On September 20, 2011, Matt Belinkie sent an email to the OTI writers. The following conversation ensued:
Belinkie: 28 million people watched Two and a Half Men last night. Amazing.
Fenzel: The only TV I watched last week was The Last Starfighter and The Man Who Knew Too Little on some random movie station. I don’t generally watch TV.
Mlawski: My mother’s review: “The new Two and a Half Men was actually pretty good! And Ashton Kutcher… you didn’t see him completely naked, but woof! Whatta body!” Imagine this in a Long Island accent to get the full effect.
Perich: I feel the same way every time I see an article about Tyler Perry’s exceptional success. There’s a substantial swath of America—I might even say the majority – whose tastes are completely foreign to we coastal types.
McNeil: Peter Dinklage, the Halfman, just won an emmy. Two and a Half Men just broke a bunch of records. Robocop is half man, half machine. There’s a post here, but I’m not sure what it is.
Belinkie: We should deal with this on the site. The fact is, Overthinking It sort of ignores the most popular of pop culture. I’m curious – did anyone watch any of the top 25 shows last week?
Sheely: I watched Sunday night football…
Shechner: ¡FUERZA DEL DESTINO!
Stokes: I love Fuerza del Destino. And I found the little bit of Tyler Perry that I’ve seen oddly compelling. And yet I hate Two and a Half men.
~ FIN ~
It took me a month, but I’ve decided that Belinkie’s right: we should deal with this on the site. We’ve mentioned these shows a lot, but never tried to figure out what’s so appealing about these shows and why tens of millions of people are so into them. At first blush, it seems that none of us know anything about the most popular shows in America, so we’re turning to you for some guidance.
Please help us shuffle off our coastal elitism and guide us in to the cozy living rooms of the millions of Americans who truly, deeply care about the investigators of the United States Navy.
Take the following quick survey and help us get a handle on the juggernauts of broadcast television. Then tell us which of America’s favorite shows you’d like us to overthink. And for those of you who vote for Fuerza Del Destino just because you know I nearly failed Spanish in college: “Yo sabe que donde su casa esta, Shechner.”
→ Take our popular popular culture survey.
I’ll post results next week, but in the meantime, lets drop the Boomers on OTI. Go ask your parents or parental figures why they like NCIS and post the answers in the comments.
There, I have contributed and taken the survey! ::superhero stance::
Now please give me the last chapters of overthinking Cowboy Bebop for Xmas. I’ve been really good and everything.
I agree with this user.
And I blame Stokes for this lapse in interest.
May we have the last two reviews for Cowboy Bebop?
This comment expresses my feelings and actions exactly.
Yes! Totally agree.
The beauty of the telenovela is if you want to know what the overall arc is supposed to be, then you just need to watch the opening credits. It usually condenses the story in music video form. If the couple in the credits is not together in the show, it’s because they’re in the ‘boy loses girl’ part of the relationship. The nice guy will always die (sorry), and the villainess gets theme music.
My mentor (for lack of a better description of her), says that NCIS is her favorite show because Leroy Jethro Gibbs is her ideal man and she likes seeing him on TV.
Your mentor’s ideal man has been divorced multiple times, has issues about his deceased daughter, and spends whatever time he doesn’t devote to solving naval-based crimes in his basement building boats? And yes, I watch NCIS when the Law&Order marathons aren’t on.
My mom says that she likes Two and a Half Men because it makes her laugh. It makes her laugh because it’s so bizarre and unrealistic, she says. She’s not sure about the show with Ashton Kutcher though – she thinks how they *spoilers* killed off Charlie Sheen’s character was “so stupid”.
My friend’s Mom watches NCIS. When I asked why, the response I got was “Mark Harmon”. My conclusion is that middle aged ladies prefer men with terrible haircuts.
My mother’s answer was essentially the same, though moderated due to my father’s presence.
My parents watch syndicated reruns of NCIS during dinner sometimes. However, they prefer reruns of Bones and Law&Order.
Personally, I think NCIS is patriotism porn. There’s no more obvious hero than a US Marine – especially a Marine who is faster and smarter than everyone else. Gibbs is not just the strong silent type, he also has no patience for bureaucracy or pretense. He’s a man’s man, he’s a woman’s man.
I think it would be quite interesting for OTI to tackle Big Bang Theory. It’s absolutely awful – the show has about 12 unique plotlines, and yet has been on the air for over 100 episodes. But I think it’s almost begging to be skewered. All the characters on the show are obsessed with comic books and video games and sci-fi and Star Trek – but the actors are not. The guy who plays Sheldon actually hates comic books, and has never seen any of the Star Trek movies. The show is basically nerd-haters making fun of nerds for the benefit of other nerd-haters. I’m sure some geeks actually watch the show, but the numbers suggest that a lot of other people must be watching as well.
I have several nerd/geek friends who think BBT is “a hoot”. It has lowered my opinion of said friends.
I’ve only seen a couple of BBT episodes, and while I agree that it’s horrible, I’m not sure it’s meant to be a hating-on-nerds thing. I think it’s people who are not INVESTED in nerd culture writing about it. The nerdiness is a thin veneer slapped onto stock characters as a half-hearted differentiator. It’s basically urban singles sitcom version 47 (this time they’re NERDS!).
Because it’s half-assed and not truly interested into diving into what makes the intelligent and socially awkward tick, it can SEEM like it’s haters hating on nerds. I find it insulting, but since my mom and sister genuinely think I’ll identify with the charqacters and like the show, and they both love me, I’m forced to conclude that the intention is not to belittle nerds.
I think ultimately BBT is a sign that the times are changing enough that the nerd uber-sub-cultre (HA!) can be normalized and co-opted into familiar tropes and formats. While I hate the show, I think the fact that a sloppy, cliched, poorly written, multi-camera sitcom has as its main characters (sloppy, cliched, poorly written) nerds is emblematic of a sea change in the culture.
The Big Bang Theory is the Will and Grace of the nerd community (though Will and Grace was not nearly as bad as BBT).
It sounds like Nerdsploitation. Real nerds, of course, are busy watching Futurama.
This is exactly how I feel about it. I’ve watched an episode or two of Big Bang Theory, and I always thought the nerd/science jokes were kind of condescending. It’s like every couple of minutes the writers think they have to throw the nerds a bone, so they have one of the characters geek out over Leonard Nimoy. Oh look, he likes Star Trek, that’s so nerdy, amirite!? Now, let’s get back to the stock sitcom jokes.
Full disclosure, I do know people in the hard sciences who genuinely like the show and were really surprised that I don’t.
Some of them probably just like seeing characters that have traits that remind them of themselves. Personally, I think it just reinforces the idea that BBT is a sign that nerdiness is just one more facet of the mainstream pop culture. In fact, those who are spending their time really diving into the hard sciences probably don’t spend enough time watching TV (at least not 30-minute comedies) to make the fine-grained distinctions that some of us do. Not everyone with the intellectual capacity to overthink elects to do so. ;-)
The crazy thing is, Jim Parsons is 39. So Sheldon Cooper is almost middle-aged. Which makes his wacky antics a little sad.
That’s fair (and I’m in physics). It’s like cooking – I know that I should make healthy food for myself, that it’s comparable in terms of price, and that it would be better for me in the long run, but after spending 12 hours in a cleanroom, sometimes I just want to eat McDonald’s because it makes me happy for 5 minutes.
I am in many senses a scientist (and trust me, my brand of psychology is a hard science, sometimes too hard), and I find the show entertaining, but I think it’s soft-pedalled the ‘geek’ (for want of a better word) stuff over the seasons. The first couple of episodes have a very well thought out Asimov joke, the sort of which are maybe lacking. The fact is, like any half-hour sitcom, the characters are reliable archetypes – I don’t see as especially different from Friends, for example – one has to laugh both at and with the characters, and in fact I find the characters a lot more sympathetic than the afore-mentioned New Yorkers.
Yeah, cause only so many people get a joke like “what happens in the event horizon stays in the event horizon”… I know, I’ve tried it… sigh.
Sounds positively inclusive compared to my recent attempts to write a standup set.
Or Community. The showrunner Dan Harmon is a true nerd.
Gosh, I am so sick of the words nerd and geek. They may have meant something 10 years ago but nowadays everyone calls themselves a nerd. “Nerdy” things (comic books, manga, super heroes, video games, etc.) are such a part of the popular culture now that there are barely any nerds left. I’ve never seen BBT, but I’d bet the nerds on it are faux nerds, into Star Trek rather than some really obscure Sci-Fi. I could go on and on about my feelings about nerds and nerd elitism and the types of nerds.
I’d love to see some Overthinking of The Closer. The season finale threw a viewpoint into the show that was previously underplayed. Trying hard to explain it without spoilers and failing…
Ahh, back in my day nerds were the smart science-oriented and socially impoverished kids who were bullied for being awkward and weird. No one self identified as a nerd like they do today.
I don’t think it’s so much nerd-interests becoming more mainstream, it’s the concept of nerdiness shifting to encompass more mainstream stuff. To me,you can be a non-humanities nerd or nothing. The idea of drama or literature nerds are anachronistic.
But now I’m being nerd-elitist which is anoachronistic – surely?
I know the meaning of the word nerd has changed but, personally, I’d never describe a fan of a tv show or piece of literature a nerd yet I’ve heared people say “I’m a buffy nerd” of “I’m a harry potter nerd”.
Please, Crystal go on about your feelings about nerds, I for one think this is an interesing subject!
It seems to be unique to popular culture that the more you admit to knowing about it, the less intelligent you’re percieved to be.
I consume a lot of trash and I really don’t think of myself as a cultural elitist but I still can’t find an incentive to sit through any of the shows in your survey. I sometimes vaguely think I *ought* to get in touch with the most popular (and least appealing) bits of mainstream culture…Glad you’ll be saving me the bother, OTI. :)
Really you should have to overthink Jersey Shore, a show that has marinated my unwilling consciousness despite my having never seen an episode.
Anything that is worth overthinking, then by definition isn’t overthunk. ;-) So you have to reach farther down, into something that is so shallow that there can be no question that your analysis far overspills its capacity for fruitful investigation.
Anyway I’m pretty sure this captures it just fine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhk5Rjz7xk0
My Mom watches Two and a Half Men – but as near as I can tell, she doesn’t enjoy it at all. She insists that she doesn’t like their bathroom humor, but only watches it for the little kid. But she also says that she doesn’t like the kid any more now that he’s older and not cute. So. . .I guess she doesn’t know why she watches it, either.
My mom watches it for the kid also. I haven’t asked her if she’s still watching it, now that the kid is older.
My dad watched Two and a Half Men because, “Charlie Sheen is f***ing funny!” He refused to watch the premier last month, though.
In looking at last week’s Nielsen ratings… I think Spongebob deserves some overthinking. And yes, I suppose Jersey Shore, too.
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/10/25/cable-top-25-monday-night-football-the-walking-dead-and-jersey-shore-top-weekly-cable-viewing-2/108307/
Ooh, I suggest overthinking WWE as well, like how it’s the male equivalent of the soap opera, perhaps, or maybe how the show’s structure around real-time opera drives people such as Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit (especially Benoit) to harm themselves or other people in real life.
Did you hear about the “labor dispute” story line, and how it uncomfortably blurs the line between reality and fiction? Fascinating stuff.
http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/oct/14/real-and-unreal-professional-wrestling/transcript/
Oh, I knew they had the labor dispute line, but I didn’t know that it spilled to “reality,” i.e. some actors not liking their working conditions enough to take advantage of the storyline and actually striking. I always knew having management involved in a show would mess up the corporate structure, and adding the titles of COO and director of talent management into the mix only made things murkier. Doesn’t make it less interesting, though.
I would have written a piece on the effect of the WWE shows to the corporate structure, but I don’t care all too much about the back end. I therefore give up dibs on the topic.
A bit of overthinking the “reality” storyline from the folks over at Grantland.
http://www.grantland.com/search/_/query/the-masked-man
I’m glad it’s a survey and not a quiz, because if it were a quiz, I would have failed it. I had no idea I was coastal and flung from the popular culture.
Nobody in my family watches NCIS, I suspect because it’s too dark. But my grandmother loves The Mentalist and Castle.
I have to trust my instincts becuase I’m not going to explain this to my parent(s). So, I trust NCIS is popular with my Mom, (who watches most of the T.V. in our house), because of it’s well plotted-ness (I suppose…) and it’s excitement. I know that the little bit I’ve seen appeals to me because I like the idea of the team being like a family of eccentrics. I know nothing about the show beyond this. I do know, that I can assume my mother enjoys Two and a 1/2 men because it is funny, and keeps her laughing, as do all sitcoms she decides to devote her time to, and I reckon that the show moves at the right pace for the general audience and manages to keep fresh. Not that she notices any of that stuff. I myself don’t like the show as much because there are to many sex jokes, and no character development beyond “I’m Allan and I”m moderately happy until I move in with Charlie and in a freak spectacle that I guess is supposed to be funny I turn into a depressive schlub who can’t get a date while he’s banging everything in sight so I’ll cry like a girl and support my chubby kid. I’m secretly glad he’s dead but I won’t show it.” I think that about sums up the character of Allan. The rest of them are one-dimensional (more so than what I just described) and I feel that Ashton Ketchup (How the hell do you spell his Surname?) Would be a good addition to the show if he weren’t a gimmick and the writier’s take him more seriously than they do all the other characters. Ashton’s name doesn’t have a heck of a lot of star power behind it, and though he’ll boost the show’s ratings a touch, at least maintain them, he won’t be used to subtly retcon the series under the viewers noses. He’ll replace Charlie Sheen and drive Allan to drinking and murder. Probably not though, that would give Allan feelings and be to interesting subject matter. In the pilot for Ashtray Cactus alone he had sex with 2 girls, (Not two broke girls [Can someone say “Crossover!” in a high pitch effeminate voice. I can]) This bodes not well for the show, because he is already becoming Charlie Sheen. It keeps consistency with what has presumably drawn in viewers for six(?) years running, but it doesn’t lift my spirits for CBS writers when show contains the phrase “Hung like an Elephant!” spoken by a man. It’s not funny. On so many levels.
My Dad watches NCIS (although the idea of an LA spinoff is new to us Brits) and CSI the varieties mostly to help get off to sleep. He has more difficulty with that than my mother (I unfortunately seem to follow his tendencies), and something that’s clearly structured is helpful when your brain is supposed to going to sleep, as opposed to the metaphorical sleep that some people seek from television.
I try hard not to be too snarky, but have to say that while NCIS itself is ok, the LA version is really horrifically badly written. It’s so excruciating at times that I have to think there’s some wastrel son-in-law of some studio executive who was given that spinoff to keep him busy. Hearing that dialog coming from an actor of Linda Hunt’s stature (no pun intended) is bizarre.
One other comment on Big Bang – it’s my mother’s favorite show, but the laugh track is so intrusive and annoying she has stopped watching for periods out of annoyance. I looked into it once and found countless mentions of that on message boards. Some say it’s really studio audience, but the audience is sprinkled with “professional laughers” if that’s a real thing. Others say it’s canned overlaid on the genuine audience. In any event, they could at least lower it in the sound mix if they want to stop drivingviewers away.
Whilst I agree with your comment that NCIS:LA is bad written, I still enjoy it. Actually I enjoy it far more than NCIS, which whenever I watch it, I almost feel as if I am going grey. You can certainly see it is marketed towards a younger audience though, with a younger cast and far more explosions, shoot-outs and fights. The cast of the show are supposed to work for the undercover section of the NCIS, which would imply that they should be more like spies than agents, however they spend a lot of their time doing things that are far from effective means of espionage.
Also, I have a possible OTI post on NCIS:LA. ‘an exploration into the impact of national security based upon the less-than-stealthy approaches of the NCIS:LA branch of agents.’
Out of the shows in your survey, I’m particularly fond of watching Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, and Modern Family… And I’m actually downloading the latest Big Bang episode as of this post.
Part of the reason why I watch BBT and TAAHM is that I have already been watching them both before. They’re my McDonald’s of TV shows, as Tim said above, since what made me attracted to them is that despite their crass jokes and shallow cultural references, I know what I’m gonna get: shows about the perception of the nerd sub-culture and star status in America. When I am in a limited bandwidth situation, I am not inclined to try new shows (though, among the new comedies, I am trying on Suburgatory and New Girl), and I tend to go for shows from which I know what to expect. Call it the sunk cost fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy
I just noticed there’s not much talk about Modern Family in this comment thread. Is this a sign that no one cares about the show, or that it gets more respect than the oft-mentioned shows?
So I left a great big reason to analyse the Big Bang Theory that included the potential for examination in other, more simple TV shows.
You guys are exceptionally clever and very talented writers. But you can’t go too far over the heads of simpletons like me. Things like ‘Disney Week’ are so successful because people know what Disney is and realise there’s a lot of overthinking to be done in the animated films. Same goes for articles like the “Stormtroopers not helping Darth Vader” think tank discussion or the article about Modern Warfare 2’s kill-cam.
You have to take simple things, like TV shows watched by ‘The Average Joe’, and examine them for their deeper meaning. I think you’d be pleasantly surprised at the results that you come up with and I think the articles would be far more interesting and appealing and, in turn, they’ll receive more appreciation from a wider audience. Try and avoid getting too far into things like the Oscars, Comic-Con or the Podcast. That stuff is good but a deeper analysis into the universe of the Big Bang Theory would be a much more pleasant read!
By the way, although I read (and listen) from the site religiously and often recommend it to friends, I am NOT a regular commenter. The only reason I’ve become so vocal recently is because I’m currently ‘teaching’ Matt how to play Modern Warfare 2 and it makes me feel like I have some kind of special treatment banner that means I can be listened to :D
Yeah, I’m doing that thing where I post two comments instead of one because I missed out the real things that I wanted to say in the first comment. Also, these aren’t really comments but more paragraphs containing the idle considerations of a bored nightshift worker, I apologise for that!
What I want to make clear is that movies, TV, music, games and books should be the most prominent part of OTIs content. I’m not asking for reviews, just an analysis of every day pop culture. Let me put it this way. How many of you have been talking about a movie or TV show with friends have said something along the lines of “I hate that part where x goes to y because it’s so unrealistic” or have said “I don’t understand how x could do y”?
A typical response is always: “It’s just a movie/tv show/video game”.
OTI should exist to be the antethesis of that style of thinking. You guys should take the time to pick into the accidental subtleties and hidden meanings of what the average sitcom or romantic comedy (just examples) contains and consider writing an article. Don’t make that article specifically about Machiavellianism or whatever it is you’re apply to the subject, simply use your knowledge of such thing as a tool to get a little more in depth in your analysis the object you’re looking at.
One thing I understand about you writers/thinkers here at OTI is that you don’t want to pander to the masses. You don’t want to be another Cracked.com or AV Club, you want to be different. You can still do that. Geek and nerd culture is all about getting in depth with fiction no matter how simple it is. That’s why we love shows like Star Trek! So what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t be afraid to look at simple, everyday stuff and pick out the extraordinary then invite debate in the comments. This is something you guys do on occasion but it’s often applied to more ‘intellectual’ stuff like the Wire or Game of Thrones or some anime nonsense. Instead, look for the smart in the stupid.
I’m not very clever so these will appear incredibly simple but here’s some random ideas:-
+ Big Bang Theory: how ‘geek culture’ is badly represented in modern sitcoms
+ The Office: how a company like Dunder Mifflin can survive in the current economy
+ Two And A Half Men: whether or not the environment that Jake (the kid) is growing up in is suitable for his growth and development
+ Two And A Half Men: exploration of the homosexual (civil partnership) relationship – can two guys just live together as buddies?
+ The Sopranos: in-depth analysis of morality, the supernatural and life after death (hell, this is worth three articles!)
+ Friends: was Rachel Green a selfish bitch? Who would fly all the way to London to ruin their best friends wedding? Oh sure, she decided NOT to tell him that she loves him but come on, she’s an absolute – (okay uh, might be worth leaving that alone for now…)
Aaand so on. I have a million ideas but I’d need to pull up google to apply them to real life sociological, economic and philosophical studies!
You’re absolutely right about Rachel. She’s one of the most passive-aggressively evil characters ever written for television. And yet she manages to skate by because Jennifer Anniston is one of the most attractive people who ever lived. I’m currently working through the series, and I’ve noticed that the show was extremely lenient w/r/t female characters’ nipples. I wonder if that was done on purpose in order to disguise the fact that the show had a hard time writing likable female characters?
That’s funny because I noticed the nipple thing quite often. It didn’t ever turn me on or anything, it just baffled me. I kept trying to figure out why it was happening and could only conclude that it was a REALLY cold appartment. I mean, I remember a very early episode where Rachel had a big wooly sweater on and you could still see those things poking out like telephone poles.
But yes! I am in the middle of a kind of ‘re-watch’ as my fiancee has the box set so I’m sort of bowing in and bowing it. Not to mention that countless TV channels over here that carry regular repeats. And the process hasn’t been very comfortable.
Once you get past the comedy (which is, essentially, just ‘irony’, the occasional awkward moment and sex jokes) you actually realise how horrible some of the characters are. The only two with redeeming features, in my opinion, are Chandler and Joey and that’s only because I can’t remember a moment where they were truly petty or self-centered for selfish reasons, whereas the other 4 all had several moments where they acted like a petulant child over the stupidest thing.
Rachel Green, in particular, really pissed me off with her behaviour and I tried to look into. I considered Rachel’s ‘rich Long Island girl’ background and have concluded with this:-
“She can’t help being like that. When she was younger, she was used to getting what she wanted and now that she’s an adult she hasn’t had time to learn that you can’t behave that way. She probably threw a tantrum once a day as a child. Now she just treats people like shit until what she wants is given to her.”
There’s a psychological analysis in there somewhere, particularly since Rachel is one of the few characters with whom we really go in depth with her past.
But hey, Phoebe is just as nasty and spiteful, even though she’s passed off as the quirky one and Monica, who is more anal and can be forgiven since she’s often trying to COVER her bad habits and tendencies, certainly has more than a few moments where you’d like to punch her in the face.
Then we move on to Ross.
Ross is a petty, immature, self-centred, self-loathing bastard who makes Michael Scott from the Office look like a hero. He has almost no redeeming qualities at all and throws everything from past relationships to past friendships into the faces of his friends. He makes me so angry that I’m GLAD his wife left him, I’m GLAD Rachel tortured him (she IS a bitch) and I’m GLAD that life continuously kicks him in the balls. He deserves all of it!
I would probably punch the entire ensemble (in character) repeatedly in the face.
Funnly enough, though, I’ve tried googling for ‘Friends are unlikable’ or ‘characters from Friends are not nice’ and such but there is not a single article out there exploring just how awful most of the characters are.
I’ve been watching every episode, in order, and I’m on season 10. At this point, it’s starting to get a little repetitive. One thing I think the show does pretty well is draw out the shipping. By the time we get to season 10, Ross and Rachel have been broken up for 6 years, but it seemed like they were trying to resolve their relationship that whole time. And I don’t think it ever really gets sorted out. 6 years of will-they/won’t-they without any payoff requires some pretty skilled writing.
I think the actors do really well with the physical comedy, too. There are a lot of hilarious stunts, like falls, and the way they oversell them is, to me, delightful. You don’t see much of that on today’s comedies.
But yeah, it’s weird that this show is so watchable. The characters are petty, the sets are so overused they get burned into the retinas, and I think there were maybe 8 total plotlines over 200+ episodes. I think 90s nostalgia (my college years) has definitely colored my re-experiencing of the show.
You’ve cracked it! That’s how they afford those apartments in that bit of New York at those prices – they never have the heating on (which if bills there are anything like they are here in the UK, is a huge saving!)
Perhaps they demonstrate thrift in other ways… though I can’t think of any right now.
Also, yes, all the characters are very hateable, except for Chandler. I think of Chandler as being such a messed up guy from his youth that he sticks with these friends because he’s terrified that he’d have no chance to form any others. The jokes, so often at their expense, not gotten by them etc. is his way of alleviating the duller pain of having to spend his life with five reprehensible excuses for human beings.
Urgh…
I have to apologise for the fact that all of my above comments look like the ramblings of a 13 year old who has just tried marijuana for the first time.
I write better when I stand back and take a moment to think before I type :(
Neil
No, I was just thinking we have a winner. You make a clear case for a serious look at a show that completely defined a decade of self-identification by a huge slice of gen-x. I was living in Phoenix going to grad school during the mid-90’s, and anytime I’d go to one of the countless overpaid 20-somethings meat/meet-market Scottsdale clubs I’d feel like I was trapped in a swirling mass of a thousand pod-clones of those characters, their impact on the style of at least that wannabe-LA-in-the-desert crowd.
I’m shocked seeing how much of my personality is Chandler’s personality. Who’s copying who?
You need to have a “not applicable” option on that survey. Questions like “does anyone know you watch Two and a Half Men” can’t be answered with yes or no, if you don’t watch the show.
If you know yourself, and you know you don’t watch the show, and you know nobody you know watches, you can honestly say “no” in response, can’t you? Or even if you’re not sure about other people, your not knowing for certain may as well be a “no” answer. Similarly, even if nobody you know watches, or you don’t know if they do, but you know you do, you can say “yes” because you know yourself.
But I guess that could lead to an identity crisis, and you may find yourself in an existential quandary, filled with loathing and self-doubt and wracked with the pain and isolation of your pitiful, meaningless existence. But, at least you can take some comfort in knowing that somewhere in this crazy, mixed-up universe of ours, there’s still a little place… called Albuquerque. (Quoted from memory.)
Is that (Ezra) the name of one of the characters on the show? Inapplicable could mean unanswerable because of a conflict of interest which would apply in the case of a fictional character whose continuing development might be dependent on a specific level of observation… enough for ratings, but not so deeply that the soap-bubble of pretense that it can be a fulfilling narrative experience is popped. Not to mention the effort involved in roger-rabbitian self-reification on the part of a fictional construct.
“…roger-rabbitian self-reification…”
I would love to see that as a dissertation topic.
The “Moriarty” character from Star Trek Next Generation could be a great focal subject for that.
And contrasted with the Jack the Ripper from Babylon 5.
Gab, you misunderstood. The question I quoted was “Does anyone KNOW YOU watch 2 & 1/2 Men,” but your response implies that what I wrote was “Does anyone YOU KNOW watch 2 & 1/2 Men.” The question to which I objected was about other people’s knowledge of my own behavior, while the one you misread was about my knowledge of other people’s behavior.
And yes, technically, a “no” answer (i.e., “nobody knows I watch 2 & 1/2 Men, because I don’t watch it”) would be true, but it implies that I do watch it. “Nobody knows I watch 2 & 1/2 Man” is not a sentence a person who doesn’t watch the show is likely to say. Does anyone know you stopped masturbating five times a day?
I thought there was sort of an implied “if” in the question, my apologies.
And I wonder if this screwed up the results.
My mother says she watches NCIS because she is invested in the characters and their relationships and has always liked Mark Harmon.
She watches NCIS because she watches NCIS?
I finally got my wife talking about why she likes NCIS. At first she just mumbled something about ‘good characters’. But we dug into it more and eventually she talked around to the fact that she started watching NCIS because it reminded her of JAG (I guess it was a spinoff?), and she started watching JAG because it reminded her somewhat of ‘Top Gun’. So maybe there’s a good article in there somewhere about the portrayal of the Navy in pop culture.
I asked my parents why they watch Two and a Half Men. My mom said that she likes it for the same reason she like Absolutely Fabulous, because it’s nice to watch the characters and know that at least “I’m not that bad.” Also she said she liked the family relationships and how exaggerated they are. My dad said he liked it for the vicarious thrill of watching Charlie get to do all the terrible things that a real person wouldn’t do, and wouldn’t get away with even if they tried. They both think the show was better with Charlie Sheen.
My dad in particular watches this show all the time and will tell me “funny” parts from it. As self-defense I’ve tried getting him into shows I actually like so we can talk about those instead. Have had success with Community and The Middleman, but am still looking for another show (preferably a longer one) that could perhaps put an end to all this 2 1/2 Men once and for all.
My mom watches NCIS for Mark Harmon.
My husband, whose favorite show is probably The Venture Bros. (anyone? anyone?), also watches the occasional episode and likes it because of the guy named, I think, DiNozzo. He has also pondered more than once how the people on the show manage to communicate effectively when they all speak entirely in witty quips. He seems to think that’s hilarious.
In reply to why my family watched NCIS and Two and a Half Men:
– NCIS: It is a safe show, much like comfort food, where they know all the character well enough that they can predict exactly what each will do and say in a situation.
– Two and a Half Men: They have no idea, but I suspect seeing as they on really got into the show a year or two ago, they really were only interested in watching Charlie Sheen slowly unravel and were hoping to catch it on television.
It’s interesting seeing Big Bang Theory on there. I know for some of my social group (ALL gamers and geeks) it’s up there with Community as far as sitcoms go. I do wonder if the filter for taste is extremely different for some people. I watch it, but in the eternal hope of it being a good advocate for geekdom.
My parents do not watch NCIS. My mother wouldn’t know what that is, she normally watches documentaries or EastEnders (a British soap opera made from relentless grimness). My father and his girlfriend watch pretty much the shows I do, Doctor Who, Community, Game of Thrones, a lot of the OTI stable.
My flatmate, “The Wookiee” will watch Two and A Half Men from time to time. Mostly his reasoning is, “Because it’s already on”. That’s it. It’s on, it’s unchallenging. It’s… Yeah, he had no positive comments, but like was stated on the latest OTI, it’s just white noise. My other flatmate rejects all notions of scripted shows. He will only watch X-Factor. He also refuses to read any books. I think he’s actually the devil.
Man, I would go mad if I just watched documentaries and EastEnders. Does she like Ross Kemp On Gangs, the true hybrid of those shows?
I am wondering if TBBT is a bit like Dr King’s advice to Nichelle Nichols about staying on Star Trek, it might be bad, but you’re still one of the most significant black characters on TV. The geeks and gamers haven’t had anything even as sympathetic as TBBT, so they’ll get attached to it. (I’ve got to stop comparing geek subculture to legitimate minority struggles for representation). Of course, if that were true, shows like Community might supplant it, but the truth is, most people (if not necessarily most Overthinkers) would rather be Leonard Hofstadter than Abed Nadir.
There are a lot of people whose mothers watch NCIS, but my dad is the one that watches that. I’m pretty sure there are two reasons: he likes the genre and he likes Gibbs as the “man’s man” character. He also loves Walker, Texas Ranger, Burn Notice and anything with Bruce Willis.
Both of my parents watch NCIS and NCIS:LA. My father said that he liked it simply because it was a “cop show” and he pretty much likes every “cop show”. My mother, on the other hand, said that she liked the characters and how they interact with each other. While, after watching a few episodes, I do agree that the characters do interact with each other differently than in most “cop shows”, for me, it doesn’t make up for it’s shortcomings.
As for The Big Bang Theory, I personnaly like it. I do consider myself to be a geek; i am a huge Star Wars fan, i have seen every episode of every Stargate and almost every episode of every Star Trek but I don’t find TBBT to be a “Nerdsploitation” show like Belinkie suggested it is. I think that it’s actually trying to make nerds seem cooler by helping to make it more mainstream. It also goes to show the rest of the world that nerds have feelings to ;). Although I would agree that the show isn’t perfect, it does use it’s fair share of stock characters and it’s not always funny, I would argue that it’s better than most if not all sitcoms currently on the air and that, even with the stock characters, it does put a fresh take on them with the fact that, not only are they nerds, but also that they are all geniuses.
I genuinely think that at least half of the episodes are funny and I that’s better than most, so-called, comedies nowadays.
My entire family watches both NCIS and NCIS:LA. My dad enjoys the show “just because” he likes them while my mom likes the shows because if the complex plots, the witty dialog, and that the ‘Man from U.N.C.L.E’ is on it (David McCallum). I enjoyed NCIS for the character development, particular Tony DiNozzo, over the seasons and how they’ve grown as a character influences how they approach the cases.
I enjoy the Big Bang Theory because I can really relate to the characters, I’m very nerdy and as a result I get many of the jokes and such. The show is very popular because of all of the above, it’s considered “cool” now to be a nerd and all things nerdy are becoming mainstream.
I asked my friend, who’s a senior in college, why she liked Two and Half Men. She didn’t have any concrete reasons other than “It’s funny.” Though she was very specific and said she only liked the early ones when the kid was young. She said once he hit puberty it stopped being funny.
I asked my friend who is a 22-year-old seminary student from California why she liked “Two and a Half Men”, her answer was:
“The writing is good. Well, the joke-writing. Well, Jon Cryer’s jokes. I like Jon Cryer. He’s just charming.”
My dad likes NCIS because he likes NCIS, and thinks the one chick is really pretty.
ARRRRGH
He likes NCIS because he likes Mark Harmon