How times have changed!

Now that I have a lot of free time at hand, I'm watching random shows on TV, reruns of old sitcoms and also revisiting some of my favourite shows as a kid. It's funny to see how things have changed since I was a kid.

Teenagers in the 90's:

Teenagers now:

The shows back then were so innocent. It was mostly about the teen's families, sibling rivalry, school and occasionally, dates/relationships. Meanwhile, their counterparts from the second decade of the millennium are already having kids and investigating(maybe even doing) murders. What's with kids these days wanting to grow up so soon! I guess we can't blame them though..the world doesn't have much to offer them anymore. What with the increasing academic competition, all the extra classes to improve your profile and the only outlet being TV or electronics or weekends at a mall. Bleh..no natural play areas with unstructured playing or even the time/energy for it I think. Atleast not as much as my generation :( And to top that, being constantly prompted to consume zillions of products by all sorts of media...no wonder they are turning into miniature adults!

Family structures and society views too have evolved a lot. I realized that a few things that are taken very coolly in shows nowadays were considered a culture shock even in Friends!

A 'non-typical' family in the 90's:

A non-typical family now:

But this change I consider more favourably. It's great that homosexuality is accepted more readily and kids are able to better cope with their parents getting divorced/ re-married. I'm still not sure of the full consequences of the latter cuz it shouldn't reach a point of indifference either! But society on the whole can do with learning a bit more about minding its own business ;)

Holy Mother of God

This guy

played this guy?!

Respect! _/\_

When I started watching Breaking Bad, I could see that the lead actor was really good but I had thought that he must be just a slightly less depressing version of his on-screen character in real life. I expected the actor to be someone stern and sober. When I learnt it was Bryan Cranston who played Malcolm's dad in Malcolm in the Middle, I was super-shocked. What an amazing actor this guy is! Apparently, his real self is the funny, goofy type :) I think it must be easy for people like that to play serious characters but not the other way round.

Anyway, I was unable to take more than 3 episodes of Breaking Bad. Too depressing for me at this age.

I'd rather be Ricky than Ben!

When you learn what the title of this post refers to, you will see that the blog has stooped to a whole new level of low :D Yes, I'm talking about The Secret Life of American Teenagers :( You know, that show where you have 6 teenagers and all sorts of possible relations between them (very resource-efficient producers) . It's actually pretty good sometimes...even though most of the dialogues are beeped! Anyway, watching the recent episodes made me wonder again what sort of person I was and should be: Ben or Ricky.

When things are alright, Ricky seems like a selfish, villainous character and Ben seems to be the nice, gentle one. But when troubles came, Ricky faced them head on and took full responsibility. He left off fooling around with Adrian, took a job and started caring for John and helping Amy out. And since he's met his biological mother, he is trying his best to help her get her life back on track. He didn't get bogged down by what fate threw at him and didn't run away from his troubles. You gotta admire someone like that...no wonder almost every female character is in love with him :D Ben, on the other hand, likes to look like the good guy but does not know how to live up to it if circumstances aren't favourable. He claims to be in love with Amy but sleeps with Adrian and dates Grace...sheesh. He doesn't take responsibility for anything he's done or lays a claim to. He just wants his life to be smooth and easy...and when anything threatens that, he runs away to the most comfortable alternative available, all the while crying about how things are tough for him. What a sissy -_-

The point is, I've been grappling with these paradoxical personalities ever since I watched Crash (good cop-bad cop) and have been wondering if these personality types are exceptions or the general rule. If they are the rule, then I have a bad feeling I'm a Ben :'( I always gave a lot of importance to being a good person. Nothing wrong with that but I also give a lot of importance to being seen as a good person. That's where the problem lies. I think that makes me a bit of a coward and I can be really good only when I stop caring about appearances. Now, I have started to appreciate personalities like Scarlett O'Hara. I had always felt obliged to view her as a more villainous character. I think that is because my mental conditioning (developed on own + inherited as part of the human race) has taught me to view women who steal husbands and are not gentle as villains even if they have bravely and single-handedly supported families and saved lives >:(

But now I have realized that courage is the most important quality, without which the rest are incomplete (JK Rowling got that right :) ). One of my favourite profs at IIML once said "Courage is the pre-requisite to integrity". Truer words were never spoken! I don't care much about appearances of politeness and goodness if you can't stand up for yourself, and by other people, when the going gets tough. Here's to real character!

5 Reasons Why I Love Modern Family

I wanted to stick to literature in this blog but have to express this somewhere and I don't have another blog so:

(1) They are dysfunctional - I love dysfunctional families!Any other kind just cannot be fun enough ;)

(2) They are family - They are absolutely crazy but they stick by each other (except Jay's and Gloria's exes who were a whole different level of crazy). I cannot imagine living with a person like Cam who blows into pieces all the time and goes sleep-clowning :O But Mitch loves him and I feel sure Mitch will never say "that's enough" and leave him. That's what family is supposed to be! I love Gloria's Spanish quote: you should be the wing in your family's back, not the spit in their face (it supposedly sounds better in Spanish).

(3) Even the dog breaks the fourth wall :D

(4) Phil - Funniest person EVER.

(5) Gloria - She wears her heart on her sleeve. She's so frank and innocent and not at all bitchy, which breaks a big stereotype about beautiful women! And she's super cool!

I have only 4 seasons on my laptop and already on season 3. I'm going to miss them so much when I'm done :(

Phew!

It is so difficult to think of a name for the blog without getting the word 'random' in and without sounding too dreamy. But the blog is going to be about random things so I managed to work the randomness in by naming my blog and url after two things that redefine randomness: Beatles lyrics and Lewis Carroll :D Yeah yeah so I ended up sounding pretentious anyway ;)

This blog is meant for all the non-lit stuff which I can now move from my other blog! I don't know why I take the trouble since I won't be regular or have any readers...but these things give you a good laugh when you look back on them after a few years :D