Suspension of Disbelief.
Suspension of Disbelief. The most basic tenants of fiction. All stories whether they be novel, television show, movie, anime or video game all strive to accomplish this.
The goal is simple: make the audience buy into the reality a piece of fiction creates.
And yet lately, I have had difficulty suspending my disbelief. There is simply something about what I'm taking in that jars me out of it. For example; the TV show Glee. The premise is simple. A bunch of high school misfits form a club and are picked on while wanting to achieve their dreams.
My problem with it? Besides the fact that because of this show a teenage girl had never heard of Freddy Mercury? The behavior of the students and staff of the fictional William McKinley High School. For one, every member of the staff - including the guidance counselor sucks at their jobs. Hard. The cheer leading coach is ridiculously bias towards the squad, and takes the opportunity to insult those she views to be below her (which is everyone). The principal is incapable of taking disciplinary action against students that are apart of the athletics program because it brings in money for the school. The guidance counselor has OCD and is a germophobe. Her idea of counseling are pamphlets. From what I've seen of the show, she is getting better though. Only the football coach is at the very least competent. All other staff members are nonexistent.
The students. Oh the students. Pretty much every students on the football and hockey team are nothing more than small-minded bullies. For the first two seasons, they bullied the one gay kid into transferring and routinely ruined the clothes of anyone they deemed losers with slushies. Slushies of the 7-11 syrup and ice variety. In any normal school, they would have at the very least received a detention for A. Staining the clothes of another student, and B. Creating more cleanup in the hallways for the janitors. Hell, if it was my high school, not only would they have gotten detention, they would have been suspended from the team for x number of games, and forced to help the janitors clean.
All of that is why I can't watch the show anymore. It's just so ridiculous, I am physically incapable of turning off my brain to enjoy it. The music is nice, but that's about it for me. Actually, this is the one instance where I can't buy into the reality of anything. I have no difficulty with anything else - except for soap operas.
This makes me wonder it it's just me, or if anyone else feels this way. And if it isn't just me, are the writers for the show doing something wrong? Though I doubt I'll ever get an answer, I just wanted to get this out of my head.
The goal is simple: make the audience buy into the reality a piece of fiction creates.
And yet lately, I have had difficulty suspending my disbelief. There is simply something about what I'm taking in that jars me out of it. For example; the TV show Glee. The premise is simple. A bunch of high school misfits form a club and are picked on while wanting to achieve their dreams.
My problem with it? Besides the fact that because of this show a teenage girl had never heard of Freddy Mercury? The behavior of the students and staff of the fictional William McKinley High School. For one, every member of the staff - including the guidance counselor sucks at their jobs. Hard. The cheer leading coach is ridiculously bias towards the squad, and takes the opportunity to insult those she views to be below her (which is everyone). The principal is incapable of taking disciplinary action against students that are apart of the athletics program because it brings in money for the school. The guidance counselor has OCD and is a germophobe. Her idea of counseling are pamphlets. From what I've seen of the show, she is getting better though. Only the football coach is at the very least competent. All other staff members are nonexistent.
The students. Oh the students. Pretty much every students on the football and hockey team are nothing more than small-minded bullies. For the first two seasons, they bullied the one gay kid into transferring and routinely ruined the clothes of anyone they deemed losers with slushies. Slushies of the 7-11 syrup and ice variety. In any normal school, they would have at the very least received a detention for A. Staining the clothes of another student, and B. Creating more cleanup in the hallways for the janitors. Hell, if it was my high school, not only would they have gotten detention, they would have been suspended from the team for x number of games, and forced to help the janitors clean.
All of that is why I can't watch the show anymore. It's just so ridiculous, I am physically incapable of turning off my brain to enjoy it. The music is nice, but that's about it for me. Actually, this is the one instance where I can't buy into the reality of anything. I have no difficulty with anything else - except for soap operas.
This makes me wonder it it's just me, or if anyone else feels this way. And if it isn't just me, are the writers for the show doing something wrong? Though I doubt I'll ever get an answer, I just wanted to get this out of my head.