Aspect Analysis – House M.D.: Rethinking Cameron

When I finally watched House a while back and gave it a review, one of the things I was most critical of was Cameron. Like many viewers it seemed, I found her a bit too preachy and hypocritical to be able to get behind. I ended up re-watching some of the earlier episodes again recently, and I think now that was kind of the point. Past the first season I think she overstayed her welcome, at least for fulfilling this role, but that first season I think she is actually what kept the show from feeling preachy.

On one end of the extreme, you have a house, an element that entirely disregards the order of everything around him to achieve his end. While he is often shown to be right, this is the way the show uses House to justify his disregard for the rules, there is his team as well as Cuddy that holds back his insanity from killing everyone.

On the other extreme, you have Cameron. While House disregards the rules blatantly, Cameron clings to them as her justification. It doesn't take long to start to piece together Cameron often uses her moral hangups more as an excuse for not acting or simply feeling morally sound rather than being that way. To a degree, this is exactly why people hate her, but I think it serves to highlight something House M.D. was always trying to do, showcase things are complicated. Pretty much everything is grey. Were House himself the only extreme being shown, I think the show would have risked feeling like it was getting a bit too preachy. And if the only other extreme you had was from the administrative end of a hospital, I think it would start to feel hollow. Especially since Cuddy herself puts a lot of faith and trust in House, more than what you would expect from a stereotypical bureaucracy. The very premise of House kind of kills that as an option.

So yeah, at least for the first season, I appreciate the presence of Cameron a lot more than I did on the first watch. The very thing that seems to turn people off of her helps to give the show a kind of grounding it wouldn't otherwise have had.