katiefoolery: (Default)
My Week of Organisation has begun! Well, technically it began yesterday, but I'm hoping to continue the trend. Yesterday wasn't too bad, considering I actually remembered to post a prompt word at the ficlet comm for the first time in weeks. So if you have a spare fifteen minutes and you feel like writing a ficlet based on a random word, head over to [community profile] 15_minute_fic and go nuts. :D

And now, to move on to the subject of today's post.

You know what I like? You'll never guess, so I'll take pity on you and tell you. I like watching TV shows from the sixties. This usually happens when I go for my run; generally, I'll have the news on, but if I'm running at a different time, for whatever reason, it'll be old TV shows instead. My favourites?

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Bewitched,

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Get Smart,

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and I Dream of Jeannie.

There's a semi-interesting link between those TV shows, if you think about it: they all feature a female character with all of the power who is obliged to sublimate that power (or the appearance of it) due to societal constraints.

...and that's my pretentious literary posturing out of the way for the day.

There's something about them, though. Something about the way they're written. Something about the characters they created and the way the actors approached the roles... but mostly the way they're written. I don't want to dismiss today's TV shows, because a lot of good writing still goes on.

And a lot doesn't...

But there was a different attitude towards these shows. After all, they didn't have half a century of television and established traditions behind them. They only had new ground to break, instead of deeply ingrained standards to challenge. Also, they remind me of being little and spending evenings at my grandparents' place with cheese and biscuits, which is never a bad thing.

And like any not-bad thing, they lead to stories happening in my head. Take the other night, when I saw the first five minutes of a Bewitched episode in which Samantha comes out of the kitchen to discover that Darren's gone missing and her mother isn't to blame for once. Five minutes of a pretty standard episode, except now I have a story in my head in which husbands are replaced with clocks and there may or may not be a plague of some sort.

(The plague has nothing to do with Bewitched and everything to do with the incredibly addictive book I just finished reading. More on that at some later point.)

We could also take an episode of I Dream of Jeannie from the other night, which featured a music video (for some reason...) that made me want to call for child services. But we won't because it's not quite as interesting, story-wise.

I suppose it's possible to find inspiration anywhere, but it's always a plus if it comes with bonus nostalgia and memories of cheese and biscuits.
katiefoolery: (Olivier is peerless)
TV made me miserable.

Well, actually, that’s not entirely true.  I made myself miserable.  And this stupid headache is certainly being very generous in the misery-creation department.  But TV made it worse.

Stupid TV.  I knew there was a reason we split up in the first place.  (Nobody tell the internet that I’ve been cheating on it with my ex, OK?  It’ll find out eventually, I guess.  I just don’t want to be sitting there, innocently watching the news on my ex, only to have the internet storm in and look shocked and appalled at the whole situation.  That’d be rather tricky.  I’d just have to hope we could wait until an ad break to sort it out.)

But I had a point.  Didn’t I?

Oh yes - TV and its role in making me miserable.  There I was, innocently lying on the couch, angsting a little (OK, a lot), when TV serves up an episode of introspection and self-evaluation and people drinking a lot and not brushing their hair... for some reason.  Or maybe it was just incredibly windy out - I really can’t say.

And then, after forty-five minutes or so of people really getting their teeth into some gritty character acting... one of them goes and dies.  Said death is swiftly followed by one last chance for some of the aforementioned gritty character acting, then credits.

And me, sitting on the couch, torn between angsty misery and futile anger at the whole concept of TV and the dramas broadcast thereon.

Don’t you hate that when it happens, though?  You try and watch TV to have some fun or escape from the angsty rubbish in your head, and then it goes and makes it worse.

April 2011

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