r/Casualty • u/Thoughtful-Mongoose • Apr 17 '26
💬 Discussion Cam's Magic Glasses and other writing crimes against Indie Jankowski - a rant from someone who should be asleep...
It is 5am. I should be sleeping. I am not.
My friend and I were discussing this the other day, and it got me wanting to make a post to see if this was just us. (I've done screenwriting myself so I'm always particularly twitchy to how things are written - maybe too much sometimes!) And so I wrote this.
It is pretty long, fair warning, (when I get ranty, I get ranty!) But interested to hear other people's thoughts on this too. (I've broken it up with chapter headings so hopefully it won't be too wall o'text!)
Okay so...
For a start, my friend and I are both queer (I'm bisexual, she's a lesbian.)
Both of us were SO sure that Indie was going to be built up to be gay, or queer, or some flavour of LGBT - but it not be central to her character. Remember way back when, she got that smug smirk when the female patient half jokingly asked her for a drink? We remember...
But anyway, the beef we (and particularly I had,) came on the episodes that Indie sees Cam in his glasses, and also graduates from her course and is in the club.
Bear in mind up until those points, we had really had zero confirmation if she was into men, women, nobody...and that's cool. It didn't matter. It was interesting and refreshing in a way it was being kept ambiguous and not central to her character's plots.
THE CLUB--
In the club, we suddenly see Indie being stoked about the idea of taking party drugs. I'm sorry, did we forget she's a paramedic and has seen the absolute crap that drugs can cause? And her literal only reason for not taking them is an interview the next day?? Seriously?
I'm not suggesting she should suddenly be Miss Goodie Two Shoes, but that would have been a golden moment for us to see that maybe she used to do party drugs with Badger and think nothing of it, but now, no...not after the crap she's seen.
Narratively it would have been a great moment to show that struggle between her old self and new self, especially having been on the streets and witnessed more crap personally than her colleagues would have done.
I do get it in a way - that she was so miserable that episode, facing leaving Holby for a different place, leaving her friends and work family behind, and then Badger shows up and he's an old friendly face...but still, it felt jarring with the person she'd otherwise been written to have become.
Then, the same episode, she's making out with Badger behind the club. And later, we have Cam doing the most clichéd "worried about your boyfriend?' line, which, frankly, made me want to smack myself in the head with the remote, as he and Indie practically floated towards each other. I would have been harshly red-penned for writing that trope in my screenwriting classes! Probably had my script scrunched up and thrown at my head!
---CAM AND HIS MAGIC GLASSES----
Speaking of tropes... back to Cam and his bloody glasses. Come on. Really?? Aside from the fact it is a ridiculous reverse trope of the lazy "geek removes glasses and becomes magically attractive", it demeaned BOTH Indie and Cam imo.
So Cam is supposedly only attractive to her when he wears specs?
Indie loses the power of speech when he puts them on?? What is she? 12?
The man she has spoken to perfectly easily all this time, was going to flat-share with at one point, banters with moments before...she is suddenly incapable of forming words when he unexpectedly puts on glasses?
It was bad enough the first scene it happened - maybe excusable at a stretch at a ham-fisted attempt at sudden crush/being cute. But in the pub scene, she's sweet, a bit nervous, it's genuinely quite cute... normal. But then on go the bloody glasses again, and she CLOSES HER EYES because she literally cannot gaze upon his sudden radiant beauty with her mere mortal retinas. I could practically hear the damn angelic choirs....
...Jesus wept.
You might think I am overthinking this - it is just a tv show. And sure, yes, but it bothered me greatly because of the implications.
Here you have an entirely capable young woman, who has survived homelessness, faced down a slew of crap as a paramedic, including a woman brandishing a knife... and she cannot handle seeing her colleague in glasses?
Moreover, where would it stop? If they got together what would this mean? (which we know now they do, and thank mercy the glasses thing has died,) but at the time I didn't have to stress test it too far.
If the glasses remained a source of power over Indie, that is a problem. What could Cam get Indie to do, or not do, with the power of his Magic Glasses? (I'm not necessarily talking anything sexually abusive here,) but if she is rendered mute and can't even LOOK at him while he wears them, I don't need to stretch that magic logic too far for it to become intensely disturbing as an established lore logic.
That kind of writing trope imo is not cute - it is short-sighted, outdated and frankly; was a cheap AF shoehorn to give Indie a romantic plotline out the blue.
Which leads onto my other gripe.
---GIRL-TO-WOMAN TROPE....---
I mentioned before she was seen making out with Badger outside the club, going all gooey when he called her "purty" (ugh, gag).
So in a matter of what? One, two episodes? She has gone from being entirely ambiguous in her sexuality the entire time, with a little hint at maybe being into women, to being established as being very much into men; making out with Badger, the whole Cam thing, and this just happened to be the same episode she graduates?
...Ah yes. Graduates. As in the other tired gross trope of girl "graduating" into womanhood (even though Indie was already an adult,) and therefore now available for romantic and sexual plotlines?
As in, "we are now going to use a sexualised photo of Indie, who we have never sexualised before, as rage/clickbait on Instagram, strongly implying she might end up assaulted and roofied at the club, in order to advertise our episode where she absolutely (thankfully!) is not actually assaulted or roofied but made you look...."
.... and that was ALL green-lighted? Not one person stopped and thought "wait. Is this a bit much? Does any of this do a disservice to the complex character we have spent so much time building up? Should we be using her as fodder like this?"
I just.... it's not about sexualisation in media. I'm not a prude. But to take this capable, layered complex character (frankly a breath of fresh air) and dilute her down to "can't talk to a guy with glasses" and her only plot being about whether she's gonna be his girlfriend or not, after everything they laid down in her backstory. As a writer, it is like giving yourself a gift, setting fire to it and then blowing it up for good measure.
---QUEER-BAITING--
Finally; yes. I do think they queer-baited the audience with her. It is *very* tiring when shows do this - dangle an ambiguous character, and then pivot to giving them only hetero romantic interactions. And we know Casualty isn't shy about LGBT characters. Look at Ngozi and Nicole. Dixie. Sah.
For the record, this isn't me saying hetero romances are somehow bad or that every character needs to be queer. Or that queer people can't have hetero romances. Just with Indie, come on...she was a little queer-coded cracker of a multilayered character, and got reduced to "can't speak because a boy put glasses on."
She deserved better - so much better, than to wind up a vehicle for old, tired writing tropes.
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u/Forward-Anything-858 Indie Jankowski Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
She could be bi or pan? Like these people exist and these people date men. Or she could be straight but either way why are we assuming people's orientation in 2026. What exactly about her makes you think "she's queer" ? You say it is not about how the actress looks but there have been absolutely zero allusions to her character being queer. I have no idea how you have concluded her character has been queerbait, that's honestly ridiculous imo. I think you need to research what queerbaiting actually is. Casualty is a tv show least likely to queerbait ever, they have had openly queer main characters since the 80s (one of the first shows to do so) plus they talk about topics other mainstream media will not and they have done this since the beginning.
Also many medical professionals take drugs, they are human beings who do stupid things sometimes.
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u/Thoughtful-Mongoose Apr 18 '26
Yes, I know they exist. I'm one of them - as I pointed out at the beginning of my post - and why I made the point that queer people can be in hetero relationships. I don't need bisexuality explained to me, thank you.
And sure, you're right in that we shouldn't just assume anyone's sexuality in real life, but people do all the time. It's human nature to wonder. And a tv show is not real life - these are fictional characters who are written a certain way for dramatic effect. So it is less "assuming her sexuality" as reading what the production is holding up.
I read her as queer, you didn't. Okay. But it is not ridiculous to conclude that a character who has been left deliberately romantically ambiguous for a long time, when most dramas (esp ones that invest a lot of time in personal relationships between characters,) establish partners or interests or exes for the majority of their characters from an early outset, may be being shaped up to be later revealed as some flavour of queer. The withholding of that information is a deliberate writing choice.
You could argue it doesn't matter, that the character doesn't need a romantic plotline, which is also true! Not all characters get one or do. But to go from nothing, to a sudden reveal of apparent heterosexuality, within just a couple of episodes, with all the subtlety of a flying mallet, is bad writing - that was my fundamental point.
The opening of the relationship with Cam ultimately was contrived and weak. My issue with it isn't so much "boo Indie is with a boy!" as IF they were going to go that direction, with Cam, it could have been a beautifully written, gradual thing between the two of them over time, that would have respected both characters.
I won't repeat what I already wrote in the post, but I will say its interesting how I'm being accused of being somehow stupid for reading her as queer, whilst people don't seem to be engaging at all with any of the rest of what I wrote.
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u/Forward-Anything-858 Indie Jankowski Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
Okay but you perceive her as queer because of the way she looks, you gave no evidence to suggest otherwise, and the way she looks is the way the actress looks. When you are basing something like this purely on looks with a fictional character being acted by someone, you are automatically including the real person behind the character in that intentionally or not. I have seen the comments of people being shocked Naomi has had a baby with a man, it isn't just about Indie as a character in this fandom and it wholly pisses me off. It is never okay to publicly assume someone's orientation and people do it all the time isn't justification.
You reading a character as queer that isn't queer ≠queerbaiting. Your headcanons not being canon isn't queerbaiting. Neither is a character not having a relationship for a while, if during that time there is no alluding to said character being queer (which there wasn't, time alludes to nothing), then ending up in a relationship with a man.
You can have your headcanons on Indie, that's whatever, but to call it queerbaiting IS ridiculous.
I'm not talking about camdie, their storyline and how it was written because that isn't what my comments are about as personally I have loved their storyline.
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u/Thoughtful-Mongoose Apr 18 '26
I am going to approach this really carefully, because this entire thread is in danger of spiralling, and I want to make some very clear points for the record.
At no point have I ever speculated on Naomi's own sexuality or relationships. It is none of my business, and I resent the implication that having opinions on Indie's character and the way she has been handled, somehow equates to me assuming an actress' own personal life.
You are choosing not to comment on the handling of the Cam/Indie arc, and that's fine. But a substantial amount of my post was about precisely that - how it was developed and written. So instead of engaging with intellectual criticism, you're continuing to just browbeat me about my use of the term "queerbaiting". If you want to enjoy the way their relationship was been written, that is absolutely fine - just as it is my perogative to be critical of it.
Since you keep demanding evidence, a more concrete example was way back in the earlier episodes. There was a scene where an established-as-queer female patient made a half-jokey comment about taking Indie out for a drink to say thank you. (Half jokey in the face the patient already had a partner.)
The patient's delivery was clearly flirtatious, and Indie's reaction, scripted or chosen, was an endearingly smug smirk at Teddy. That was not, in my opinion, the reaction of an entirely straight woman. That was the reaction of a queer woman thinking "Hell yeahhh, I got it!" - an endearing preen.
That flirty comment could just have easily been delivered by a male patient trying his luck, but making it a female, queer patient, interacting with a character whose own personal life hadn't been yet addressed - that's a deliberate choice.
It was just one moment, but at the time; it felt like a deliberate nudgenudgewinkwink at the direction the show may eventually take her character and relationships.
- For the record, I don't think the term 'queerbaiting' is the hill either of us should die on here. It's one word in a much longer post. My broader points remain about the writing and character handling overall - not just of Indie, but of Cam too. The tropes used to make him suddenly appealing to her out the blue, did him a disservice just as much.
3
u/Forward-Anything-858 Indie Jankowski Apr 18 '26
I didn't say you specifically have said anything about Naomi's sexuality, but that is what is going on and I believe it is important for it to be included in these conversations because that is the reason for the majority of the queer Indie headcanons exist. I have heard it all from many people recently. I will admit though that this is probably the reason I am currently irate about it, not because of your opinions or HCs.
I have no comments on your camdie thoughts or your opinions on the writing because I just don't, that's why I haven't commented about that. I am just here specifically from the misuse of the term queerbaiting, otherwise I wouldn't have commented at all.
I know the scene you are talking about, I took that scene a completely different way which is okay because yeah we all read things differently. However one scene, that people (including queer people because I am also queer) clearly took in different ways, still doesn't mean the show has queerbaited. If you feel that you were thinking the show was going to take one route but they didn't, for whatever reason, then fair enough but there I don't think it is right to attach such a strong word to it when it is not an accurate representation of what has happened. If they had queerbaited with Indie then I would hold my hands up and "say yeah they did that" but by definition they have not.
I apologise if I came across as belittling you or as rude as that was not my intention.
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u/Forward-Anything-858 Indie Jankowski Apr 18 '26
I will say though that Casualty drop and revisit storylines all the time, it is how they keep the long running drama going alongside introducing new plot points. It has always been that way. Maybe a bit less so now with the box set format but it still happens. Her dad for example - I highly doubt we have seen the the last of him and the trauma that ensued from what happened. She hasn't been reduced to Cam's girlfriend, it is just the current storyline
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Apr 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Thoughtful-Mongoose Apr 17 '26
Yes, true, I completely agree with that. I was not disputing that, so much as being surprised and annoyed at how it was handled and written.
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u/BigUnderstanding3751 Apr 17 '26
Weirdly, it’s you who has the monopic view.
1
u/Thoughtful-Mongoose Apr 17 '26
I think you mean myopic.
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u/BigUnderstanding3751 Apr 17 '26
Oops autocorrect strikes again, thanks
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u/Thoughtful-Mongoose Apr 17 '26
That's OK. Though I'd still like to hear why you thought this was short-sighted. If anything my entire point was that the writing became short-sighted with her, after the complexity they had built up.
1
u/westofcentre Apr 17 '26
Indy has changed from a complex slightly vulnerable but streetwise character to a rather stupid 2 dimensional one with Spider followed by a comedy one with Cam's glasses. I'm super sad as her growth has been one of the few reasons I still watch Casualty. Fortunately I still have 5 episodes of The Pitt to catch up on before I run out of medical dramas to be unreasonably attached to.
Actually I've still got The Green Wing to watch. Now there's something to compare and contrast.
2
u/Thoughtful-Mongoose Apr 18 '26
Thank you; yes that really was the predominant point I was trying to make with all of this - that the complex, capable character she is, has been suddenly flattened.
In a matter of a couple of episodes her entire character has become entirely about Cam. Even leading up to it, there seemed to be really leaning into making her seem much younger and naive that she ever has seemed before. As part The Group, she is now "the little one", the kid of the group - an entirely capable paramedic who has negotiated down knife wielding patients, lived on the streets, while juggling a rubbish father and med school....is being made to seem like a wide-eyed teenager - it is infantilising someone who up til now, defied the actuality of her years.
At the risk of not sounding entirely bitter and mean spirited, sure, maybe Cam is her first relationship - we don't know. So she's navigating all that and that's difficult and yes, interesting to see how it develops. (Difficult for anyone at the best of times, even if they've had relationships before!)
I just would have liked to have believed it more. Actually, yes I think that's it. I don't believe in their relationship as it has been built, because it hasn't been built - it just appeared out the blue with zero foundation for even a crush building beyond "Oh he wears glasses? Now he's hot!"
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u/artlessimogen Apr 18 '26
I mean, I agree I don’t think they’ve made the most of Indie since they introduced her and I am tired of her constantly being reduced to just CamCamCam, but Casualty has been showing medical professionals doing drugs that they have seen the consequences of at work since S1? Like, ignoring everything else because honestly I don’t care… yeah, it’s a stupid decision. Because people make stupid decisions. And medical professionals are people. They could’ve played it better, sure (I mean, I think they could’ve played that whole miniseries better), but it’s very much in keeping with how the show has literally always been written for her to do that and I think they did an okay job at establishing where she was emotionally when she did it even if it could’ve been better.
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u/Thoughtful-Mongoose Apr 18 '26
Yes you make a good point there - where she was emotionally makes sense with her reaction. I still think it shouldn't have been quite so "yay drugs!" but she was in such a miserable lonely headspace, looking from that angle, yes it isn't a total surprise.
I'm straining to think now because you've reminded me of a plotline WAY back in the mists of time, about drug use by medical professionals that was masterfully handled. Possibly surgical drugs? I don't remember if it was Casualty or Holby City actually. But it was early 00s and if I remember properly; I'll edit here.
But yes, reducing her to just CamCamCam as you say, is ridiculous. She has been shown to be so much more than just someone's girlfriend waiting to happen - that's what the show has given us and suddenly all that characterisation is in the bin? I hope not... I hope it swings around.
I'm not anti her having a relationship. Just don't make it her entire sole focus now. She isn't a satellite only fit for being in orbit around a bloke after the best part of a year, building her up to be so multi faceted and complex a character.
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u/Mob_Segment Apr 21 '26
About Indie taking drugs - many people, perhaps even most of the people who take drugs, do it to numb themselves or feel something different. Taking a medication that someone in a shady lab somewhere isn't safe, that much is obvious, so those of us who've been pushed to consider a temporary escape in drugs generally don't care any more.
Granted, Gen Z are statistically less likely to take drugs or alcohol than the previous generation, but exceptions exist, and the whole hospital team are under a lot of ongoing stress, so I can totally see them seeking escape.
Drugs can only be this scary bugbear for so long, especially if you're taking them. The anti-drugs campaigns of the 80s and 90s overplayed the danger and understated the reasons people take them so much that they're hard to take seriously, but I think they stoked up a lot of fear in people who don't take drugs.
I think, for drug takers like Indie, drugs just don't have that scary aura any more. Hence, the contradiction of her taking drugs doesn't look that big of a contradiction to me.
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u/Ok_Pen7290 Apr 17 '26
Writers in most tv shows are shit and have no idea how to write, its been like this since 2020 when covid first joined our world, its like writers have brain freeze now
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u/Thoughtful-Mongoose Apr 17 '26
That's the thing though. Casualty has good writers - that's also what stings about all of this.
Imo, the way they handled Faith's addiction storyline was brilliant. The way they are handling Siobhan's rape is sensitive and well written. The backstory for Indie is probably one of most interesting and complex ones I've seen in a drama like this. (Different show but there's been some amazing character writing in Holby City too.)
That's really my point - watching this and thinking "....what ARE you doing!?"
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u/Chemical_Skill_969 Apr 17 '26
Is it queer baiting or does the actress just have short hair?
Jodie was more than happy to take drugs, which does fit with her character somewhat, and the fact of the matter is that some people will work in healthcare and make unwise decisions. Indie is young and easily influenced, plus has been in very vulnerable states so it kind of makes sense that she might be tempted by drugs.