I don't take antidepressants, but it's not because I don't need them -- it's because I already take daily medications for other health problems and the thought of adding another makes me anxious, which is why I take all the other meds in the first place. (Control of blood pressure and heart issues.) Instead, I rely on reruns of old sitcoms (Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, The King of Queens) to lift my spirits, calm me down and make me laugh.
Now more than ever the entertainment industry dominates our culture, offering distraction from a harsh reality: climate change, political infighting, homelessness, destitute refugees, foreign wars. Binge-watching TV shows is common, and I've done my share. Comedies like Grace & Frankie, Curb Your Enthusiasm, VEEP, the soapy Grey's Anatomy, and even the violent but mostly funny and stylistically beautiful The Sopranos have prevented me from dwelling on the terrifying state of affairs we all face. But there's a whole other category of "entertainment" out there that I just don't understand, even though lots of other people do.
I passed up the critically acclaimed Breaking Bad for years, because who the heck finds pleasure watching a man with terminal cancer who turns to making and selling crystal meth as a way to stockpile cash for his family after he's dead? Finally I decided that 58 Emmy Award nominations (and 16 wins) couldn't be wrong, so I caved. I lasted for five episodes of the first season, until the horrifically bloody deaths of so many people in the unsavory drug world made me feel so much worse than ordinary life without that show in it. I quit watching it and felt better immediately.
Recently, on the recommendation of a close friend and because I love Sandra Oh, the star of the series (pictured above), I decided to check out the BBC hit Killing Eve. I managed to sit through two of the 43-minute episodes in the show's first season. This involved watching people die in the following ways: a hair pin stuck in an eyeball, four slit throats, a stomach pumped full of bullets, and two poisonings by asphyxiation. Each murder was performed by a young female sociopath assassin who had a ball doing it, basically laughing all the way to the bank. In fact, I found her cold-hearted reaction to murdering strangers for reasons completely unknown to her even more disturbing than the very acts themselves.
I did not have any fun watching this scripted mayhem, yet all the reviews of the show promised I would. One critic called it "delicious fun," while another said it was "an intelligent spy-thriller and captivating good time." The fans love it, so now it's on to Season 2. None for me thanks-- I'm hoping to sleep through the night sometime soon.
I am left wondering why so many people find this sort of entertainment entertaining. As a society, we've come a long way from Mr. Ed (talking horse) Car 54, Where Are You? (dumb cops) I Dream of Jeannie (astronaut marries a genie who lives in a bottle), Leave It to Beaver (average American family solves typical problems), Father Knows Best (the title says it all), and all the other shows of the 1950s and 60s that were not about drug addiction, prison life, sex crimes and murder, murder, murder, murder. I see Killing Eve as a further descent into Hell rather than as an escape from the one we live in called Real Life, and no fun at all.
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