I have my fan girl moments. I’m not going to lie. But there are a lot of things I hate when it comes to a TV show I adore.
I must first explain some things before you all rationally or irrationally point out that I’m contradictive and probably playing on both sides of the fence in order so I can have my cake and eat it too. Oh I do love cake. Especially chocolate cake that isn’t too sweet or overwhelming, but I digress…
TV/movies/books have always served as some sort of cathartic therapy for me. I form a sometimes-unhealthy relationship with a TV show & its characters because I love psychology and people watching. I like to speculate and hypothesize what makes a person do the things they do. Consequently enough that stemmed out of trying to figure myself out in high school and then again in college and when I was working and when I wasn’t. Self-serving/self-centered, whatever you want to call it, I’m just trying to explain the best I can. So more often than not I pull a huge chunk or a small morsel of what I just watched and relate it to my own life or further analyze it - to I don’t want to say rationalize it but it in a sense it is - to the character and how they could make such a choice. I particularly love to do that when it seems out of character or when it seems to come flying out of nowhere. That’s cathartic enough but I tend to take it one step further at times by getting so wrapped into these shows I live vicariously through them and sometimes make decisions in life because of the things I’ve witnessed and pulled away from them in this completely unhealthy psychotic process that I can’t seem to stop.
Okay, let me get further contradictory and tell you things I don’t particularly like when it comes to surfing the net in regards to my beloved shows.
I hate spoilers. I used to avoid them at all cost. I wouldn’t read Soap Opera Digest until I knew the episodes featured in the magazine had already aired. The same goes for TV Guide, ET or any other similar magazine and TV show. Sometimes I even hated seeing the teasers for the next week’s episode. Then I got sucked into things like Ask Ausiello a few years back. However, it didn’t take long for me to realize I no longer enjoyed watching my TV shows because I knew what was happening way before the episode even aired. I wasn’t surprised by anything. It was no longer an escape from daily life. It was unbelievably boring. It was the hugest waste of time. So, I quickly gave up the AA habit and went straight to avoiding spoilers at all cost again. It’s the only way I could continue watching my shows and actually caring about what happens in this fictional world that I came to adore in the first place.
I get weirded out by over zealous fandoms. I understand the love one feels for these characters, their coupling, their personality, or what-have-you, but it is the ones that become so impassioned that voicing an opinion that differs from the collective whole is what is scary. They get angry. They get mean. They go to defense mode and scream ‘how dare you’. Whether it is at TPTB, another fan base, or a newbie to the show as a whole. Or try to play devils advocate in hopes that maybe they will be able to look at the situation in a different light and with a different perspective be able to get past it and see how the current situation could eventually play out. That is usually the reason I don’t dive too far into discussion sections of any particular forum. And I never voice my opinion in them if I do venture in. I end up reading a few sentences and quickly hit the back button or command-q or alt-f-x for you non-Mac users when things get too heavy too quick.
Continuing on this trend I don’t like actor bashing or character bashing. Take for instance the lovely Sarah Brown, Claudia Zacchara, on General Hospital. TPTB have bounced her character all over the map that you can’t really figure out who she is. You don’t know whether she is good or bad. You don’t know if you are supposed to empathize with her character. But the thing is I mostly believe Claudia doesn’t know who she is either. That’s part of the personality. She is just trying to survive in this mob world that she born into and way she can. That is what she has been doing all her life. Thus, it makes her one of the most infuriating and annoying characters on the show. But everyday Brown comes to work and knocks her scenes out of the park. I mean she has little to no control of her character and how they write her. So why go on bashing Brown or Claudia? And for that matters TPTB. Why not constructively criticize? Didn’t your mother teach you if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all? Don’t get me wrong I understand your frustrations. But this is TV. In particular this is a Soap Opera, which has no rules what so ever. History can be re-written. People can come back from the dead. SORAS’ing occurs almost on a daily basis. Marriages and divorces happen quicker than we can change the channel. Its just part of the genre. And by the way no one’s life is perfect. Not in TV and certainly not in the real world. Things happen. Life happens. There are plenty of things you have no control over. Just a thought.
And lastly I hate the ‘that character would never do that’ speech. I’ve fallen victim to this impassioned rage before. When Maggie cheated on Bianca on All My Children. I couldn’t believe it. Maggie had never cheated before, why would she cheat on Bianca? Especially now when they were finally building a life together? I wanted Bianca to have her happiness more than anything and I believed part of her happiness resided within Maggie. But the thing is, people cheat and sometimes it is the person you least likely expect to cheat that will. Unfortunately that’s the way life is sometimes. Thus, it didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that one can never truly know oneself. Psych lovingness off to rear its ugly head? I mean I’m constantly discovering new things about myself. And even if you do have a good sense of who you are you can’t know how you are going to react to every situation you come across in life. There are many situations and factors that come into play into any given circumstance. You may believe adamantly against violence in any situation, but when you are defending yourself or a loved one, pulling that trigger or grabbing that knife, pipe or whatever isn’t so hard. Probably not the best example, but I think it proves my point. Not to mention, people continuously grow, learn and adapt. I mean, more likely than not, you are not the same person you were ten years ago or even the same person you were five years ago. And just maybe not even the same person you were yesterday. There is also a good chance you will be a different person twenty years from now.
So why am I telling you all this? Cause I’m working on a project; a mighty big project. Something I really haven’t done before. Some things it will feature I have done before, but I’m also combining them with other things in order to create something new. In explaining how I feel about my fan girl-ness I hoped to shed some light on where I will becoming from in the future. I hope you like it. If you don’t, I really don’t care. I’m mostly doing this for myself: to have some fun, explore new things that have crossed my path, continue learning, and to put that degree I have in Literary Journalism to use.
oh and btw, i dislike editing. you are bound to run into spelling errors, typos, fragments & run-on sentences. passive voice, verb agreement issues and confusing word order. so be nice and don't grammar police me to death... in other words grammar & its rules be damned!
I must first explain some things before you all rationally or irrationally point out that I’m contradictive and probably playing on both sides of the fence in order so I can have my cake and eat it too. Oh I do love cake. Especially chocolate cake that isn’t too sweet or overwhelming, but I digress…
TV/movies/books have always served as some sort of cathartic therapy for me. I form a sometimes-unhealthy relationship with a TV show & its characters because I love psychology and people watching. I like to speculate and hypothesize what makes a person do the things they do. Consequently enough that stemmed out of trying to figure myself out in high school and then again in college and when I was working and when I wasn’t. Self-serving/self-centered, whatever you want to call it, I’m just trying to explain the best I can. So more often than not I pull a huge chunk or a small morsel of what I just watched and relate it to my own life or further analyze it - to I don’t want to say rationalize it but it in a sense it is - to the character and how they could make such a choice. I particularly love to do that when it seems out of character or when it seems to come flying out of nowhere. That’s cathartic enough but I tend to take it one step further at times by getting so wrapped into these shows I live vicariously through them and sometimes make decisions in life because of the things I’ve witnessed and pulled away from them in this completely unhealthy psychotic process that I can’t seem to stop.
Okay, let me get further contradictory and tell you things I don’t particularly like when it comes to surfing the net in regards to my beloved shows.
I hate spoilers. I used to avoid them at all cost. I wouldn’t read Soap Opera Digest until I knew the episodes featured in the magazine had already aired. The same goes for TV Guide, ET or any other similar magazine and TV show. Sometimes I even hated seeing the teasers for the next week’s episode. Then I got sucked into things like Ask Ausiello a few years back. However, it didn’t take long for me to realize I no longer enjoyed watching my TV shows because I knew what was happening way before the episode even aired. I wasn’t surprised by anything. It was no longer an escape from daily life. It was unbelievably boring. It was the hugest waste of time. So, I quickly gave up the AA habit and went straight to avoiding spoilers at all cost again. It’s the only way I could continue watching my shows and actually caring about what happens in this fictional world that I came to adore in the first place.
I get weirded out by over zealous fandoms. I understand the love one feels for these characters, their coupling, their personality, or what-have-you, but it is the ones that become so impassioned that voicing an opinion that differs from the collective whole is what is scary. They get angry. They get mean. They go to defense mode and scream ‘how dare you’. Whether it is at TPTB, another fan base, or a newbie to the show as a whole. Or try to play devils advocate in hopes that maybe they will be able to look at the situation in a different light and with a different perspective be able to get past it and see how the current situation could eventually play out. That is usually the reason I don’t dive too far into discussion sections of any particular forum. And I never voice my opinion in them if I do venture in. I end up reading a few sentences and quickly hit the back button or command-q or alt-f-x for you non-Mac users when things get too heavy too quick.
Continuing on this trend I don’t like actor bashing or character bashing. Take for instance the lovely Sarah Brown, Claudia Zacchara, on General Hospital. TPTB have bounced her character all over the map that you can’t really figure out who she is. You don’t know whether she is good or bad. You don’t know if you are supposed to empathize with her character. But the thing is I mostly believe Claudia doesn’t know who she is either. That’s part of the personality. She is just trying to survive in this mob world that she born into and way she can. That is what she has been doing all her life. Thus, it makes her one of the most infuriating and annoying characters on the show. But everyday Brown comes to work and knocks her scenes out of the park. I mean she has little to no control of her character and how they write her. So why go on bashing Brown or Claudia? And for that matters TPTB. Why not constructively criticize? Didn’t your mother teach you if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all? Don’t get me wrong I understand your frustrations. But this is TV. In particular this is a Soap Opera, which has no rules what so ever. History can be re-written. People can come back from the dead. SORAS’ing occurs almost on a daily basis. Marriages and divorces happen quicker than we can change the channel. Its just part of the genre. And by the way no one’s life is perfect. Not in TV and certainly not in the real world. Things happen. Life happens. There are plenty of things you have no control over. Just a thought.
And lastly I hate the ‘that character would never do that’ speech. I’ve fallen victim to this impassioned rage before. When Maggie cheated on Bianca on All My Children. I couldn’t believe it. Maggie had never cheated before, why would she cheat on Bianca? Especially now when they were finally building a life together? I wanted Bianca to have her happiness more than anything and I believed part of her happiness resided within Maggie. But the thing is, people cheat and sometimes it is the person you least likely expect to cheat that will. Unfortunately that’s the way life is sometimes. Thus, it didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that one can never truly know oneself. Psych lovingness off to rear its ugly head? I mean I’m constantly discovering new things about myself. And even if you do have a good sense of who you are you can’t know how you are going to react to every situation you come across in life. There are many situations and factors that come into play into any given circumstance. You may believe adamantly against violence in any situation, but when you are defending yourself or a loved one, pulling that trigger or grabbing that knife, pipe or whatever isn’t so hard. Probably not the best example, but I think it proves my point. Not to mention, people continuously grow, learn and adapt. I mean, more likely than not, you are not the same person you were ten years ago or even the same person you were five years ago. And just maybe not even the same person you were yesterday. There is also a good chance you will be a different person twenty years from now.
So why am I telling you all this? Cause I’m working on a project; a mighty big project. Something I really haven’t done before. Some things it will feature I have done before, but I’m also combining them with other things in order to create something new. In explaining how I feel about my fan girl-ness I hoped to shed some light on where I will becoming from in the future. I hope you like it. If you don’t, I really don’t care. I’m mostly doing this for myself: to have some fun, explore new things that have crossed my path, continue learning, and to put that degree I have in Literary Journalism to use.
oh and btw, i dislike editing. you are bound to run into spelling errors, typos, fragments & run-on sentences. passive voice, verb agreement issues and confusing word order. so be nice and don't grammar police me to death... in other words grammar & its rules be damned!
