Look at Steffy and Liam dancing in the courtyard! They’re like cute little Pokémon, so beautiful and carefree! Don’t they just look adorable? “HELL TO NIZ-NAWH,” says Hope from da Block! The plans for the pending nuptials at the Forrester estate all came to a head as Taylor walked in on Hope soon after Rick left the guest house. The enraging dialogue between these two women stayed true to the current debate within the Bold and the Beautiful fanbase, but that’s not what I’m devoting this blog to. I’m devoting this blog to Hope’s future.
I got into a lengthy conversation with users on Twitter including @BBUniverse_net and @Boldinsider. I believe the initial question from the show’s Twitter account was, “Do you feel sorry for Hope?” Now, I know some of you are expecting a massive “yes” out of me. If so, I can’t grant that to you. I don’t feel sorry for Hope, and here’s why:
Hope, I guess, rethought her decision to set Liam adrift in the sewers of LA because she sees that Liam and Steffy are establishing themselves. To me, this is understandable because Hope will always feel that she, for many different reasons, was cheated out of what she feels belongs to her. Sadly for her, she gave Liam up, right there on his hands and knees in front of the conjoined families, black boxers, soaking wet and hung over with a bad dye-job. In the first instance, she went to back to confront Liam in Aspen and Steffy intervened, in summary. In this most recent instance, she gave him up and forced distance from him, even going so far as to dangle those rings in Steffy’s face like the State Farm commercial! “Insurance, find me money…” This, with no excuses, is something she brought on herself, and she needs to recall and remember the dozens of reasons why she dumped him in the first place.
As stated by @BBUniverse_net, it works like that neither in real life nor reel life. I really think it makes Hope look flaky. The angel on one shoulder says to move on and find better because she, nor anyone else, deserves to put themselves through this sort of emotional masochism. But the demon on the other shoulder says not to give up, to prove once and for all that what’s hers is hers, and anything else is “punk behavior.” Emphasized by today’s cliffhanger, Hope’s listening to the wrong spirit.
We can’t dispute the fact that Hope had little to no guidance growing up. I think she’s gradually getting better, but she still has a massively skewed outlook on the world. She’s listening to so much outside noise from her mother, Taylor, Steffy, Bill, Rick, Liam’s lies–she’s gone from Polyanna to sort of an Erica Bain in The Brave One (thanks, Google! I never saw or heard of the movie)! She’s seeking vigilante justice, but in this case she’s seeking justice for something that she allowed to happen.
Here’s what Hope needs to do: Hope needs to take her life by the horns. As stated before, I’m a person filled with a lot of deep anger and vengeance, but there’s no way in hell I’m about to head up Jefferson Highway, then out by LSU, back home to New Orleans and all the way out to Atlanta to exact revenge on every single person who’s crossed me. As I’ve been saying a lot lately, ain’t nobody got time for that! The best way to prove your worth, even if you’re not actually in the right, is to back away and live…your…life. Success is the best flavor of revenge, and revenge is a dish best served cold.
If Hope were real and I knew her as a friend, I would try my damnedest to use my issues over the past six years to coach the young lady. I want her to take a page from the women and men who raised me, to walk outside with her head up high, to own her decisions and mistakes, and to carry herself with dignity. Hope isn’t doing that by having a backbone one minute, giving up what’s bringing her down, then putting herself back into that same wack circle and situation to seek not only acceptance from those who should be a non-factor, but also to seek some sort of quiet and passive-aggressive justice. Like the rest of the women on the show now, except Maya, she’s looking weak. I ******* hate weak.
Imagine a Los Angeles where Hope Logan has that one man who gives her everything she needs: validation, pleasure, help–all of that. He’s the man that’s the answer to all–okay, let’s keep it real–most of Hope’s unanswered questions about life and her past situations. He’s the man that instills what Hope needs most: maturity. Just because one uses the term “maturity” doesn’t mean they’re implying calendar age or childishness, but referencing life experience. I’ve met many people, specifically men over forty who, at best, have the maturity of people my age, and I’m in my mid-twenties.
Production is beating a dead horse because as much as Hope isn’t completely a victim in this whole storyline, it pains me to see her kept in this same cycle, and she’s being taken down a road that sets a bad example for equally impressionable people that may be watching. I personally feel that strong women aren’t worshipped on TV nowadays, anyhow. Instead, we’re stuck with catty, immature women seeking an unrealistic life on our scripted shows, and self-proclaimed “STRONG WIMIN” on our reality shows. Everybody knows, as Phaedra Parks would say (The Real Housewives of Atlanta), that the weakest people tend to be those who feel the need to shout from the mountain tops to let the world know how “strong” they are. The proof is in the pudding: are you strong? Prove it, because the sulking, the calculations and the cat-fights are proving otherwise.
The conversation on Twitter that started this blog also included the Bold and the Beautiful production account. I hope they take note, that Hope eventually finds her way and follows a whole new direction. At this point, she’s headed for disaster.
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–Javan H.
Images used are found through internet searches.
