Lately I’ve realized that everything, and anything, is under fire all the time. I, myself, like to speculate on movies, TV shows, and other pieces of media a lot… and, trust me, I can have some pretty strong opinions.
It’s just tiring though, to think about it all the time. I don’t even like talking about it anymore. My thoughts on the matter really came to a culmination when I saw like the 130th article on why _____ (character) was actually the worst on _____ (TV show). For example: “Why Phoebe was actually the worst friend on Friends.”
Now I’m not a huge fan of Phoebe, actually she’s my least favorite friend, but it’s honestly like… who cares? Who cares that so and so is “the worst” on a show that aired almost 20 years ago. It’s just constant, the pointing out of imperfection in everything. Actually, I’ve seen articles on every single friend being “the worst friend”. Really?
I’m not saying some things don’t deserve criticism… some things are terrible and absolutely deserve it. Like Cats. But let’s talk about it then be done with it. Cats happened. It was awful. Now it’s over. Great, now we can be done.
For instance, I really like CinemaSins, the YouTube channel where they tally up how many “sins” a movie has just by looking at what’s wrong with it. I love them, I think they’re hilarious, but even the best movies are full of “sins”. The bad part is that the channel, CinemaSins, is actually right. There really are that many things wrong with those movies. I had a friend who told me it was exhausting to watch their videos after a while and, it took me a couple years to agree, but she was right. It is exhausting to hate everything all the time.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to purposely search out forums on the internet to argue about theories with people and get yourself so worked up about each little thing in a show or movie or book. And this is coming from me, a huge fan of those things. There’s a time to let it go. It’s not your whole life.
I’m not exactly the one to preach on this given my previous posts, but whatever it is, a TV show, a movie, a book, it really is just a TV show, a movie, a book. The characters aren’t realistic because they’re not real people. I maintain that the media we consume can give us false impressions and can negatively affect the way we think, but at the end of the day, it’s the 2D reality, not the 3D reality. And you can always shut it off. Though, really, who would shut off Friends?