Why I Hate Horror Movies

           When is a time when people voluntarily put themselves in a terrified state just for the “fun” and the “adrenaline rush” (whatever that means)? Roller coasters, jumping on and out of things, and horror movies. We’re going to stick with the worst one today: horror movies.

            Ever since I was little I’ve hated any types of scary movies. It took be until I was 12 to even be able to fully watch and enjoy the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (Yes, I know they are not horror, but to a five or six year old they are terrifying even though they are Disney) and 15 to watch my first horror movie. Since I was the older sibling I never had any sibling pressure to watch horror movies until I was 15 and my sister was 13. Then she began her horror movie phase and wanted to watch dozens of horror movies with her. It didn’t go so well.

            Part of what I hate so much about horror movies is that they aren’t very realistic and ninety percent of the time they end with the little kid being the murderer. What? I would hope that people in real life and much smarter than the people in horror movies. These people think that they are invincible and they can do whatever they please. It has always been hard for me to take people in horror movies seriously based on their actions.

            Also, there is a lot more gore than there is in real life. In real life if you accidentally cut yourself with a kitchen knife you would clean it and possibly need a few stitches, while in a horror movie you would be gushing blood and leave a trail along the ground that the murderer follows. Its insane.

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Best Moments From NCIS Halloween Episodes

 

The Halloween episodes of NCIS have some of the best moments by far.

              One of my favorite moments on a NCIS Halloween episode was when Ziva found McGee’s Elf Lord costume. Seeing Ziva put on McGee’s blue elf hat and tried to pull it off the best she could. In a way, like a deep deep down way, you feel bad for McGee but you still have to love it when Ziva and Tony haze him. Ziva though she was being so clever wearing McGee’s elf hat and the matching gloves that went with it until Gibbs walked right up behind her. This was hilarious because Ziva and Tony were in their own little world when Gibbs came up and caught them both extremely off guard.

            Another NCIS Halloween moment was when Ducky and Palmer were late to a crime scene and the team was at a house waiting for them only to have the NCIS van pull up the house and learned that they had been egged. Not that that was a problem for Ducky. Palmer explains that Ducky chased the teenagers who egged their van and made them clean the van off before they could leave. None of the team members can believe it and Ducky can be seen going on like it’s just a normal day occurrence.

           My all time favorite NCIS Halloween scene that I love is when we get to see Abby in her Marilyn Monroe dress. Tony and McGee (I’m pretty sure..) were the first ones to go down to Abby’s lab on Halloween and are completely flabbergasted when they watch Abby twirl around in her costume and act like it’s a totally normal thing. Tony and McGee’s facial expressions and lack of words are hilarious and its even better when Gibbs goes down later and has about the same reaction as them.

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The Five Stages After Finishing A TV Show

              Even though I'm completely caught up with Grey's Anatomy I still find myself going on Netflix and re-watching the old episodes once again, I can't help it! I'm pretty sure I've re-watched the first episode at least 5 times and I have all of the lines memorized. When you finally get through the last episode of the last season of a show on Netflix and it takes you back to season 1 episode 1 and then you go through the 5 stages of finishing a show.

               The first stage you enter when you finish all of the episodes of all of the seasons of a show is a sense of accomplishment. You just finished the ENTIRE show. All seven (or whatever) seasons of a show that you have been watching for weeks or months and finally getting to the ending. Finding out if your favorite couple will end up together, will they get off the island, and will they ever really get together. You find yourself sitting in your room pondering the ending and wishing some things had turned out different and knowing that some of the things were absolutely perfect.

               Stage two: you feel like you have to tell anyone who will listen. This stage includes even people who have never even heard of the show. You text your friends and talk to your parents about how awesome the show is and how the seriously need to start watching it. If your friends or parents have seen it you feel like you need to have an in depth conversation about everything that happened in the end and who your favorite character was and who you wish would have died/lived in the finale.

                Stage three: the wonderful, weird, amazing world called the Internet. Once you have enter the Internet stage your friends and family and any real people you can physically can talk to are tired of you talking about Grey’s Anatomy every minute of every day even though you’re still not sure how you feel about some of the plot holes. This is when you turn to the Internet for help. On the Internet you can find thousands or millions of people who love the same show or movie as you and actually want to talk about it and feel the same as you. You can find blogs like this one dedicated to your show or movie, fanfiction, art, and people’s opinions on every aspect of the show or movie, characters, character’s death, who should have made out with who, why the ending just was not the greatest, and way more. This stage is typically the longest because there is just so much out there that stage three could honestly last you weeks or months.

                Stage 4: grieving. This is where you are finally starting to move on from the show or movie and have to grieve for your immense loss. You no longer feel like you have the time or need for the Internet and that you don’t really want to watch the show either. Some of the show seems a bit cliché and you’re not sure if that was really hot male main character is actually that hot. You’re letting go, which is good. The posters get taken down and the background on your laptop gets changed back to something normal again like puppies or something. You tell yourself that you need to get your life back on track and that this fandom is just taking up too much of your precious time.

             Stage 5: finding a new obsession. This stage is by far the easiest stage out of all five stages. This is when your casually looking through Netflix (even though you said you wouldn’t in stage four) and seen a picture that looks interesting. The Witches of East End? You click on the description and start to get a bit more intrigued. And then you click. Even though you said you wouldn’t. Sure maybe the first few episodes are a bit slow but it gets so much better. Welcome back to stage one.   

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Why I Shipped Chuck and Blair

Ship= to want (desperately) for fictional or real characters or people to be together as a couple. Or at least that’s that least complicated way I can put it.

                Gossip Girl was the show that had it all. Drama, relationships, fame, and riches. One of those relationships was the well know ship between Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf. Now that I look back at it, most of the reason why I wanted them to be together was because they didn’t want to be together. They more or less hated each other in the beginning then got closer as friend and then dated. I loved their fighting and saying that they would never, ever date when you knew the whole time that they would end up together. Chuck and Blair were also the only couple that seemed to have anything in common. They both loved to scheme. Some of the best episodes were ones that involved Blair and Chuck working together so they could catch something in the act or find some secret that someone was hiding.  

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How Netflix Actually Helps Currently Running Shows

                A lot of reports have been finding that people around 11 to 20s are more likely to watch their TV shows on Netflix and other providers such as Hulu Plus than actually watching currently running shows on channels like ABC and CBS. While this is true, Netflix also helps the currently running shows when you really think about it. Without Netflix a few currently running shows would no longer be on the air, or would have a significantly smaller audience compared to shows that are not available on Netflix.

                Only a few years ago I was the only one of my friends that consistently watched Grey’s Anatomy and was completely caught up with the episodes currently running on TV. Most people didn’t want to watch it because A, they were grossed out or afraid of blood and gore and medical-ish things, or B they knew they wouldn’t understand what was going on in the show because Grey’s Anatomy has been on for 12 years and there are a lot of things that refer to previous episodes that a new viewer wouldn’t know about. Therefore most people could only catch up on Grey’s by getting the DVDs from the library or a store or trying to find the show (illegally) online.

                Now, GREY’S ANATOMY IS ON NETFLIX! Ever since then I’ve heard more and more people talking about the show and how they’ve been binge watching it on Netflix. A girl at my work said that she thought she would never watch Grey’s Anatomy and now that all of the past seasons are available on Netflix she’s already on season three and has been watching it every day. Netflix has allowed people to catch up on entire seasons of shows and then be able to watch them live on TV being fully caught up with what it going on in the show.

                While some TV channels such as ABC, NBC, CBS, and ABC Family have apps that let you watch some of the episodes, they most likely only have the last 5 or 6 episodes of the season the show is currently on. If you wanted to watch Grey’s Anatomy right now from the ABC app you would only be able to watch the first two episodes (what is currently out) of this season. If you were new to Grey’s Land and wanted to watch they show from the beginning you would only be able to do that on Netflix (or DVD which can get expensive). So now Grey’s Anatomy may be saving itself from going off air by being on Netflix and reaching a much younger audience that is now very interested in the show and are flying through the past seasons and planning on watching the new episodes that are currently on TV. Without Netflix Grey’s would not be near as popular as it is now among teenagers.

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Lack of Strong female characters in TV

   While we have certainly came a long way since the beginning of TV and radio shows there are still many problems still alive in Hollywood today. One major problem that many girls see over and over again is the lack of strong female role characters in TV. While some TV have attempted to have more “masculine” female characters they continue to stereotype more feminine female characters and make them seem wimpy and demanding.

                My favorite show in the world from when I was 12-16 was NCIS. I loved seeing characters like Kate Todd and Ziva David that were smart, but they could also fight and solve the cases just as well (if not better than) as the male characters on the show. **SPOILERS** since then both characters have left the show. (Well, Kate died and Ziva left to do who knows what in Israel even though her entire family is dead and she had no real reason to be there.) I was devastated when I found out that Cote de Pablo (Ziva) was leaving NCIS. She had been my role model for the past 4 years and had been half of the couple that I was waiting to get together since the minute she enter the show. It also symbolized the last female role model leaving the show. While Jenny may not have been as tough and ninja like as Ziva, she was the head director of NCIS and was definitely a brilliant role model for girls.

                After Ziva left I felt like there was no reason for me to continue watching the show and I didn’t really care if the show ended or not. Now the show as a “New Girl”, Ellie Bishop, who does seem to be intelligent, but lacks the confidence and diversity that Ziva was able to bring to the team. She also is married which means that I can’t ship her with Tony (not that I would ship him with anyone but Ziva, obviously) or anyone else on the team, which makes her really boring. She also bring less excitement to the show because although Ellie is extremely smart, she can’t fight or kill someone eight different ways with just a paperclip.

                Aside from NCIS, another show that attempts to bring strong female character but doesn’t quite get there is the Big Bang Theory. While Amy and Bernadette both are supposed to be seen as more intelligent women in the science field that seem to come across as petty and unintelligente compared to their male counterparts. While Sheldon is shown to have quirks and social skill problems, most of his obstacles are “justified” by the other characters while if a female character such as Penny or Amy do something crazy and say something weird its usually said that its because they are women and that women are crazy. Saying these things on a show where the characters are supposed to be extremely intelligent doesn’t make sense.

                Overall, I feel that sexism in the media leads to a lot of lack of strong female characters in TV and make the average American have the opinions that they do. If we were able to put strong female characters in the most watched shows then it would be easier for girls to have better femaile role models in the media and could help shape people’s opinion on gender in the United States and in other parts of the world.     

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Why You Should Watch Friends

            Over the summer while else was going on vacation and getting beautiful and tan, I was inside watching reruns of Friends on Netflix (and working 25+ hours a week). When I started watching Friends I quickly realized that the show was defiantly before my time (4 years before I was even born before in fact) and I had a bit of a culture shock. I laughed at their weird clothes and that fact that they didn’t even have cell phones and everyone had to share Chandler’s computer because he was the only one out of all six of the “friends” that had one in the beginning. They thought George Stephanopolis was sexy and that tight jeans were “so 80s”. This all really confused me for a while.

           Then I started to really get into the show. With having six main characters it is impossible to not like anyone on the show. I still can’t exactly pick my favorite character of Friends (I’m stuck between Rachel and Phoebe). Rachel seems to bring the most drama to the show, while Phoebe brings the most comedic humor, Chandler brings the most jokes, Joey is funny for his lack of knowledge, Ross runs into so many conflicts that it ends up being funny, and Monica brings humor through her cleanliness and overall attitude. With the mix of these six characters and drama and life and everything that comes with it nothing can go wrong.

            Although Friends started in 1994 and ran until 2004 there are still so many life lessons and humorous moments that can easily be connect to present day. Friends taught me that you should really surround yourself with people who help and inspire you. Although Monica doesn’t really agree with Rachel’s goal to have a job in fashion she still continues to support her best friend until Rachel finally gets a higher job at Ralph Lauren (and beyond that in the end). When Ross got divorced his friends were there for him even when the all had ongoing conflicts of their own. My favorite friendship on the show was between Chandler and Joey. For a majority of Friends Joey had a really tough time trying to get an acting jobs and fell into a lot of money issues during that time. The entire time Chandler supported Joey and paid for his acting lessons and headshots even when all of the other friends didn’t believe in him.

Friends is the best show ever.

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