...or not?

I don't often disagree with my colleague, but today I'm going to and I may risk losing some man points in the process, but it needs to be done! Whilst I am unfamiliar with Glee, though I gather it has collected quite the following, or 90210, which I fail to see how this show can be any good without the bad early nineties clothing, I am going to defend the OC and Dawson's Creek, two shows I was addicted to when I was younger. The weekly dose of extreme melodrama somehow made me feel like however bad my life got, the rich kids had it so much worse! It certainly seems that money does not buy you an easy life...just a nice house, nice car, possibly a yacht and a girlfriend that looks slightly like a supermodel, and Ryan actively shunned the rich life, well, at least at first.

I'm not entirely sure what drew me to Dawson's Creek. It might possibly have been Katie Holmes. But I think it was also the idea that the characters drawn were so melodramatic, so emotionally over the top that it was impossible not to watch. Are American teenagers actually like that? I distinctly doubt it, and they all looked like they were in their twenties in the first series. One thing I always wondered, why on earth did Dawson have any friends? I'm not entirely sure that I could put up with someone that was so whiny constantly as a friend. You end up wanting Pacey and Joey to end up together to punish him, or maybe wishing that Joey and Dawson would end up together just so he would quit his incessant whining. It is a little like Scrubs, I actively hated JD by a few seasons in, the other characters were fine...

I always identified with Seth in the OC, although I suspect I never had the social problems that he had at the start of the show. Whilst I don't quite agree that a nerd should need a 'cool' misfit kid who grew up on the streets in order to find social validation, unfortunately in high school it probably is a bit like that. I could certainly identify with the process that Seth went through in order to feel a bit more comfortable in his own skin. The same goes for Ryan for that matter. This is an extremely important point, as love them or hate them, they fulfill a role, grappling with issues such as sexuality, coping with death (although I'm not sure many deal with it through becoming bareknuckle fighters), divorce and extramarital problems. These are things that should be brought into the limelight, and whilst over the top, these shows do it.

I should probably add at this point that half the reason I watched these two shows was because they were genuinely hilarious. In the case of Dawson's Creek I don't think it was ever meant to be, but certainly in the fourth season of the OC the producers were poking fun at themselves almost as much as the fans were. I will also add the disclaimer to this post that I certainly do not like all teenage melodrama. Twilight makes me want stab myself repeatedly in the eye with a fork for instance. There is a fine line between entertaining melodrama and just utter crap. There does seem to be a genuine need for these shows, and as long as they keep on dealing with important issues than I think they should be allowed to stay.

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