Life as an avid pop culture omnivore isn't always easy. There is something wonderful about the crisp written dialogue of movies, television and music that can't be replicated in speech. Well written conversations are wittier and more charming than what people are capable of real life. There aren't awkward pauses or clarifying questions in writing. Tv characters always talk over the laugh tracks instead of letting conversations getting derailed by a joke. Each phrase is filled with a host of sub-textual emotions, and every character's life is boiled down to a handful of scenes which contain the most dramatic moments of his life or year. Elton John doesn't waste time singing about Commuter Man, and the people at CSI are never seen doing the massive amounts of paperwork that would be required of them for all the illegal acts they perform in the name of 'justice' (I've never seen that show, but I figure a cop drama is a cop drama and CBS isn't known for it's originality in programming). Pop culture offers us fantasy and wish fulfillment, and having spent tens of thousands of hours watching, reading and listening to a wide variety of entertainment seeping through the funnel that is pop culture, I often mix up my emotional desires with those of Ted Mosby or Nicholas Hornby.
Paraphrasing the central question of High Fidelity, "which came first, what the tv told me or my emotional disposition? In the land of TV, the shows I enjoy are the shows which offer me emotional satisfaction, catharsis and characters that I adore. What follows, however, is emulation of my adored characters. It begins innocently by borrowing a catch phrase or an opinion about a banal subject, but then I perceive my entire life through the lens of a show (Most recently that show has been Community, which is a show about this very phenomena as much as anything else). Sometimes all it takes to make a brand new lens for the world is a 3 minute pop song with a perfect line or two.
This is all well and good day to day and contributes to my social life and the personae with which I meet people. It becomes a problem, however, when I am confronted with relationships which put me into a state of hyper-emotionality. The foremost of those being the chance of falling in love. No subject is treated more in pop culture than that of finding your special someone (except perhaps breaking up with that special someone). Pop music loves the feeling of falling in love with people because people love that feeling too. What pop culture does, however, is give us the impression that this person will sweep you off your feet and from that day forth you will always every moment feel that same feeling of falling in love and you will never have feelings or desires for anyone else ever because that's what true love is forever and ever. That is, of course, bullshit with a sprinkle of truth, but since it is the dominant concept in pop culture I can't help feeling like the Elephant Love Song in Moulin Rouge portrays a real emotion and one that can last forever. This is, of course, contrary to all experience. My parents have been married for over 40 years, and the love they share is nothing like anything in Moulin Rouge, yet because of my youth and influences, I feel like it should be. My love will be different and more pure. An unending erotic whirlwind that lifts me up where I belong. This attitude lends itself to having hordes of utterly unfair expectations of life and relationships. I expect them to be more like Casablanca than the dreary day to day that actually composes so much of life.
There is a reason to let my fancies slip into real life in the surprisingly many moments where life actually does emulate the feelings or events of pop culture. This moment is where the interior world of dreams and fantasy meet with the external world which so often mocks and rejects. Seizing these small victories is the only way to stay sane in this crazy world and once you know where to find them it becomes easier to recreate those moments and to continually force these fantasies onto the world.
When reality can be elevated to the level of fantasy, it becomes possible to change reality on a whim, and even though my fantasies may be as silly as a handful of songs and movies, they allow me to shape and change my fantasy world, make a dreary day into a necessary scene in the narrative and keep life interesting even if it's just for a line or two.
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