I know it’s horrendously uncool to admit this but I’m a big girl and I confess my flaws: I don’t hate TV. At least, not that much. I do hate a lot of it but at any given point in my life, there have always been one or two shows that I loved. For the most part, I would go ahead and say that anything (TV definitely included) that makes you turn off most of your brain and live someone else’s life for an hour is something to be avoided.
Call me crazy, but I’m a fan of keeping my brain turned on. That said, the neat and completely unrealistic formulaic nature of TV shows can be a good influence and a mean misguide: you can easily see a simplified version of the kind of problems we all face regularly, but you can also be lead down the path of thinking too simply about complicated real-life issues.
Taking everything from the boob tube with a grain of salt, here are some of the best and worst things we’ve been told by the mighty talking box:
Best – All you need are your friends
Whether you’ve just had your heart broken, a parent dies, you lose your job, you get a hangnail…whatever the crises, it’s never too big nor too small to be solved by the comfort and unwavering camaraderie of your pals. This will never stop being true.
Worst – The bad guy can still be Mr. Right
Even if your friends, family, doorman and dog all hate the guy you’re involved with, you shouldn’t let it make you think twice. Just blindly defend him and eventually, everyone in your life will come around and see him as the amazing but misunderstood boy-wonder you know he is.
Who cares if he’s emotionally stunted, untrustworthy and a complete deadbeat commitment-phobe? That’s not who he is on the inside, right? And he’ll change. They always change and turn into the perfect man. So just keep holding out, sister. Standards are for quitters.
Best – Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Inoperable tumor?! Impossible political campaign of the underdog?! I think not! In the magical land of 2-D, anything is possible. And while only a really weird kind of idiot would believe that you’re going to win every battle in real life, there’s nothing wrong with approaching every situation with the kind of brazen, can’t-lose, I-can-do-anything attitude that most people need a script to pull off. Like I said, it doesn’t mean you win every time, but it severely increases your chances.
Worst – Things don’t really cost money
This is official notification of my intentions to sue NBC for leading me to believe that if I am a lower-level corporate lackey, out-of-work actor, waitress or aspiring singer-songwriter, I will still be able to afford a lavishly decorated NYC apartment and have time to sit around and stress about my love life.
All the time. While drinking coffee. Which also apparently doesn’t cost anything. I hate you, NBC, you misleader of the innocent and wide-eyed! Okay, I’ll stop with the harshness. But seriously…that was kind of a mean show in that way.
