Let's be honest.
We're all a little obsessive.
Some of us understand obsession is a necessary means to an end. When used correctly, it acts as drive, ambition, and becomes the vision of the prize that keeps us working hard toward our dreams and aspirations. Without a little hint of obsession, we'd all be hummingbirds, zipping about never getting much accomplished.
There are others, however, who fall into the pit of obsession like an olympic diver.
We make a bunch of distracting arabesques and then slip silently into its depths with hardly a splash. In fact, we're so efficient, if you turn your head at the right moment, you'll miss our descent altogether and then wonder at how we can show up to the gatorade stand soaking wet.
I belong to that class of people mentioned in the latter paragraph.
I love a good obsession. When young, I equated obsession with passion, love, magic, creativity, and everything else good that I had no idea how to get hold onto.
As I got older, I realized it wasn't necessarily my friend, and for every extra mile it helped me run, paper it helped me finish, story it helped me conclude, or adventure it drove me to pursue, there was a number of nights I forfeited sleep and a decent meal; afternoons spent sobbing as I compared my progress to that of others in completely different circumstances of my own; events I should have enjoyed but instead spent fretting because I wasn't getting to do the thing I was obsessed with.
Since my child was born almost a year ago, I have had truck with a couple of obsessions.
Of course, I am obsessed with my baby. He's the best, so obviously, but there were also little side obsessions and those were and are how I keep my little brain buzzing during nightfeeds and teething tantrums.
I became obsessed with baking blogs: No surprise here. Once I went gluten free for the baby, I had to figure out how to sustain my muffin devotion (answer: creatively). I also liked the free wheat porn. Many a night I have had dreams of slow motion pizza slices and seductive donut burlesque.
I became obsessed with The Gilmore Girls: This may surprise no new mothers, but with a newborn/baby, I could not watch a movie or a television show that required any kind of attention span. I couldn't keep track of plot development, I never picked up on subtleties, nuances were lost on me, oscar worth performances went before my blurring eyes, and I began to hate everything on netflix. Stranger Things? Couldn't stand it. Why? Because it required attention, and I had none. All I could focus on was Winona Ryder's awful haircut and a strange new desire for eggo waffles. How I Met Your Mother, too noisy. No matter how low I had the volume, the jarring theme music woke up the sleeping baby, and I just couldn't risk it. Finally, one dismal midnight, I tried out the fast talking cutesy show set in Connecticut, and I HATED IT. Oh my goooooood how I hated it. The characters were so archetypical as to be insulting. The plots were transparent and boring. The relationships unrealistic, not to mention every single character is a variation of the exact same person. They all speak in the same vocabulary, cadence, and with the same over-educated sly referencing pretention, whether they were high school drop outs, octogenarians, blue collar workers, or societies elite, nobody had a distinguishing style.
At first, my hatred kept me going back, waiting for the show to reveal its "magic" the reason it became so phenomenally successful, but it never came. If nothing else, it got more boring as seasons continued constantly rehashing the same storylines and romantic interests. Then, one night, as I stuck a nip in the babe's face, I clicked on the show's episodes, and as it loaded, I saw i had somehow gotten all the way to the third season.
How had I watched forty odd episodes of something when I hated it, and more importantly, why couldn't I remember anything that had happened in them?
That's when it hit me, I could ignore it, and I didn't miss anything.
I could doze off while the baby nursed, blank out for fifteen minutes while I mentally composed the reasons Bastian could possibly be screaming so much. I could miss entire scenes, chunks of dialogue, and it never mattered.
I didn't care, and it was beautifully liberating.
I thought I was going to write a blog about how much the show is a giant, flagrant indication of everything wrong with our generation's white feminist movement: it's superficial, selfish, judgmental, and privileged. It purports itself to be for everyone when in reality it is very specifically designed for one demographic and its chardonnay swilling hoards.
Then I realized, it's not who watches the show and likes it, it's WHY they like it.
When I am capable of paying attention, I enjoy watching this version of a New England town the way I think people attend Disney's Epcot, knowing it's an utter forgery, that the characters are buffoons and caricatures (not to mention insulting stereotypes), and still taking a moment to marvel at the dedication to the flawed vision, not to mention pitying the ludicrousness of the facade that must be maintained.
I fear more for the show's devotees who love it in earnest. Who say they are "such a Rory" or some poor guy they know is "a total Dean." It makes me want to remind people that just because you are watching something does not mean you have to accept it's message.
In fact, as an independently thinking individual, it's important to engage with media (especially fictional media) with a shrewd and analytical mind. I'm not saying you can't just enjoy something for entertainment value, but don't forget to ask yourself why do I like this? Or What is the reason I keep coming back to this? Do I identify with a character or a storyline? Is it escapism from my completely serious life into a completely non-serious confectionary reality?
What keeps you coming back?
Usually I have to either think a story is fascinating, the characters are so clever and interesting I want to see what they'll do next, or I can't actually predict what is going to happen.
With GG, there has yet to be an episode whose storyline a seventh grader couldn't see coming a mile away, and so for me to tune out, or go braindead for ten minutes, I never miss anything critical, and when I return, there's always some pretty postcardy new englandness and some chatter warm and benign as a hollandaise sauce waiting to envelop some eggs and an english muffin and lie to me about it all being very distinguished and fancy.
I'm sure there are people who will read this who genuinely enjoy the program, and who will be super mad that I write about it so derisively, especially when the long awaited reunion that fans have been slobbering over is about to be released this Friday. I say to them,
"I do not fault you your enthusiasm. As someone who was made fun of for being obsessed with a lot of things deemed 'not cool' in her life, far be it from me to judge you one iota, but if you haven't stopped reading this yet and decided we can never be friends, let your take away be this:
Always ask yourself why you like something, and force yourself to answer. Sometimes it's not at all the reasons we think it is, and often we can surprise ourselves by what the investment in our favorite entertainment can reveal about our current emotional state."
Never let your obsessions go unchecked, lest they say something about you you are not willing to admit.
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