MovieChat Forums > Will & Grace (1998) Discussion > No, Grace, not his fault...

No, Grace, not his fault...

posted 6 years ago by [deleted]
5 replies | jump to latest

So, this series had its #MeToo moment with Grace confessing to her dad that his good friend molested her at 15 while she was working for him. Okay, so far, so good...

... until ...

... she blames her father -- and then nobly forgives him -- for not protecting her.

Wut? She didn't tell her father for decades after the incident. How was he supposed to know? Sorry, Grace, your father isn't to blame for what happened to you.

If there was any failing on the part of her father, it was for raising a dim-witted daughter who kept a secret about a predator for decades, possibly leaving other women/girls at his mercy.

Now, THAT would have been a powerful episode. In flashback, we could have seen Grace bravely ratting out the predator decades earlier, leading to a rift between her and her father who refuses to believe her.

Then, in the present, we could have seen the father finally apologizing for not believing her and encouraging her when she first reported it.

As written, the episode simply made the both of them out to be stupid.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

I don't know that I agree with her that directly blaming her father is fair, but she did mention that she kept telling him how "creepy" the guy was and he just brushed it off. I totally get a teenager or kid not wanting to tell their parents they were molested. I also think some parents get clues or hints from their kids when stuff like this happens but truly just don't want to deal with it. And I do get tired of so many shows trying to shoehorn in their take on politics or current social issues, but I think the scene played out pretty true to life actually.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

It was the point where Grace 'forgave' her father that I felt it went off the rails. Having raised two teenagers myself, a good portion of their communication during these years is abrasive. Calling someone creepy would be nothing unusual for a parent to hear from their child.

Why does Grace express no similar resentment toward her mother? It's likely she would have shared her apprehensions with her mom too.

We do learn that Grace told her Mom about the incident. And her Mom did nothing. Didn't go to the police on behalf of her daughter... didn't confront the predator... didn't talk to her husband about it. In fact, she explicitly advised her daughter NOT to tell her father.

That's some f*cked up parenting right there...

As written, this ep was terrible. It seemed like they just wanted to go the extra mile to lay some of the blame on the old white guy, instead of where it clearly belonged... the perpetrator who committed the act, and the two women who kept it a secret for decades.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

You bring up some really good points. I don't have kids so I don't have experience with the parent-child dynamic from that perspective. I was wondering why she didn't put any of the blame on her mom too. I guess because it was her fathers friend she just expected her father to be the one to carry the burden of responsibility to know what was going on. Which isn't exactly fair.

And, the fact that she told her mom and her mom didn't do or say anything about it is f*cked up. Why wasn't her mom as responsible for keeping her safe as her dad was? If her mom knew and cared why didn't she try to hold the perpetrator accountable? How is it that the dad did wrong when he obviously was the only one out of the four of them that had no idea what was going on?

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Yes, I work at a college with students aged 18 - 22. Everything is either "amazing", "awesome" or "creepy" to them. Everything. That's the extent of their vocabulary of adjectives.

[–] LolaVerdon (131) 5 years ago

This episode was ridiculous.