Manifesto Post - Don't be Cool

          It was hard to think of a way to not be cool on this blog. Everything is based on television, and most of the posts don’t necessarily deal with my own life in a way that’s “cool” or “ not cool”. The only thing I can really delve into that would be considered not cool is anime. Anime is a Japanese-styled cartoon with a vast array of fictitious story lines that can ensnare pretty much anyone. The weird thing is that even though it has the opportunity for such a wide fan base, it’s extensively considered “uncool” to watch anime in America.

There are many reasons why people might consider it uncool. To start, the female characters are typically portrayed to have breasts that exceed the sizes of their heads. Drawing in this style isn’t part of the Japanese culture. In fact, there are plenty of characters who do not have extremely disproportionate breasts. Yet anime shows are stereotyped to include females with such a body ratio. Why would this be “uncool”? I would assume such a blatant design is meant to attract viewers rather than repel them. Maybe many people see it as the only reason for others to watch anime. Perhaps it’s just disgusting to look at for some people. It’s possibly even due to the fact that breasts in general are a mature concept, yet it’s enacted in quite an immature way.

To couple this notion, many anime shows are built upon childish themes, yet are backed by rather mature implementations. For example, take the anime, “Naruto”.  Naruto employs the idea of ninjas with abilities to summon inner their energy to accomplish pretty much anything. In other words, magic ninjas. It sounds pretty childish to me, and I watch the show. Yet it is backed by deep messages of sacrifice, acceptance, war, peace, and betrayal. Blood shed is not foreign to the show, and sexual undertones can be found hidden in many exchanges. Yet to many, it is seen as a silly show not even worth a second to glance at.

Why is it that the mere thought of what’s cool and isn’t can immediately turn a person away from something they haven’t even tried? I believe the reason is pressure. The pressure to be accepted in some type of way can be felt by any aged person. Like so many other human habits in life, maybe it can be traced as an evolutionary trait. Without fitting into a tribe or herd when humans first scoured the earth, a person would’ve been left behind so survive on his own.  These differences would’ve been a more physical aspect, such as a broken leg. It happens in every animal, if you can’t keep up, you can’t survive. Perhaps, on the other hand, the pressure to fit in is more of a mental state of compassion and mutual understanding. As humans, we each understand basic human concepts and tendencies. Perhaps this mutual understanding draws us to wish to learn more and from each other, and thus pressures are born within a society.

Regardless of its popularity, anime happens to be one of my favorite types of shows to watch. Although they have a set motif and genre, they usually include a variety of comedy, drama, action, horror, and mystery throughout a show’s runtime. In fact, they can cover almost all of these genres in the span of a single episode. This encompassing characteristic, along with its fantasy woven story lines, entrance viewers, like myself, worldwide.

Killing Characters

         This is just my own opinion that I feel needed to be addressed, but why do the writers of shows have to kill off main characters? You know the feeling regardless of what type of media you are into. Let me set the stage. You’re invested in a show, movie, or book for that matter. You've somehow become attached to a main character. He has resolve, he’s good looking, and he’s a man’s hero. Or perhaps she's outgoing, beautiful, calm and adjusted. You've officially decided that you want to model the rest of your life around this character, until you're done with that book/movie/show, of course. Just when you decide, “it’s okay to assume this character will make it to the end of this show/movie/book,” he gets about a million arrows shot through him before he utters his last breath.

          This is NOT okay. Specifically in any show, because this blogs about television. More specifically, in shows that kill off main characters like it’s nobody’s business. I’m talking about you, “The Walking Dead” and “The Game of Thrones.” I get the fact that writers want to make their story line dramatic, but does that mean they have to literally kill off the whole plot line they've just spent the past sixty minutes of my life developing.

Isn't that extremely counter-productive, though? I don’t spend hours painting a picture in which a newly-wed couple discovers their pregnancy, excited for their new life together, then set the canvas on fire! You've pretty much just destroyed everything you've been working so hard on. Why would you excite me with the idea of the couple visiting their child’s oblivious grandmother, to excite her with the news, and then as the care-free couple happily trudge along their quest, have the wife stabbed in the womb? I’ll repeat that, STABBED IN THE WOMB. That's just brutal. This turned out to be a lot more specific than it needed to be, but the point remains.

The worst part of all of this is that I keep coming back to the shows. It’s like that terrible relationship you have. You know, the one that no matter how many times you break up, it just doesn't seem to actually end. You've been with this person for so long, you were happy with them at one point, and you hold onto those memories. However, something changed along the line (maybe he became a psychopath who kills off everyone you care about) and you got into a big argument. But he’s kept calling you back to him. He seems changed with each new call. He acts like he used to be when you first started up your relationship, like he’s learned his lesson. There’s something about his voice that says “I won’t kill everyone you care about, I promise.”  So you take him back. THEN HE GOES AND KILLS EVERY NEW PERSON YOU STARTED CARING ABOUT. I guess there’s something about killing off these characters that draws the viewers in.

 If you’re going to kill a main character, at least let it be a villain. If you just HAVE to kill off a good guy, at least let it be at the end of the show, so we have sentimental feelings for that character that stay with us.“Breaking Bad” got it right; they only killed off villains while the show was running. That was a pretty successful show, too. I swear if Daryl Dixon, Jon Snow, or Jaime Lannister gets killed off, I’m done with television.

Sanity

It's always hard to hear about someone who is clinically insane who happened to hurt others in their state. I'm sure we all thought Casey Anthony had a few screws loose when she was a hot topic. I wont even talk about James Eagan Holmes during the Batman shooting. The morality of what these people may or may not have done is standard in the eyes of society: it's immoral to kill. However, we never really stop to think past that. I've only recently realized that during the times of their misdeeds, these people may have thought they were doing the right thing. That what they were doing was, indeed, moral. If they believed their actions were more, does that make them insane? What really defines insanity? Where and how easily is the line between sane and insane crossed ? Their reality, their thought process, during these times is something we can never fully understand.

                In the show, The Walking Dead, sanity is addressed pretty heavily.  The show opens with the main character and leader of the main group, Rick Grimes in the hospital during the beginning of the apocalypse, left there by his best friend at the time, Shane. While Rick is in a coma, Shane sleeps with Rick’s wife, Lori, and instills his own standards on Rick's son, effectively taking Rick's place in the family. By the time Rick returns, Shane's become quite comfortable with his situation, inflaming a constant struggle for leadership and for Lori’s affection. Rick is eventually forced to kill Shane, and Lori eventually has a baby and dies while giving labor- we just don’t know whose baby it is.  

                Regardless, when Lori dies, Rick seems to die too. Immediately, he hears the phone ring and speaks to all the characters who have previously died on the show. Just to emphasis this - he speaks to dead characters. Not in a zombie-like way, which would be completely understandable for the show. He talks to humanized versions of the dead characters. He hasn't traveled back in time, and its certainly not the twilight zone, he's just a little crazy. They tall him that they are in a safe-haven and that he should join them. Is this his way of coping with the idea of killing himself? He then constantly searches for random hallucinations of his lost love. Is he trying to find Lori? Is he trying to find his sanity? Is he just trying to find himself? Such a mental reaction wouldn't be considered uncommon in such a dystopia. In fact, its happened to other characters on the show as well. Shane has a similar loss of clarity when he is cast aside by Rick's family. 

                Rick’s sanity seems to be bought on by regret. Regret that he didn't say “I love you” to his wife before she died. Regret that he had to kill his best friend and couldn't save his wife. It's hard to say specifically what Rick was thinking, or why he actually went insane. This brings up a great question though, what causes insanity in general?

                I'm no psychiatrist, and even if I was I wouldn't be qualified to answer such a question. In actuality, sanity is just something we made up. It's a concept that more or less coincides with normality. It's a term defined by society to explain how a person views reality. If a person is sane, their reality is the same as everyone else's, and is thus considered reality for that purpose. However, reality, like beauty and sanity, is manipulated by the eyes of those who view it. Insanity IS reality for a clinically insane person. That reality is how an insane person copes with whatever harsh hits life has thrown at him. We're working with very abstract concepts here, so stay with me.

               The show seems to point towards an answer to this question of a cause. “A loss of something.” No, I don't mean a loss of sanity, that's too obvious. In the show, Rick loses his wife and, thus, loses touch with reality for his longing. Meanwhile, Shane lost what he considered to be a relationship with Lori. Although, I don't think that this completely drove him over the edge. He also lost his position in the group as the leader to Rick, which is what really seems to irk him. Together, Rick and Shane have lost their old lives as friends and partners. These are components that made up each individuals life and happiness. The loss of something so real to you, something that you hold so dear, your definition of your own life, is what causes insanity.

                  Just to further abstract the idea of insanity, there is no specified set of actions or predictable behavior that point out insanity. Insanity manifests itself in many different ways, both in and out of the show. Both Rick and Shane seem to react differently to losing their minds. Rick has hallucinations, while Shane dreams of vicious actions, plans to make the group dynamic implode and turns into an overall murderer (mind you, he was a police officer before the apocalypse, so he has a good sense of right and wrong). Rick seems images of Lori, the thing that would make him happy. Shane projects his happiness as being the leader and being with Lori. He loses his mind to achieve this happiness. Is reality and sanity just our own individual projections of happiness?

What may seem to refute this notion is that Rick comes back to sanity. However, maybe it’s because his idea of happiness has shifted to his son’s and daughter’s survival. It’s hard to prove or refute this idea because sanity is such an unknown and hard to understand topic. One would need to become clinically insane and actually return to sanity in order to truly understand what is going on. However, the idea of sanity within the show is something that has been bought up multiple times. I highly doubt this is the last we've seen of this topic.

Social Constructs in The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead happens to have a lot of hidden messages in it. You would think that a show with zombies would pretty much be about death, gore, and violence. Well it is. But there is a lot more to it. For example there are many political issues addressed on the show. The different types of governing tactics used by the miniscule communities that formed through a mutual bond of depression and oppression are vast.

                The first form of government is a very small established community and is therefore formed as a Democracy. This all goes quite swimmingly for a while, actually. They all get a say in what to do, there aren’t many problems amongst the group, and the leader only calls what to vote on. There are too many holes in this government, as when one person never gets his way, he takes matters into his own hands. He tries to kill the person who everyone has been following and believing in. To me, this sounds like a stab at our two-house democracy, where if one political party doesn’t get their way, they decide to protest the government itself. Is democracy flawed by the selfish nature of many humans?

                In the totalitarian government, as seen in Woodbury, “the governor”, as he calls himself, controls everyone’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions in order to do what he wants. If anyone in the establishment steps out of his self-defined line, he has no problem torturing them. When he wishes to assault Rick and his establishment, he lies and manipulates his town in order to get them to attack with him. Obviously this type of establishment has many downfalls. For example, each person has their own train of thought and curiosity for the truth. When the people start asking questions, he just kills a bunch of them off and runs away. Furthermore, can I just quickly address the inhumane treatment of… well, humans? The fact that the people are tortured or killed for their individual thought, simply for the government’s own desires, is just sickening.

                The most recent form of government displayed in the walking dead seems to have more of a socialist theory behind it. Everyone has been taking refuge in the prison. It seems work, food, and properties are distributed evenly throughout the community. This way old people, like one of the main characters, Herschel, can receive food and sustenance too. Although none of this is explicitly stated, this seems to be the general idea of the new community. Meanwhile Rick definitely has some control over the group as a whole. He establishes himself as the leader of their group and kicks people out if they horribly step out of line. Now I’m not saying this is the perfect government, but it seems to have the least amount of problems thus far.

The Walking Dead

“The Walking Dead” has become somewhat of an icon for zombies in America, and even all over the globe. The show is an AMC original depicting a post-apocalyptic world taken over by zombies. Like most zombies are depicted, the zombies portrayed in this series are members of the living dead. However the show gives a scientific spin on it, chalking the reanimation up to an infection that reactivates the brain stem, which controls simple functions such as breathing and eating. In other words, the zombies are humans without the human part. They are reanimated bodies turned animal.

            The reason I bring this up is to brag about how good the shows I watch are. No, I’m kidding, I just want to open you to all the different shows out there. It’s probably my favorite show on television. Each episode is filled with both short term and long term drama that constantly keeps you on the edge of your seat. After not watching the show for the first three seasons, I had decided that I was going to start watching it. This quickly turned into a poor decision, because I began watching it during finals of last semester. As a warning, if you begin to watch this show, do not begin to watch it during exam periods. Consider yourself warned.

            If you don’t want to take my opinion for how good “The Walking Dead” is, why not just see how it has affected popular culture today. The season opened with an approximate total of 16.1 million viewers. If you’re not familiar with television show views, that is indeed a lot of views. For comparison, the finale of “Breaking Bad” had a good 5 million less viewers. The finale of a show is probably the most exciting occurrence for a fan of that show. It will be an episode watched over and over, but will never have the same effect as it did on the first view. I’m not sure if I’m conveying just how important the finale of a television show can be to its viewers. The internet community for that show will go off like a nuclear bomb as soon as that first note in the opening song is played through each individual’s television speakers. However, the season opening of “The Walking Dead” – something nowhere near the effect of a show’s finale – had about 5 million more viewers than the finale of “Breaking Bad”. That’s about the population of Manhattan, four times over.

            In China, “The Walking Dead” is currently the most popular western culture show being played. It currently has more than 250. Allow me to explain how controversial that is for China. With very strict government, television and movie censorship, China gives a hard time towards releasing many highly approved Western television shows or movies. That being said, recently an American film was banned in China. I’m not sure if you heard of it, it’s called “World War Z.” “NO?! WHAT?! WHAT THE HELL, WHY?!” Hold on, I’m getting to that. Many shows and movies in China are banned for violence in general. The censors want to make sure no one gets hurt from the ideas of violent media. Well, World War Z happens to have the undead in it, and that’s considered too violent. Now I’m not sure if you can guess what “The Walking Dead” is about, but I can tell you it’s not about bunnies. The show is so popular that it hasn’t been banned when similar pieces of media have.

            This isn’t just a teenage phenomenon either. Some businesses have racked in the marketing ploys involving zombies after the release of “The Walking Dead”. This doesn’t mean much alone, so I’ll elaborate. An example of this would be the CDC (Center for Disease Control). After the release of the walking dead, the CDC’s blog released a post about zombie survival. What to do if there’s a zombie outbreak. Okay, so maybe zombies aren’t all hype. Maybe they’re possibly real. The CDC has contingency plans for viruses we haven’t been introduced to yet so they can prevent outbreak. Maybe they have a “zombie virus” there and want the word to get out. Well not exactly, the post is driven more towards natural disasters, stating that if you’re ready for a zombie apocalypse you’re prepared for any disaster. It constantly nods towards other natural disasters in its post to show their being facetious about zombies. However, the amount of publicity this post received is ridiculous. This 80 dollar marketing scheme was estimated to be an estimated worth of 3.4 million dollars. It reached an estimated 3.6 billion people, and crashed their blog site when it was first posted. While it makes references to “The Walking Dead” and appeals to zombie culture, the CDC had attained a great marketing value for such a simple idea because of it.

The Beginning of the End

After the first episode of season 9 of How I Met Your Mother, we’ve finally discovered who the mother of Ted’s children is! Nine seasons in the making, and HIMYM has managed to become a novel which Ted relays to his children to display how his wife was met. There’s just one problem, Ted hasn’t actually met her, she has just been introduced in the show.

                First off, I believe this is a great way to start off the season. Eight seasons is a great runtime for a show! However, viewers had to have been getting extremely anxious to find out who the mother was. According to the writers of the show, season eight was supposed to be the last season of the series. Yet there were so many unresolved factors in Ted’s life that had to be addressed, it seems it couldn’t be the end of the show. Without the new season, the show would be left off with many plot holes and dissatisfied viewers. The most important of these being that Ted still has romantic feelings for Robin.

                The last season left off with the imminent wedding between Robin and Barney. Prior to this wedding, Robin had a nervous breakdown – something not entirely foreign to her character. Rather than Barney, her fiance, being the one to help Robin in her marriage-related time of crisis, who else was there but Ted. Ted, who is the best man of Barney. Ted, who is the ex-boyfriend of the bride-to-be. Ted, who happens to be the hopeless romantic that jumps at any random occurrence of love-induced trauma and deciphers it as the universe’s sign that some type of involvement is imminent. This is just Ted’s character. He has to be the one who helps someone in their time of need. He’s the one who comes through at the last minute every time, especially for Robin. But Ted’s not stupid; he had to know that if he went to help Robin it would bring up old feelings. I SWEAR IT’S LIKE HE PURPOSELY COMPLICATES EVERYTHING.

                Anyway, Ted decides to become even more like Ross from Friends by quickly changing professions from an architect to an archaeologist. That is, considering he digs up ancient feelings he thought he had freed himself of. To make matters worse, he has checked into a couples resort for the wedding reception. “Oh dear God, does he want to torture himself,” is clearly the only proper response to this. However, this is just some of the typical and major humor presented in HIMYM. The writers put the characters in awkward and annoying situations constantly to show their atypical reactions and personalities. 

                In this particular case, the writers seem to be purposely pointing out Ted’s feelings for Robin throughout these new episodes. I believe that the writers want to emphasize his feelings in order to move the show in a specific direction. For example, after his intimate moment of holding hands in the park with Robin, Ted decides that he wants to move to Chicago. Literally a whole episode revolves around this one tiny detail in the story that everyone knows won’t happen. He cannot bear the thought of living in the same state as the woman he loves while she is married. He has decided to leave New York, an architect’s dreamland, a place he loves, to avoid someone he loves. Ted also attempts to avoid Barney due to his rediscovered love.

It’s a good thing Barney doesn’t know about Ted’s feelings because then- oh wait. Barney was watching Ted comfort Robin at the park whole time? Wow, this show really loves to throw the most awkward situations possible into the picture. The most recent episode deals with the rift driven between Barney and Ted’s friendship. Ted is put between a bad place and a bad place. Being between a rock and the bad place just wasn’t good enough for him. However, in the end of the episode, he decides that he will overcome his feelings and be there for Barney as friend and best-man. This truly does help to put a spotlight on Ted’s character. He’s hopelessly in love with Robin, yet still decides to push past that and be Barney’s best man at his wedding. He will do anything for his friends, even overcome his love and emotions.

                I believe that although this seems to be a small detail it was done for a big reason. Barney being aware of Ted’s feelings is the best push Ted needs to start getting over Robin for good. This is possibly the best way to begin the ending of the show. They’ve finally introduced the mother, and Ted needs a way to transition from Robin to the mother. To emphasize the point, the writers put the mother small parts of each episode. For example, in the first episode, we are reminded that Ted eventually moves on because the mother meets Lily on a train ride to the wedding. Although this is a subtle hint, the point is pushed further in the third episode, when Ted has a flashforward (?) of him and his wife being in the same place as a current love-sick Ted. These reminders foreshadow that Ted is soon about to transition from his old love to his new love. The show as a whole definitely seems to be coming to an end. The fact that a new season has been added has definitely been helping to tie up loose ends.

How I Met the Cast

                In light of the final season of How I Met Your Mother just starting, now would be the perfect time to catch up anyone who hasn’t seen the show. I don’t want you guys getting lost in future posts! How I Met Your Mother is a wonderful sitcom quite comparable to Friends, a series that dominated the lives of so many so-called “90’s kids”. The story line is set to revolve around the series absurd anecdotes a father named Ted Mosby chronicles and enlivens, for his children, describing how he met their mother. These anecdotes revolve around Ted’s group of friends throughout his adult life. The group itself changes as some of its members acquire new significant others, but mainly consists of Robin, Barney, Lily, and Marshall. I guess the best way to catch someone up on the seemingly infinite 8 seasons of this show is to individually describe each character and their contributions to the show.

                I’ll start with the main character, Ted Mosby. Ted’s most prominent characteristics, pointed out by the show itself, are brought forth by his love of aristocratic lifestyle. He has fancy tastes, although he can’t afford to truly display this personality. He is brought down from the fantasy of an aristocratic lifestyle and character by the reality of middle class society. For example, he has the need (note: not the desire, the need) to correct grammar and word usage in real life. When Ted is in a typical party on the streets of New York, he is just another person in the crowd, but almost needs to be black-out drunk just to have a “good time”. When he is placed in the middle of an aristocratic party, where the dress code seems to be black tuxedos, handlebar mustaches, and monocles, Ted Mosby is literally the life of the party. Despite this seemingly pompous and narcissistic disposition, Ted deeply cares for his friends and will always try his best to help them. You might expect someone who has this disposition to be extremely scheduled and up tight. On the contrary, Ted is typically portrayed as an impulsive individual, led by his desire to find the woman he will fall in love with and elope with. One minute he will promise his friend that he’s broken up and done with a girl, because that was the logical thing to do, and the next he’s sleeping with that person in a storm trooper outfit. Perhaps this personality is simply prominent due to the nature of the anecdotes, which promotes a hopeless romantic, bent on the conquest for the holy grail of love.

                Marshall Eriksen, unlike Ted, is basically a big teddy bear. If you needed a comparison to actually depict a character, think Chandler from friends, but sillier. He’s the most level-headed, yet hysterical one of the group. The humor in his character lies within his outrageous antics, such as channeling his inner southern woman to give advice. The fact that he is the most level-headed of the group makes his advice the most logical to follow, but because of his antics, he’s not taken seriously. He also usually doesn’t but into other people’s problems because he’s has more of a laid back personality. He’s from Minnesota, and holds his upbringing very close to him. He’s Ted’s best friend and roommate from college, so they have a very tight bromance, as the kids call it these days. His character is hard to pinpoint and explain because it’s so dynamic. He can embody any type of personality because he has such a laid back and logical complex. Currently in the show, he’s married to Lily Aldrin.

                Lily is the voice of reason in the group, which is why she and Marshall make a great couple. Whenever Ted decides to follow his love-impulses, Lily is the one who attempts to set him on the right path. Her outspoken and assertive personality easily makes her the most volatile of the group. As soon as anyone steps out of line, she becomes agitated and over exerts her emotions in a comedic manner. Again, if you were looking for someone to compare to, think Monica from friends. She has known both Marshall and Ted since their freshman year of college, when she began dating Marshall. She’s the glue that holds the group together as the judge, jury and executioner, but does it for her love of everyone.

                Barney is literally the easiest person to describe. He likes women, and will do anything to sleep with one. I always find this extremely ironic because he’s played by Neil Patrick Harris. If you don’t know he has a husband and in real life and is generally known to be a great family man. If you’re looking for another comparison, think Joey from friends with much more antics. He always wears a suit to look good and never takes a bad picture. Ever. Barney’s antics usually rely on his various ploys to sleep with women at the local bar McLaren’s. The man is an emotional wreck if you didn’t get it by this point. I mean, who wouldn’t be with a fatherless childhood, bad relationships, and continuous disrespect for women. Actually, it’s not until he is able to put his inner demons to rest by meeting his father that he is finally able to settle down with Robin and get married.

                Robin Scherbatsky is the newest member of the group, and the weirdest by far. She’s basically a man, and is bought into the friendship circle in the pilot episode. In this episode she’s asked out by Ted, where he tells her he loves her on the first date. That alone is pretty much the best example to summarize the whole show, but that’s completely off topic. Robin has a very man-like aspect to her, as she smokes cigars and drinks beers and whiskey with the guys. Her and Ted constantly have an on and off relationship throughout the show. That is, until she begins to date Barney (bro-code violation). The only problem is she’s pretty much just of an emotional wreck as Barney. Her father always wanted a boy, and treated her just like one. She, thus, has a terrible relationship with her father. She’s originally from Canada which is the cause of many of the jokes on the show.

                That’s pretty much every character of How I Met Your Mother summed up as best as I can do in one post. I hope it helps to aid in future posts for those who haven’t seen it!