What Am I Missing Here? *scratches head*

[ladymirth]

 

Flist, dears, I really need your opinion on something.

 Once upon a time, I had an overdue assignment for Composition class on a most inane subject. I hurriedly jotted something down half a hour before class, gave it in, and forgot about it. Later, one of my friends happened to glance through my portfolio and was particularly struck by that essay. “Rolling around laughing” was the exact phrase she used. Now, I had a lot of other articles in that essays folder which I had lovingly and meticulously crafted, and the fact that she preferred this piece of junk from among the lot of them left me stymied and mystified. I hadn’t even meant it to be that funny in the first place. Apart from the occasional snark, I wrote it as a run-of-the-mill, let’s-get-it-over-with puff piece.

 

My friend told me that light-hearted humour was my forte and natural style, much more than heavy exposition and top-heavy angst. I don’t know how to take that piece of advice, especially as it seems lately like the only time people find me funny is when I don’t really try to be. Even now I can’t see anything very good about this essay.

 

So, for the sake of my potential career as a writer, I really need to know what YOU think about it. Is my friend a nut, or am I missing something about my own writing? Should I ditch the in-depth analysis and try and make money by snarking without really meaning to? What areas do I need to improve on?

 

I love constructive criticism and will send cyber-chocolate for anybody who is wonderful and brave enough to tell me, “Hasini, now this part kinda sucks.” The worst that can happen is I will at least know I can trust my judgment about my own writing.

 

Here it is, folks. Pleeease drop me a line telling me what you think! *wags tail*

 

Warning: Hardcore shippers may be insulted.

 

Assignment 3

 

Q: Write an essay in which you classify the types of romance in today’s television shows.

 

Feeding the Shippers

by

Hasini Somawardhana

 

Once upon a time, there were tales of romance. They featured beautiful princesses shut up in high towers, enslaved by stepsisters, persecuted by stepmothers and witches and imps and were generally poster girls for feminine victimization. Until one day, when they would meet handsome princes in shining armor who would sweep them onto their gallant white steeds and ride off into the sunset with them. And they’d Live Happily Ever After. The End.

 

At least it was The End. Right up until the twentieth century with its hordes of malcontents who simply will not let it go at that. These insatiable Oliver Twists jostle at the doors of the story tellers wanting more and more. They want to chase after that Happily Ever After into the sunset, drag it back kicking and screaming and put it in a behavioral lab and examine, in minute detail, what exactly a “Happily Ever After” constitutes in terms of a modern relationship fantasy.  This has given rise to the plague of the twenty-first century, which movie critics and book reviewers have wearily begun to call “sequelitis”. It is the reason that even the anachronistic Disney continues to drag back their favourite heroes and heroines for a number of steadily worsening sequels just to prove to the clamouring market of the terminally sappy that, for these couples at least, the wheel of fortune will point to Happily Ever After, every time!

 

It was the TV networks, which discovered the real market for romance and daytime soap opera that existed in the open market. In this superficial atmosphere of chic lit, pop princesses, TV dinners, stardust and glitter; TV series would be the one thing that could appease the vociferous appetite of the sequelitis-ridden generation. After the first experimental wave of soap operas, they decided to introduce the element of romance more and more strongly in all genres of TV shows. The advent of the internet in conjunction with the wave of newly bereft Star-Trek fanatics resulted in the tentative formation of on-line fan communities that are now called “fandoms”. And so were the “shippers” born.

 

Shippers are essentially on-line cultists who lobby for and cheer on certain relationships between two preferred fictional characters. Their internet slang name is derived from an abbreviation of the whimsically kenned term “relationshipper”. Shippers are extremely militant and eccentric creatures. Or rather, since every single TV enthusiast with some romantic sensibility inevitably becomes a shipper, one might say that it is the “shipping” that brings out these marginally surreal and hitherto unsuspected impulses. For example, people who are ostensibly as rational creatures in the waking world are apt to moonlight as obsessive-compulsive relationship analysts who will spend hours each working week formulating solemn essays and on-line discussions about the probability of two characters coming together. When contested by a shipper of a rival faction, the entire message board will spend weeks engaged in a verbal turf war, which seems to degenerate the ordinary civilized citizen into a cyber-fishwife. If allowed to escalate, these divisions may lead to the splitting of entire communities.

 

Psychologically, the appeal of TV drama is obvious – viewers get to live a vigorous love life vicariously, once a week at a convenient time. It saves us the trouble of getting ourselves lives, and the emotional investment. Why go out and live when you have enough fodder for fantasy?

 

The element that TV networks have learned to capitalize on is what fandoms call “UST” or Unresolved Sexual Tension. It is applicable to virtually any scenario, the sole requirement being that the show teases the fans long enough with just the right amount of innuendo, sexually charged situations wherein no major romantic development is allowed to happen and strings the fans along with just the right amount of anticipation and frustration. TV series have been known to stretch out years worth of runtime on the UST between the lead characters alone, appalling scripts and plot-lines notwithstanding. The following are a series of instances where UST can be employed.

 

The Girl/Boy Next Door Fantasy: I believe this is predominantly a teenage boy’s fantasy. This particular dynamic is largely epitomized among the teen fantasy generation by the teen drama “Smallville’s” depiction of young Clark Kent spying on his next-door neighbor and obsessive crush Lana Lang through his telescope. The girl will usually be, like Lana, extremely pretty and popular and quite out of the social reach of the young man in question, who is probably a pillar of the local high school Nerdstown or Geeksville. The truly unnerving fact is that this situation is probably duplicated times over in real-life in any given American suburbia. Minus the telescope, of course. Hopefully.

 

The Best Friend: This formula marks the complete one hundred and eighty degree evolution of the popular perception of romance since the cult of courtly love. More and more people are finding it most appealing to fall in love with one’s best friend. Which makes for an interesting social commentary considering that, as recently as fifty years ago, most people couldn’t be shown falling in love with their best friends on national TV because in those days, your best friend was probably of the same sex as you. It is only now, when gender roles have relaxed to the point that people can become close buddies and equals without deference to sex, and possibly have that dynamic carried forward into a martial partnership. The popularity of this dynamic testifies to how far we’ve come since the days of knights in shining armor.

 

Reluctant Work Partner: Once a hugely popular setting, this premise seems to have fizzled out after the nineties. The last time this was used to great effect was in X-files, which for its duration provided the text book example of UST. Older viewers will always remember vintage dramas such as Remington Steele, Moonlighting and Lois and Clark with affection. Shows scripted around this dynamic always involve an element of hilarity and are usually detective thrillers. The two partners will inevitably be the anti-thesis of each other – all shows of this genre revolve around the theory that opposites attract, especially when it comes to animal magnetism. (Some viewers theorize that major newspaper, detective and law enforcement organizations put prospective employees through a personality screening test so that they can invariably pair them up with a partner who is their exact opposite.) Presumably, they will take an initial violent dislike to each other and spend the next couple of seasons fighting their unwelcome yet palpable feelings for each other by squabbling incessantly. Which is what good TV is all about.

 

When Harry Met Sally: I know this premise was one initially popularized by a movie, but I have yet to find a viewer who would sit through at least five seasons of two people turning from strangers to rivals, from rivals to enemies, from enemies to friends, from friends to best friends, from best friends to something more…to soul mates forever. There is a certain element in this premise that is shared by the former premise as well – an element that I have christened “Smug Value”. Viewers necessarily can understand that these two characters will get together, and this knowledge of a future so unimagined by the shows characters themselves, lead to a certain feeling of smug assurance on the part of a viewer. Perhaps it is reassuring to know that, at least on TV, you can anticipate some of life’s curveballs.

 

The Redeemer: Good Girl Meets Bad Boy. Girl attempts to reform Bad Boy. Bad Boy resists. Girl gets hurt. And if this were reality and not TV that would be the end right there. However, when the TV networks intervene, Boy repents, pledges undying love and reforms, buys helmets for them both, sweeps Girl onto his motorbike, rides off into the sunset with her, and lives Happily Ever After. Until Boy returns to make his film debut in Rebel Without A Cause.

 

As far as social commentaries go, I think the popularity of this premise reflects the truly delusional and downright dangerous idea that females have that they are capable of reforming men they find ‘exciting’. Or maybe it’s a modern spin on the whole Romeo and Juliet theme – always pick the boy your mother warned you about. This twist never fails to secure the ratings bonanza – as exemplified by Fox viewer ratings when Buffy the Vampire Slayer began her clandestine relationship with Spike the Vampire. Which pairing probably made sense in that universe.  

 

Not all TV romance constitutes of UST, of course. In fact, a significant amount of TV romances flourish without torturing the viewers with false build-ups. These are usually classified thus:

 

“Once upon a time there was a boy and girl who bumped into each other…and bumped into each other…and bumped into each other…until they decided they’d better sit down and talk it out before they had an accident”. Those were the famous opening lines of the sixties television series Bewitched. The actual series was on marriage, but it does hint at the favourite boy-meets girl premise that still remains in vogue – the appeal of finding your soul mate through a chance encounter. The premise has since lost its popularity, however it continues to be a favourite Bollywood trademark.  

 

Another new trend in TV romance I’ve seen is the Marriage concept. A fair number of comedies track the ups and downs of married couples as they realize that their Happily Ever After isn’t always that happy. Or perhaps the audience preoccupation with married couples stems from the fact that with relationships falling apart everywhere you look in real life, it’s actually a relief to see a working relationship between a couple that perseveres despite the odds against them.

 

Yet another popular premise for contemporary TV shows is one I term The Career Catch: I see this formula as a mix of the TV manifestation of the chic-lit genre and thespian career therapy for women. It reflects a popular dilemma young working women of today face – how do you find romance when you’re married to your job? Men have been juggling career and marriage since the days of Adam; it is the women who find themselves in a precarious position. In a social environment where women still have to fight for every ounce of respect they get in their professional lives, handling an office romance for them, is akin to doing a balancing act over a piranha tank – one wrong move and the office gossips will rip you apart. Women can sympathize and they follow romances of this nature avidly. The men? They just want to enjoy Calista Flockhart’s pencil skirts.

 

The third component of the TV romance mix is, of course, Soap Opera. This category comprises of a truly confusing medley of all the aforementioned elements and formulas, resulting in an angst-fest cum cheesy plot convolution that those who wish to retain an unboggled brain studiously stay away from. These are mainly meant for housewives, either under the theory that this is the sub-sect of humanity most deprived of a worldly life or that a woman who has the fortitude to run an entire household without pay, medical leave or vacation for the rest of her life would hardly be fazed by the kind of relationship mayhem depicted on the average soap opera. Which was probably why The Donna Reed Show, one of the first soap operas of its generation, paid tribute to this fact by its portrayal of the central character as an indefatigable housewife. It is also a universally accepted fact that all TV series of any genre, be they the good, the bad or the ugly, morph into Soap Operas after the fifth season.

 

Prime time TV is an industry that capitalizes on the nation’s reluctance to go out and get itself an actual life. Having said that however, when the ideal life is waiting for you at the press of a remote button, everything else does tend to pale in comparison. TV dinners and juke-box romance – it’s the perfect relationship.