TV “˜Friends’ make for good friends

Ariana Brookes Brookes is a third-year English
student who knows that Diet Coke is the drink of champions. E-mail
her at [email protected].

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I walked into my living room tonight and stared, dumbstruck, at
the television screen. The news was doing a story about the last
episode of “Star Trek Voyager” and the
“trekkies” that had gathered together for the
event.

I then fixed my gaze on my father, who, a “trekkie”
himself, was watching the television with great enthusiasm.
“Golly,” I thought, “people are crazy the way
they get obsessed with this show. It’s not even real!”
My mind wandering, I then looked at my father and lamented,
“I can’t believe they whacked Jackie Jr. on “˜The
Sopranos.'”

It is absolutely, without a doubt, crazy the way our culture
creates phenomena out of television shows. No longer is a show just
a show, but it’s a common bond that unites the nation. In
turn, we have become so engulfed with the characters in certain
shows that we have come to think of them as real people with real
lives.

I missed the finale of “The Sopranos” the other
night (I was out seeing “Moulin Rouge” … it was so
good), and therefore I asked my dad to tape it for me. When I
returned home, he gave me a concerned look and said “Jackie
Jr.’s dead.” I totally flipped out. I started ranting
and raving about how Jackie Jr. was so young, and how it was
horrible Ralphie’s fault that he got involved in the mob in
the first place, and how Jackie Jr. was the son of Tony’s
best friend. You get the general idea.

After going on like that for a few minutes I took a breath,
thought for a second, and told my dad that I was talking about
these people like they were real, and I must sound nuts ““ I
was going to stop. He just laughed.

What is it about certain shows that draws us into their worlds?
What makes certain shows “obsess-worthy” and others
merely throw-aways?

The first good show of this nature that comes to mind for our
generation is “Friends.”

  Illustration by JASON CHEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
“Friends” is no longer just a TV show. When I watch
that show I feel as though I am hanging out with my good friends,
catching up on the latest gossip. I’ll often talk to the
screen, laughing, “Oh my God, Chandler, you kill
me!”

My friend and I will often discuss the characters on the show,
referring to them as though they are our close, personal friends.
If you were in the Cooperage the other day, you might have heard us
discussing our “friends” in such a manner. For
example:

(My friend): “I heard so-and-so and so-and-so broke up…I
can’t believe so-and-so handled it that way.”

(Me): “I know! It’s like when Ross and Rachel broke
up and Rachel completely freaked out….” You’d think
we knew these people.

What about “My So-Called Life”? I know I’m not
the only one who knows the names and life histories of every
character on that show. When Jordan finally holds Angela’s
hand in public my heart nearly bursts, I am so happy. When Jordan
is being his usual “you-know-what” self I patiently
talk to the screen, telling Angela that she doesn’t need him,
that she’ll find someone better.

When I mention this show to other people, even people I
don’t know, we’ll usually end up in some long-winded
conversation in which we discuss every cause leading up to every
event in that series, not forgetting to express our personal
feelings about the personalities of every character on the show. As
crazy as this may sound when I put it down on paper, it never seems
weird when I’m dishing about it with some other obsessive
fan.

Why do we do this? We have plenty of drama in our own lives. We
(hopefully) have plenty of our own friends. Why do we feel the need
to fully engage ourselves in the lives of make-believe people? What
makes them so real to us?

I don’t know about Star Trek, but most of the shows that
draw such nationwide attention have a quality in them that is
missing from our own lives. They have a quality that we wish
existed in our lives. They are often exaggerated versions of our
everyday experiences. They are perfected images of what we would
like our lives to be like.

“Friends” is full of people who we wish were our own
friends. They are caricatures of people we know. They are likable,
more likable then most of the people we know in our real lives.
Their jokes are always right on; no one ever falters for words, no
one ever gets bored. They never seem to have any work to do either,
which bugs the heck out of me!

The characters on these shows seem to be the ultimate in cool.
Even if they aren’t cool, they are perfectly offbeat, or
nerdy or whatever the case may be. They are the kind of people we
would like to be, they say the things that we would like to say
““ if only we had an opportunity to script out everything we
said before we actually said it. They seem real because we wish
that they were.

“The Sopranos” adds an element of excitement to our
lives. The lives of the characters on that show are dangerous,
mysterious and erotic. They allow us to live out our secret
fantasies, the ones we daydream about but would never want to have
to deal with on an everyday basis. The storylines are intricate,
and seem realistic, and therefore it is very easy to get drawn into
that world.

It’s kind of like the whole soap opera mystery. Why do
people get obsessed with these insipid shows? It all comes back to
the characters. No matter how stupid the plot and dialogue, we get
wrapped up in the lives of these people who seem so much more
interesting than the people we know in real life.

To be honest, I see nothing wrong with it all. Sure, television
is a waste of time, yada, yada, but what would you get excited
about during a Thursday lecture if you didn’t have the new
episode of “Friends” to look forward to? What would we
talk to our parents about if we didn’t have that family tie
known as “The Sopranos”?

Popular culture unites our nation, a nation full of many
different types of people, living very different lives. It serves
as an escape from our stressful lives, if only for a half hour. It
gives people something to talk about around the water cooler. And
it’s fun ““ plain and simple, it’s just fun.