Maturity Glow-Ups: Special Agent Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo

Have any of you ever watched an old show and cringed at a piece of dialogue? For example, one of my favorite shows is NCIS (the original, not the spin-offs—now, don’t get me wrong, the spin-offs are fine, but like come on, Special Agent Timothy McGee is a BOSS; he started as this fumbling nerd with a gun, then he became a HOT nerd with a gun, and now HE’S A DAD! It’s like I’ve seen him grow up and it makes me so proud—ahem, sorry, I’ll move on now), but some of the earlier seasons were a bit insensitive, especially when it came to women (ahem, DiNozzo). His actions were incredibly creepy, even the stuff that he and other characters said were “juvenile”. There were a lot of scenes in the first two seasons where I could feel Kate Todd’s frustration at DiNozzo and how he not only treats her at work, but how he treats women out in the field. Honestly some of the stunts he pulls can be classified as harassment.

Thirst Aid Kit hosts Bim Adewunmi and Nicole Perkins brought up this same point with a 1980’s show Moonlighting in the episode titled “Maximum UST”. The male lead, David, and the female lead, Maddie, are at the very least attracted to each other. However, she is in a relationship in Season 3, so her feelings for David are irrelevant. There is a scene during the season that both hosts describe as both incredibly tense, but also kind of uncomfortable. To begin how uncomfortable this situation actually is, David sneaks into Maddie’s bedroom and just hides under the covers and in the dark. First of all, why on Earth would you keep the conversation going after finding him in your bed? I know that this was made in the 1980s, but that doesn’t excuse how low Maddie’s standards are for him. Then, when she climbs into bed and finds him there, he starts explaining that her boyfriend broke up with her after PROPOSING to her—which I also don’t understand, so if I heard this part wrong, please tell me in the comments because this entire scene is a freaking rollercoaster!—and she has the “audacity” (ROLLING MY EYES OVER HERE) to be concerned about David’s motives! Of course she thought you were going to take advantage of her—you snuck into her BEDROOM AND WAITED IN THE DARK! How did anyone think this was appropriate?!

Let’s take a break, shall we? My blood is boiling a bit, so let me update everyone on how things are in the Gutmann/Feinberg house. It’s Passover, but my family has decided that instead of having a sedar, we’re going to have a meal together without worrying about the hassle. The sedar would have required cleaning a silver cup for the prophet Elijah, finding a sedar plate and siddurim, the books we read during the sedar—yeah, I know, we’re a bunch of nerds who read during dinner—clearing off the table, which is a lot more work than any of us wanted to partake in (it also wouldn’t have fit with the traditions of Shabbat, and since we are having dinner during Shabbat, we felt that just this once, we wouldn’t work our asses off just to eat at the table), and preparing a large meal that would result in two weeks of leftovers.

I also found out how bad my seasonal allergies are. I don’t get congested like my mom and brother, but I get these killer migraines that don’t go away unless I lie on the floor for an hour. So that’s fun.

            Thanks for indulging in my break from madness. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

            So where does this leave us? Television shows today are a little bit better with introducing possible relationships and there are relatively fewer instances between two partners that feel uncomfortable in the wrong way—I mean, unresolved sexual tension is what makes some of these shows go from “good” to “phucking phenomenal”. In DiNozzo’s last season on NCIS, he had already found the woman of his dreams, former Special Agent Ziva David, but she had told him that they couldn’t be together because she didn’t want to put him in danger. She supposedly dies in a house fire in Israel, but has a daughter survive, and her daughter’s father is DiNozzo (GASP!). Early-seasons DiNozzo would not have stepped up to take on the role of a father, and he most certainly wouldn’t have quit his job that requires firearms (which he describes as a literal “chick magnet”).

When he says, “I had every right to know” about his daughter, I didn’t agree at first. Women are the ones who have the baby, so why can’t they decide who to tell? But then I realized it had nothing to do with him. He didn’t think she was incapable of taking care of their daughter alone, but he loved her enough to feel that she shouldn't have had to be a single parent, and I think he feels upset that she didn't trust him enough to be involved when they obviously love each other. But does he hold onto that feeling for long? No, because he has a daughter to take care off, and he can't hold on to what might have been, and so he comes to respect the decision she made to protect their child.

A lot of television shows that started in the 1980s through the early 2000s would benefit from showing this kind of transition in treatment of women characters. If shows can respect the decisions women make and what their true reactions would be when a man hides in your bedroom, then we can say we made progress. We can acknowledge how uncomfortable these past scenes made us, but if we can acknowledge how they change, then I think that’s the kind of redemption that is appropriate.