I've been ignoring this blog for a while. First there was Christmas, then visiting my boyfriend abroad and now looking for a job, which has led to me getting insomnia. But I feel like talking about something I've been watching lately - Skins.
This teen drama has been airing for 5 years now and won oodles of awards and praise. Yet I always seem to avoid popular and 'normal' things like the plague. I did watch the first episode of season 1 years ago, probably just to see what it was all about.
I was in Sixth Form myself at the time, so I should have fitted right in the target audience. Except I didn't. I sat through the whole of the first episode and then decided that I never wanted to watch it ever again. It seemed like the show represented everything that I hated. The main character, I can't remember his name, was the caricature of the boys at school who I loathed and despised. He was big headed, overconfident, rebellious and stuck so far up his own arse I don't know how he was able to breathe. He believed that he was a sex god and that the rules of the world didn't apply to him. Plus he convinced his so called friend that being a virgin after the age of 16 was 'embarassing'. It was far too close to the people at school who made my life a near misery so I developed a personal grudge against the show.
I'm not sure if this was the right move or not. Some people may say I'm wrong for not watching beyond the first episode as it's not enough for me to make a solid judgement. But my personal rule is that if something fails to grab me by the first episode, then it has failed in it's writing and isn't worth my time.
Even so, the show was hugely popular but I secretly mocked the people who liked it. In my mind, they were just like the sexed up morons I had seen in that episode who believed that I was a loser because I was still a virgin.
Years later, I got addicted to 'The Writer's Tale' by Russel T Davis, the former head writer of Doctor Who. In the book, he goes on and on about his love for the show and how brilliant the writing is. A man in his 40's is a fan of a show about teenagers! But he's a writer, and one of the best in the country, so obviously he appreciates good writing when he sees it.
As I read the book, I began to wander if I had been too quick to judge the first series of Skins. What I never found out was the character who I hated fell from grace and according to Uncle Rusty, it was great to watch.
A few weeks ago the fifth series of Skins started with a new 'generation' of characters. The teaser trailer freaked me out a little (Naked people falling from the sky. Wha?!) but I decided to give it a try.
And this time, I was glad I did. This time, the pretty, popular, big headed people were portrayed as the bad guys instead of being celebrated for these qualities. The focus was on Frankie, a weird and socially awkward girl who was a fish out of water in her new school. She had been forced to leave her old school due to viscious bullying (this is why I hate Facebook, but I've already ranted about that elsewhere) and it seemed like the same thing was happening just a few days after changing schools. It seemed like she was struggling between wanting to fit in and wanting to be herself.
Oh if only I had seen this episode back when I was at school! This episode totally appealed to me because I could see so much of myself in Frankie. While I wasn't actually bullied in sixth form and I did have a close group of friends who I had lots of fun with, I was still the weird quiet girl who couldn't seem to fit in with the normal crowd. While some people just wanted to have a laugh, I wanted to learn and pass my exams so I could go to university. Somehow, people just didn't seem to understand or respect that. If I had been able to watch this episode, I might have felt a whole lot better about myself.
I loved the second episode too, but for a very different reason. I'm a huge romantic and incredibly mushy when it comes to love stories, especially if they're different or unusual ones. So the metalhead and the ballet dancer - How much more of an epic romance can you get!!
Once again, there was so much in this episode that appealed to me personally. Although I don't like really heavy metal, the only music I like is stuff like Iron Maiden, Lordi and Nightwish. And recently I've gotten really into ballet and classical music too. I know that's incredibly weird, how can you like both of those things?! I don't know how it works either. But a tv show with both metal and ballet in it, often at the same time, just made me go 'Yeeeeah!!' As Russel T Davies observed long before me, the writing is spectacular too. I guess it took three years of studying writing for me to appreciate it.
Episode three is on tonight and I'm already excited. Part of me feels like I should go back and watch the first season again, but I don't really want to. I feel that it will remind me too much of a really bad time in my life.
But I guess if I've learnt anything, it's not to hold a grudge against a show or say that it's 'bad' just because of my personal feelings about it. There are a lot of things that I don't like for various personal reasons, but I can still recognise if something has good writing or appeals to a certain demographic that I'm not a part of.
Many thanks, Uncle Rusty.
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