly insufficient to keep you safe.

One Monday he'd noticed the sink in one of the guest bedrooms was dripping a little. He'd texted his plumber, who'd been able to come by the next day, only to find nothing was dripping. Ilya has figured maybe it hadn't been dripping, the faucet maybe wasn't fully off or something?

Another week he'd taken out the trash and noticed the light above the cans was out. He'd texted the electrician guy he had on call. He wouldn't usually be able to come out for a couple days. But the next day when Ilya was bringing a box out to recycle he'd found the light back on. He'd canceled the electrician, wondering if he'd just hit the lights switch funny?

And then the final odd thing happens. He's putting some stuff away in one of the guest room closets and he tugs the door too hard the wrong way and it pops off it's tracks and hits the floor. He curses as he catches it, and props it back up, leaning it into place. He texts a picture of it to his handyman. The photo is partially to explain the problem, but mostly to assure himself it really happened if the door manages to also magically heal itself.

The next day he gets a question about the door from the handyman so he goes to check it out, and walks in on Shane, with a little tool box on the floor next to him, lifting the door back into place with ease.

Ilya, shocked, "You're the one fixing everything!"

Shane, did not know this was a mystery, "Yes, of course. What did you think it was, magic?"

so, she takes them to see it and notices that these men are almost giddy over this bug so she starts asking questions and turns out they are from various African countries, are scientists travelling on some sort of research grant, and one of them in particular is specialist in insects and they were all just on their way to their Air B&B

And I didn’t really know what that meant, only that I always said no, but for some reason or another I was very annoyed and a fight sounded pretty good so for the first time ever I said “yes”

And I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but I remember my mom just going “Okay, then. Let’s fight. What do you want to fight about?”

And I remember it occurring to me all of a sudden that the onus was on me to generate the energy to pick something to be mad about, and wishing she’d just do something worth fighting FOR me, but she just went, “I’m not the one who wants to fight. If you want to fight, you have to pick something to fight about”