So in order to cure myself of my Sex in the City addiction, I'm going cold turkey. But while I realise most rehabilitation centres probably wouldn't recommend replacing one addication with another, I am replacing Sex in the City with a new television series with which to see the world.
The Secret Life of Us.
Having not watched it on TV the first time around, I am finding sweet sweet satisfaction in The Secret Life of Us. It's almost...ALMOST...on par with Sex in the City. Not in terms of fashion (as the 90s truly was a hideous time for men and women alike) and not in terms of New York (I'm afraid Melbourne's St. Kilda plays a sad second fiddle) but in terms of everything that is heart-renchingly, rip-your-guts-out realistic about relationships.
Here you have eight normal people, living normal lives and doing normal things - like eating dry Corn Flakes out of the packet on the way home from the shops - and it's this uncontrived realism that makes The Secret Life of Us so addictive. It's their thought processes, the way they behave, the messes they get themselves in and out of - it's so relative that it feels like you're watching your own life on television.
Which is what got me thinking - are 'we' the stimulus for these kinds of shows or are these kinds of shows the stimulus for the way we behave? Do we see ourselves in the characters created in The Secret Life of Us and Sex in the City because they're based on us or because we're based on them?
We watch these kinds of television shows because we want to escape the daily life, the daily grind of duty and responsibility and reality, but is it reality (or a version therefore) that we're actually escaping to? While there are certainly elements of unbelievability about Sex and the City - I mean what kind of writer can afford Jimmy Choos and Prada when their only source of income in a weekily column - what about The Secret Life of Us? There is certainly nothing contrived about their lives. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. There are no loose ends tied up into pretty bows for the sake of a happy ending. Sometimes those loose ends are just left to blow in the breeze. They don't live outside their means. They live realistic lives and have realistic relationships and the more I watch, the more I get caught up in their 'reality'.
Or should that be 'our' reality? If the lives of the characters I am watching are so relative to my own, perhaps it works the other way too. Perhaps I am in fact flaking out in front of the television set watching myself and marvelling at my own human abilities and ineptness?
Maybe that's what makes it such thrilling television. It has all the thrills and spills of life's little rollecoaster and all you have to do is buckle yourself into the couch. It's like watching your life without actually having to live it. And when the times get tough, when you're caught in a love triangle or when you think you might be gay or you're dumped by the love of your life, you can switch off and escape back to reality.
I can't work out if that's a sad revelation or not.
Ciao for now. xo
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