Scripts

Why can't people just follow a script! Life would be so much easier for me to deal with if they would just react the way I want them to.

I am a product of the 90s. I still think that it was only a decade ago. And because I am a child of the 90s, I glean how to relate with people watching sitcoms and dramas. So it's no wonder that I become discombobulated when people don't follow a script. What do sitcoms reflect if not real life? However exaggerated. How else are they able to portray real emotions unless its coming from a real place? Say what you will about my research, but I think I'm a little ahead of the curve.

I remember having a terrible conversation with an English teacher in community college about art. We were talking about "The Necklace" a short story by Guy de Maupassant where the main character is faced with a moral dilemma: whether or not she should tell her friend about the necklace. My professor proceeded to ask the class if we see examples like this in daily life. I brought up television (big surprise) and how so many sitcoms have used this dilemma. Then she railed on me for using pop culture as a means to prove my point. "Pop culture is down here. It's for the masses." I can still hear her say it, pardon me whilst I cringe. I proudly reminded her that in her first lecture she told us about how art is artificial and good art feels real. Let's just say for arguments sake that pop culture falls under the umbrella of pop art. With that being said, the sitcoms that use these types of moral dilemmas bombard the television screens of the world and almost every 90s family sitcom cued the sappy music to make a point about what was moral and ethical. So what if it is for the masses? It's the masses that are relating to these kinds of ideas. Mass this, professor!


Lady Jane

True Colors

They say that the eyes are the window to the soul, but that is certainly untrue in my case. I've had people, strangers come up to me when I was in high school and ask if I was okay. The immediate thought that sprang to mind in that scenario was, "Do you see tears running down my face?" Unfortunately for me, my everyday face, neither happy nor sad, just standing there, my face leads people to believe that something terrible just happened to me. Normally, I am a very happy person but my content face looks anything but content. Curse my down-turned eyes! It also doesn't help that my bottom lip pulls the pad of my chin too far north so that from the side I look like Alfred Hitchcock's long-lost daughter.

(I told you)

When I was a teenager I hardly ever looked at boys in the eye, afraid that they might see how transparent I was. I was afraid my eyes would betray my perpetually hushed heart. I listened to my heart, probably more than most and probably more than I should have but I couldn't let anyone else know.

Perhaps, deep inside I am a narcissistic person and that's why I'm so hard on myself, because if I let myself believe I'm a good person or I'm good at doing things then I fear I've become too much of my true self. I remember working on a writing prompt for one of my teaching methods classes. The prompt asked, "What are you an expert in?" I distinctly remember I was having a bad day so I wrote, "Nothing." I felt I was neither good nor bad at a particular skill I had learned, but certainly not an expert. Expert to me implies, exorbitant amounts of wisdom or prowess for said skill. Does anyone else ever feel this way, or am I the only one that thinks too much about what others might think? Which in turn, brings me back to the thought, I must be narcissistic then. I might as well embrace it.

What negative character flaw do you have that you wish you could either embrace or suppress?