#broswatchplltoo

This naive optimism is very “let’s just block any unknown texts from our phones guys, lolz, no more ‘A’!” from PLL Season 1.

I of course have made no secret about the fact that I’ve always been troubled by the power dynamic in the Ezra/Aria relationship, I don’t find that there’s anything to romanticize about that relationship, I think it’s adolescent. I think any adult male who gets involved with a high school sophomore is emotionally immature. There. I said it. It’s true. It’s what I believe. BWPT: It shouldn't be controversial.  I like to think that Aria as a character will grow out of that ideal. Almost certain that she will. She’ll move on, he won’t. That being said, Ilove Ian Harding and I love Lucy Hale and I enjoy my relationship with both of them and at a certain point I had to give myself over to the inevitable. That their relationship was going to end up in a “happy ending”. I just don’t believe in those kinds of happy endings.

Team EndgAme in the (Doll)House

I worry about girls, women, who give their power over to men. Because I think men can be shits.

I’ve always had a strong problem with the idea of an older male manipulating a younger woman so I always made a conscious choice to try to always stage her — I didn’t do it all the time but I think if you looked at the scenes between them, she was always on his level or higher than he was. And certainly in the sex scenes, I had her dominate. Because I wanted it to be clear that she’s the agent of this. That he is not taking advantage of her. I worry about girls, women, who give their power over to men. Because I think men can be shits. And I really do believe that. I want to remind women or any of the people who follow me on twitter or watch my shows that women are strong. They’re strong. And they should assume their strength. So I tried to be conscious of that idea. I certainly didn’t want to go for that classic male dominating kind of framing where the guy’s looking down at the young woman, you know? It’s a trope. And it reinforces ideas of women as being the weaker sex and I don’t think they are. I think they’re the stronger sex.

Q: If I have like micro criticisms of the finale, it’s that Toby shouldn’t be the judge of Spencer. It should have been the other four liars." "A: You know what, I think you’re totally right because I think that when Toby ended up sleeping consistently with Alex without understanding, like maybe that’s not the person you plead to, like, that actually would have been way better for Spencer if Alex the whole time was looking at Toby like “oh my god how could you not remember me?” and Spencer would have passed right by that and been like fuck that noise, hey ladies, look at me, LOOK AT ME.

God knows, I feel like I filmed the two of them having sex. More than anybody else. You know I always enjoy working with those two, I thought that they were delightful. They’re both delightful human beings. I just felt that there were stories I would like to tell with the two of them that I just… didn’t have the opportunity. And uhm, it went the way it went, and I don’t question that. This is not my show, I’m not a writer on the show, I’ve tried to stress that to the shippers over the years. I don’t have anything to do with the writing of it. They get very indignant sometimes when I make some disapproving comment about something, they talk to me like I’m the one who came up with the idea in the first place so what am I talking about? I think that a lot of the viewers of the show don’t understand that the director doesn’t have anything to do with the writing of it. At least, at least I didn’t. I’m a gun for hire. I come in, I shoot the episode I’m given. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the scripts that I’m given and I don’t make any apologies for that. I do the best job that I can but I think that the relationship… look I think I said to you guys the last time I was on your podcast, I would like for all four of these girls to end up with other people besides the person that they had their first crush on in high school. I think that that’s a romantic trope that eventually goes by the wayside. This idea that somehow you should end up with that first person. I guess it does happen and I don’t take that away from anybody that it does happen to, but for the most part, our high school relationships are a passage to some other place and I cared enough about these characters as characters to wish that all of them would have found other things in their lives. I like to believe that beyond the end of the show, that’s exactly what happens. But that’s my own fan fiction.

This whole idea of what they call endgame, it flies in the face of every psychological concept of every classical idea — literature or mythology. It’s a trope. It’s a fairy tale. It’s childish. It’s tied into childhood, this idea of the happy ending as opposed to life being more of a process. I don’t wanna denigrate it, but I just feel like I can’t be true to myself without saying…that’s not what happens. The idea of Aria…she has nothing else in her life but this romance with this character Ezra always bothered me. It just always bothered me. One of the things that I had spoken to you guys about a little bit about The OC and Gossip Girl. You know, I’ve worked on these shows that are teen phenomenons. The OC was a little bit before the social media wave, social media really became a thing when we were doing Gossip Girl and then certainly it’s just grown over the time I worked on PLL but all three of these shows have been teen phenomenons that have revolved around relationships. The one that I think is probably the truest was The OC. That Ryan Atwood carried a torch for this girl Marissa who self destructed along the way. I think that there was something really powerful about that idea. I actually was against them killing her off at the end of the 3rd season and I think it was something that even Josh Schwartz has talked about whether it was the right choice or not, but I do believe that there was something powerful about the idea of being in love with this girl that ultimately was beyond his grasp. That’s a powerful idea. And I think that real love is complicated, and relationships are complicated, that they’re sometimes painful and sometimes there’s real suffering attached to them and I don’t mind seeing that in drama. I don’t mind examining that in drama and I think a lot of fans would prefer never to have anything be uncomfortable whatsoever. And I don’t know what that show would be. I don’t know what that would look like.