While chatting on the phone with a friend – and fellow television enthusiast– I made a very bold statement when he asked if I had watched Orange is the New Black.
“No. I don’t plan to watch it. I’m rather over television at the moment,” I said.
“WHOA! What?” was his startled reply.
I added, “Well, new television. Except for Undateable. That show is pretty entertaining.”
He was shocked because my friends know how much of a TV junkie I am. There were times while I was busy with grad school and teaching when I would wake up at 5 a.m. just to catch up on all my shows. I do have limits. I don’t allow television to run my life. Okay, let me backtrack for a minute. Somewhere around 2000, my friend Melissa set me up on blind date with some guy in the Navy who was friends with her husband. Upon meeting him at Applebees, I was immediately unimpressed. As my date with guy whose name wasn't important enough for me to recall went on, I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t set Sex and the City to record – yes, on a VCR. For some reason, we were on a Sunday night date – which only works to make the date even more annoying. Long story short, I ditched him to go home and watch Sex and the City. The show proved to be more interesting than he probably ever would have been.
Let’s come back to present day. I hadn’t realized I had made the decision to drastically cut back on television until I actually said it aloud. The conversation with my friend evolved into a pursuit to understand what I was thinking. For him, it was a curiosity because I’ve always defended my TV junkie habit and touted my well-rounded mind. But for me, it was a tedious quest because I have more important things to do. Nevertheless, it ended up being a fairly short journey. I think I knew what it was all along. And I was able to pinpoint the shift in my feelings to the end of May – the almost end of Mad Men forever.
As my mind silently traced my feelings back to Mad Men, I proceeded to say the second thing that would baffle him during that conversation, “I think it’s Mad Men ending. When the season finale aired weeks ago, I felt sad because I knew we only had a handful of episodes left when it comes back. It’s like ending things with someone you love or really like. When it ends and brings you pain, you want to close yourself off from ever feeling that kind of loss again, so you stop putting yourself into those types of situations. You live more cautiously. I guess I don’t want to like another show right now because they all have to end sometime. All I know, for now, is that I’m done.”
I should have known better than to use that analogy with this particular friend. He’s never been in love. Relationships crumble all around him very often, and he rarely bats an eye. He also doesn’t particularly care for Mad Men because he thinks it’s too slow and doesn’t care for “period” tv. He is one of those people who pisses on things that are too popular IF he didn’t discover it from the start. Mad Men wins awards and your show doesn’t? BFD. That happens all the time. Quit raining on my Sunday nights with your unsolicited opinion. Live and let live. Shows come and go. Some actors and shows are exceptional and they sweep all the award shows for a while. I don’t recall people asking other hit shows to put the genie back in the bottle. Awards are bullshit anyway. Yes, Kelsey Grammer won numerous times for his role as Dr. Frasier Crane, but he wasn’t any worse of an actor during the years he didn’t win. To me, he was always incredible - even during those years that his hair was atrocious. Like Mad Men, Frasier is a thinking-person’s show. (I almost just said “thinking-MAN"). That being said, I never had to defend Frasier as I have defended Man Men to some people.
My friend didn’t come right out and say it, but I could tell that he thought I was being utterly ridiculous. Silence speaks volumes. He just let me talk and talk, and I knew he was silently judging me. I think he gave a non-committal “I guess” once and allowed me to continue to rant before he used a diversional tactic and got me talking about Christina Hendrick’s boobs. Like my friend, I’m sure people will read this and roll their eyes because television is nothing like things you feel with the heart. How can it be? What a stupid blog.
If I didn’t have tons of other things in my life, I might be embarrassed to share these very real feelings and ideas…and maybe not. I don’t think analogizing love and Mad Men - or anything you have given years of your life to - is uncommon. Perhaps it takes a certain kind of person to understand how the feelings can tie together. This love affair with television shows and their characters doesn’t end with that genre. The same happens with books and the characters in them – even moreso because it takes real effort to commit to reading a book and getting to know your characters. Perhaps the complex journey that comes with stories in books is why so many people opt out of ever reading at all.
If you have ever binge-watched something on Netflix for days and days with minimal breaks, perhaps you can understand what I’m saying here. Now imagine you didn't binge but devoted YEARS of your life to watching something. If you’ve ever decided to start and finish a newly released and highly popular book before having any contact with the outside world because you fear spoilers, then you also know what I’m saying here. I did that very thing with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and felt empty when it was over. I wasn’t empty because the story was unsatisfying. I was empty because I had given so many years of my life to the story and its characters. Although I only slightly liked Breaking Bad after I binge-watched it, damn it, I missed Jesse Pinkman when it was over. Why? Because he reminded me of a normal kid who might have been my student. Someone who was lost and seeking guidance. Someone who was crapped on by adults and by the world. If you have any imagination at all, you start to identify with characters. If you are a heartless robot, you will roll your eyes at me right now – maybe for the fourth or fifth time.
Why am I wasting time making silly comparisions about television and loves lost, and why do I have to WRITE about it? I like to write. Writing frees me from the torture that is my mind. It doesn’t even have to be good, polished writing - as this clearly isn’t either and won’t be once I hit submit. We all need a little word vomit sometimes. Just get that shit out on the page and free yourself from all the thoughts, insecurities, explosions and whatever else lurks in the shadows of the mind. Writing is everything because it lets you see into someone's thoughts at your own pace and is exciting with every new sentence. You can revisit writing any time you want. Some things you read will capture your attention and other things will be forgotten once the last letter passes your eye-line.
Like writing, television is subjective. And, more than anything else, good television is about the writing. Since Mad Men premiered in 2007, I have maintained that it is one of the smartest written dramas I have ever seen. I get that everyone has a preference and opinion. This is mine. I wish I had gobs of time to devote to dissecting all the ways in which Mad Men can be merged with theory. I would be all over that if I had a desire to publish for academia. I don’t have that desire. I don’t seek approval from any ivory tower. I simply want to empty my mind. Stream of consciousness has always worked for me.
Tonight, Californication ended. Mad Men and Californication are on my top five favorite current shows…not so current anymore, I suppose. Maybe these parts of my entertainment make me realize some things about my actual life. I’m in such a different place than I was when these shows began. And as your world changes around you, so does your world view and your interpretation of things. Are my circumstances any better? Are they worse? Have they not changed one iota? I guess it depends on who you ask. Nevertheless, the passage of time is front, center, and in my face. And though some consider me to be one of the heartless robots I describe above, when I lose something that I like, I feel it in spades. Here is my therapy.
No comments:
Post a Comment