Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Real lives of fictional characters

It's not that I don't know the difference between TV and reality; of course I do.

I just tend to get caught up in things I like.

So the other day I said to Nick, "I knew Betty would have regrets. I knew it!"

"Betty has regrets?"

"Of course she does. It's so obvious. She made this big change, and it didn't make her any happier."

"She seems happy. What big change? What's she regretting?"

"Don! Didn't you see how she was flirting with him? In the kitchen?"

"OK. We're talking about Fictional Betty."

Oh. Well, yes. Fictional Betty.

And then the other day I was trying to convince Nick to use the neti pot, because he was worried about getting a cold.

He declined.

We've been having this Six Feet Under marathon, and I suppose the neti pot was on my mind, because it had been in the episode we'd watched the night before.

So I said, "George has used the neti pot for years, and he never gets sick."

"George is a fictional character."

He's got me there.

11 comments:

  1. James hates the neti pot, I've gotten him to try it once. And when an episode of Cougar Town had a character almost drown himself with the neti pot, he was like "See, I TOLD YOU IT WAS DANGEROUS!" He didn't care about the fictional character reasoning.

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  2. Shawn refuses the neti pot also. It's weird because boys are generally gross, right? Like Shawn will do some fucked up shit that gives me hives (eat IN THE SHOWER for example) but for some reason the neti pot is too gross for him.

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  3. i do the same thing! when things happen to my favorite characters on tv i feel like it's happening to my best friend, and there are times when i've been legit upset!

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  4. Betty is fictional? :) I love watching Mad Men and to watch the movies I love over and over again in order to get lost in the world of the characters.

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  5. i get you - i talk about Giuliana & Bill like they're my friends from High School

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  6. It gets even more confusing when you start talking about reality stars because are the real or fictional?? We will never know...

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  7. But... life imitates art? And George is probably based on an amalgamation of real people, because why would a writer talk about someone using a neti pot for years and not getting sick unless they KNEW someone like that?

    I would suggest to Nick that the evidence of George tends to make the neti pot theory more likely to be true, and is not unduly prejudicial, and therefore should be admissible in your argument.

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  8. Ha yes, I totally do that all the time. I think the problem is that so many people around me talk about TV that I do start to think of them as extensions of real life, like they ARE people I know...

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  9. Have you seen The Wire? When things happen to the characters on that show I am shattered, just broken.

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  10. We do this at our house. Sometimes I'm afraid that there isn't anyone in the room to remind us that those are fictional characters.

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  11. I'm still waiting to find out what happened to Valerie Cherish.

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