I love House, and I know I am not alone. The goal here is to see why: is it because he is bitchy and cold, like any woman's dream? Is it because he is unavailable and has this British charm? Or is because of his so well-publisized similarity to Sherlok Holmes? Wikipedia argues that it is not only House's character that resembles the famous detective, it is also the structure of any episode, with the virus or the desease playing the role of the bad buy, Dr Wilson as Dr. Watson, and Vicodin as cocaine and voilá, here you have it! But really, do you think that House is just a spy novel disguised as a medical drama?
I think not...
I think that House is great because he has taken the notion of the ethical dilemma outside the philosophers' den and back into our lives. All episodes usually have a deep ethical issue that needs to be addressed. And dare I say that the writers of the series are doing an excellent job in making us see all possible aspects of it. I always thought that Greek tragedy is awsome exactly because of that: in Antigone there are no clear good guys and bad guys, sure Antigone is noble and all, wanting to bury her brother and stuff but Creon, who can say that Creon is a 'baddie'? The poor guy stands for law and order, while if Antigone had her way, laws would be disobeyed at will. But I digress... In House it is always clear, the complexity of life, the complexity of the ethical dilemmas that exist out there. In the episode I saw today (an old one from series one or two) the issue is the following: hot-shot 32-year-old executive is admitted for acute pain in her leg. Team thinks it might be what House has, team is wrong, whatever. House realises (after some serious stuff I got confused with) that the woman is depressed and boulimic and she self-harms so badly that she has destroyed her heart and needs a transplant. Problem is, people with such issues could be excluded from transplant lists, because they might be suicidal. House however confronts the hot-shot exec and asks her 'do you want to live?', to which hot-shot replies 'I don't want to die'. To me this is is clear, halllooooow, the woman did not say she wants to live, she only said she doesn't want to die, and the two sentences are not synonymous (linguist talking). In any case the moral question is whether House should lie to the transplant committee to get his patient a heart or not, because she might kill herself the next day.
What do you say, what do you think he did?
It is not important what he did, although he did good.
What's important is that we see this dilemma and we feel it and we think about it. I think.
And this is why we love House.
2 comments:
I have tried to introduce House to my friends and it was not easy, watching a single episode does not reveal the beauty of the series. I share with you the same enthousiasm, for me it is not another medical tv drama, it is somehow different. House has the gift of seeing beyond the obvious, beyond the expected. He is not interested in the physical aspect as such, (he got his colleagues to do so..), he is more into the complexity of the reality of each patient. The more strange, awkord, abnormal the patient's (social, familiar, mental, etc) presentation, the more interested he gets. His unusual attitude of not seeing the patient in the clinic can be arrogant, it is however effective. My sense is that his colleagues narrate a story and he is the only one who knows the end, he probably choose the end with the patient. Not to mention his unique sense of humour that usually provokes embarassment but is always to a pinpoint that you can sense both the pain and the reality of his sayings..
I liked the idea that he is called "the medical Sherlock Holmes". I also like the fact that he is a diagnostician, someone who has the knowledge to foresee and explain what life brings to us and what we bring into our lives. I hope House is here to stay...
Good for people to know.
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