Why I take “Kevin Can F**k Himself” so personally

When you don’t get to see very many stories that represent your anger, you get pretty damn protective of the ones that do

If you aren’t familiar with “Kevin Can F**K Himself,” then this article won’t be of interest. I don’t want to waste space explaining what it is or setting the scene. I just want to write into the anger I feel when I read reviews that are critical of a show over which I apparently feel quite protective. I’m interested in that desire to protect a television show, a story.

Over on Vulture, writer Roxana Hadadi questions Allison’s spurning of her boyfriend, Sam, in the finale, saying it’s rushed. It didn’t seem rushed to me. She doesn’t want to step into the narrative of being saved by a man who literally just told her one episode back how broken he thinks she is. This is a show about rejecting tired narratives about female characters. It made complete sense, and resonated fully, that in a moment that could easily tip in the stereotypical direction of man-saves-broken-woman, Allison would instead call bullshit, and go another way.

People are always trying to write our stories for us. Of course, Allison is a fictional character who literally needs people to write her story for her. But in another way, she’s real, and she’s a weapon in our arsenal, as women —a sharp tool piercing the sexist bullshit that has masqueraded as mainstream entertainment for over 50 years. So don’t f’ing question her. Let her pierce.

I don’t really mean that you shouldn’t question her. But I also do mean it. Of course, question everything. At the same time, what a waste, to write about whether Allison should have chosen to run away with Sam, when, unlike 99.9% of other TV shows ever invented, this show grapples with the patriarchy, a topic more than worthy of word count. It isn’t hard to write 1,000 words on what the finale reflects about the world we live in.

Over on CNET, a headline roils me: “Kevin Can F**k Himself is the Weirdest Show on TV. Does it make sense?” Really? The weirdest show on TV? This weekend, I found my daughter and her friend watching “Pet Stars”: “Follow talent management company Pets on Q as they work with the biggest animal influencers on social media in this reality series.” But “Kevin Can F**k Himself,” which reveals the…