On Genre Bending

Part of the whole "not moving to England any more" thing has been a drastic change of mindset. I kind of purged what was left of my old ways of thinking (and most of the stuff from my apartment, lol) and fully embraced my liberated-inner-nerd lifestyle.

I've been trying to get rid of someone the ways of thinking that were just uselessin my life, or holding me back in some way. One of them is that I'm still hung up on some of my old pretentiousnesses (is that even a word? Oh well, it is now :P). The past week has been a big one for me: I've been binge-watching "Friends" on Netflix.

I know that doesn't seem like much, but I always saw that show as something that "the masses" did. All the girls in my peer group watched it. All the girls who teased me and bullied me and who were prettier and more popular than me all watched it...So I decided that I was just too good to watch "Friends." THAT show was for the masses, and since I was rising above the bullies, I was above the, show too. And it seems like and odd show to pick on, but "Friends" was really *THE* show of my age group. EVERYONE watched it as they were coming of age, and it ran for 10 years - basically my peers grew up with it.

So I've always avoided it like the plague. It was a microcosm of the social life I just never fit into.

And now that I'm halfway though it, and my stigma has passed, it's time to move on to the next media "Get over it" move...

Because as silly as it seems, "Friends" is just a bridge to the next step for something I've been avoiding for YEARS, and I'm not sure why: the superhero genre.

Maybe I just had exposure to some bad movies when I was younger. Maybe I always felt like I "wasn't allowed" to get into the genre because I don't read the comic books (some nerds can be funny that way). Heck! Maybe it's because "superheroes were for boys", and I didn't feel welcome in the boys club or I never had a guy friend to introduce me to the genre! But for whatever reason, I never got into it.

And by the time I full entered the nerd world where EVERYONE loves superheroes, I was just lacking in the fan knowledge, so rather than look a noob who knows nothing, I just avoided the genre altogether and focused on the genres I DID know about.

BUT NO MORE!!!!!! It's time I gave heroes a chance! If I can devote 5 seasons of 25 episodes of "Friends" to getting over myself, surely I can give Marvel and/or DC the same chance. So I'm going back, waaaay back to 1998 and working my way through the Marvel films, starting with Blade. I've already seen the first three X-Men (which I enjoyed, more or less) and .... two (?) Spiderman movies (which were terrible). But From what I hear, most of them are pretty good - I know The Avengers are causing a lot of ruckus right now ;)

So while I doubt I'll ever become a HUGE fan of sitcoms or superheroes (I'm pretty set in my sci-fi ways), at very least I can stop avoiding them and start appreciating them. Who knows? I may even start reading comics! Ha ha ha!