Fictional Reality: Of TV Shows and College Revelations

This confession is a tad embarrassing, but in light of how much time I’ve spent de-stressing by watching TV shows, I can’t help but to catalogue my abundant feelings regarding fictional characters. Interpret it as you will, but you can chalk it up as praise for compelling actresses.

It’s been a long time since I’ve really properly watched a TV show. I’ve never been really obsessed, precisely because I’m the type of person to become addicted to meaningless soap operas and nonexistent people, and therefore, waste precious time that I could’ve spent on doing more productive things than sitting on my bed, huddled in my blankets, computer plugged into the wall, watching episode after episode of Friends. Needless to say, I’ve since reached a medium between living in the media and being completely isolated from pop culture. I didn’t let myself become obsessed with actors or actresses; I didn’t let myself peruse (even more) fanfictions on the endless beauty of the web.

Until now.

I’m unsure whether it’s because I’m repressed at home or I’m just repressed in general, but shows of the LGBT variety seem to draw me in incessantly, forcing me to see all the connections and unravel all the feelings. Cue Lip Service, BBC Three’s “lesbian drama,” starring Ruta Gedmintas (also known as a pure goddess) and Laura Fisher in such a compelling story that echoes, eerily, to my own life.

Ruta Gedmintas as Frankie Alan on Lip Service.

Frankie is broken and beautiful. A part of me is glad that whatever problems that weigh me down are nothing compared to the pain she harbors; another part of me wishes that I was just a little more broken, just a little more beautiful to be as compelling as she is, to be as intense as she is. Perhaps it isn’t healthy to have so many things in common with someone who clearly symbolizes missed opportunities and webs of lies and problematic formative ages, but the lack of resolution makes it all the more realistic, perhaps even pessimistic. Old wounds open and new ones form, what ifs and guilt and the incessant need to blame and run away and quit flooding in; curl up and reexamine priorities and let the hurt sink in until you can bear it, I suppose.

It’s real and raw in a way that transcends reality, almost, as if right at this moment there’s Cat Mackenzie complaining about her boss and her brother Ed pining after his lesbian best friend. All of me wants to share in their rock-solid friendship, despite their very few ups and many more dramatic downs. The subdued, non-flashy characteristic intrigues me much more than overly outrageous plotlines. It simply… follows these women around, sharing their lives, shaped by a history of screw ups and messiness.

It wasn’t the TV show itself that unwound me from three midterms and two papers; it was the cathartic breakdown its relatable characters caused, the time a mere TV show made me take to reflect on my own life. It’s scary when I can connect so well with a character’s family dynamic and relations with people, but I suppose it’s for what TV shows were designed.