Saturday night is red wine, low fat rice snack, (the healthy alternative to chips, even though I prefer chips, they make me fat,) and movie night. And around eleven o'clock, when everything all looks a little bit Frank Gallagher blurry, the pinnacle of the night's excitement, (we do have a baby you know, if you think it should be other things,) is Shameless.
We LOVE LOVE LOVE Shameless.
Maybe it's got something to do with the quirky, dysfunctionally obscure characters and their quirky, dysfunctionally obscure relationships and lifestyles. Maybe it's got to do with the fact that all those people live the next suburb down from me. The suburb I lived in in my twenties as a young married born-again Christian, just fresh out from a mentally disturbing experience with, you know, all those things late teens/early twenties people think are cool to do. Then I found God, as you're apt to when the only choice left is between God or the psyche ward of the local hospital. God damn, I even used to try and evangelise those people!
Maybe it's the way the show vacillates between utter hilarity and heartbreaking tragedy with such precise execution of the script, without ever falling into bland sentimentality. And isn't that just like real life? No one's life is a constant. We all find ourselves propelled suddenly and with shocking violence from one to the other at times. Oh the joy of revelling in someone else's dysfunctional lifestyle.
So all those critics of dysfunctional family drama, (I'm talking to you Dr Phil and Rabbi Shmuley,) pull your heads in I say. Shit, life is short, not nearly long enough for every man, woman and child world-wide to discover self-enlightenment and find Shalom in the Home. Can't we just take a little comfort from the fact that we aren't alone in our sordid, fallible human imperfections? I'm sick to death of the New Puritans. Yeah we need to help each other out sometimes, yeah we all desire to strive for those ideals that offer us a better familial, harmonious way of life, and yeah Dr Phil and Rabbi Shumley have tools to offer us in that quest, but let's not get too fundamental here.
Because in the end Dr Phil, what you offer is not just psychological well-being, but in the context of television, you also offer us another consummer commodity. Wholeness. The New Puritans are forever telling us the right things to eat, why we shouldn't smoke, how bad alcohol is for us,(especially when pregnant, but go tell the French that.) This week red meat causes cancer, next month they'll tell us red meat is good for us, in moderation, and that it's chicken pumped with steroids that's bad for us. The New Puritans are busy banning smoking in pubs. They're busy scaring us with television exposure to the new epidemic of crystal meth. The New Puritans are busy scaring us off anything that might kill us, they're even waging war on old age. They're busy fixing all our psychological pains and imperfections so we're happy and industrious. And if the New Puritans have their way, we'll all be shining, almost immortally healthy epitomes, of perfect little corporate worker ants.
Oh little New Puritans, how cute you are in all your American optimism. How truly sincere and compassionate your well meaning little hearts are. We do appreciate you New Puritans. I for one can honestly say that my life has changed for the better from the gleaning of some of your wisdom. I moved out of that Shameless suburb down the road, and now only drink wine in moderation, and don't throw plates at my new boyfriend (as much as I did with my last husband,) and my family's almost normal. (A statement which could almost set off a whole new debate.) But New Puritans, we don't live on the front cover of a cereal box. And you don't have to be afraid that watching a few dysfunctional families on television will glorify the agonising pain of real life relationship problems. And it's ok, we all know that real life families with dads like Frank Gallagher, never actually produce such well balanced children. Please, we're not total idiots!
So tonight, I'm going to give you all the bird, and settle down with a big sigh of relief as the nutcases of Chatsworth Estate grace my screen with their refreshing imperfect humanity, and I'm going to say to myself as I watch them, "thank fucking God for the Gallaghers." And I'll eat my low fat rice snacks instead of my chips, and stay thin and healthy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hi Melissa
The website is looking good. How does it feel posting largely to the void so far? Will it feel different when you start getting responses? Do you think Dr Phil should address the issue of posting to the void?
I saw the documentary by Chihinaz and like you I was amazed by her courage, curiousity and determination. Why has the internet not done more for women? Perhaps it's because it's already been colonised by men.
Cheers
Kitty
Hi Kitty,
Well I'm not so much in the void anymore. I've shown up in Google without me first having added my URL to their index. Hopefully that means someone is reading, though there is not enough attention to warrant responses. The funny thing is that in many ways I actually write for the 'void' or for myself more than for anyone else. Attention often also brings with it harsh criticism and analysis and I like just plodding away in my own little world talking to my imaginary audience. Having said that, I'm also trying to find minds out there in the void who are interested in the same things I am discussing here.
Interesting you mention Dr Phil and the void. Dr Phil has a website of his own where people all discuss issues of psychology and the contents of his show and their own lives with each other. It's among the hundreds of websites I've signed up to join yet forget I belong to. You reminded me. For all that discussing and the thousands of people that use his website, if you ask me Dr Phil is still somewhere in the void out there. The upper middle-class void of everyday America.
But I think you're right surmising that men have already colonised the internet, still there's no reason there can't be a revolution. And I think up to date, in many ways the internet can be a microcosm of the real world, because each person who sits down in front of their computer and interacts in cyber space brings with them all who they already are, want to be and all their preconcieved notions of themselves in society and the society that surrounds them. It's hard to break free from the reality that is not just around us or in cyber space, but that exists within our own minds.
Post a Comment