Once Upon a Time Dating

I was re-watching episodes of Laguna Beach the other day, and a lot of thoughts were going through my mind. First of all, I can’t believe that as a tween I was team LC. She is so whiny and annoying, not to mention delusional that she thought she had a chance with Stephen when he was so clearly in love with Kristen. Also, thank god I wasn’t a teenager in the early 2000’s… jean skirts and Abercrombie t-shirts? So not my style. But I also started feeling nostalgic about “the old MTV”. I know that all of the older people reading this are thinking that I am talking about the MTV that actually played music videos, but I’m not. Let’s be honest, I’m way too young to even know what that was like. I’m talking about the MTV that featured grounded, (kind of) classy young adults expressing themselves. I know that Laguna Beach was hardly an intellectual and introspective TV show, but in the first season it showed LC pursuing her fashion career, Christina pursuing her music, and Trey hosting open-mic events where teens could feel they have a voice. Another older MTV show that came to mind is the show Made, where teens were given a chance to either change something negative about themselves, or pursue a dream they never thought would become reality. These shows were entertaining, but also had at least a little bit of depth.

When I look at the reality shows on MTV today, they make me cringe. When I think about the fact that tweens are watching Jersey Shore, 16 & Pregnant, and Teen Mom, I imagine that they can’t help but imitate the behavior they are watching. I remember in middle school when my friends and I would watch Laguna Beach together and try to straighten our hair and do our makeup like the girls of the OC did on the show. Are middle school girls today aspiring to be like Snooki and Deena? When did trashy behavior become the only form of entertainment on reality TV? Isn’t it telling that the theme song for Laguna Beach was “Come Clean”, and the theme song for Jersey Shore is some weird chant about doing something crazy? Maybe Laguna Beach featured spoiled young adults, but I’d take that over trashy young adults any day. This is coming from someone who watches Jersey Shore, but I am old enough to laugh at the show rather than emulate it.

What do you think?

So I just started watching The Sopranos a couple weeks ago, for the first time ever. I know what you’re thinking: “You call yourself a TV buff and only JUST started watching The Sopranos?” It’s borderline embarrassing, but don’t worry, I’m already on the last season. Now, I’m sure when most people watch The Sopranos they notice the violence, blood, imagery, and character development…but not me. I noticed the nails.

I’ve always been obsessed with nails. If you ask my mom she will tell you how when I was four years old I used to put on the long, fake slip on nails they sell at CVS and tap my fingers on every hard surface. It might sound weird, but I think I have always noticed people’s nails because they say a lot about a person. Just like someone’s hair or clothes, they are a way for women to express themselves. So naturally when I started watching The Sopranos, I was drawn to Carmela and Adrianna’s long, acrylic, almost ghetto nails. But then I started thinking more about what nails not only say about individual women, but what they say about women in general.

When you watch Mad Men or The Sopranos, shows featuring misogynistic, self-obsessed, prostitute loving, male lead characters, you will notice that all the women have very long nails. Both Betty Draper and Carmela Soprano are blonde, passive housewives with nothing better to do than what I did as a four year old, tap their nails on the kitchen table. I know that on these “high concept”, award-winning shows, costume design is considered very carefully. So this made me wonder: are long nails a symbol of anti-feminism?

Then I looked back at a new HBO show that just finished its first season, Girls. I noticed that all of the characters, especially Jessa, perhaps the freest spirit among all of the characters, not only doesn’t have long nails, but her nails are very short and bitten down. Now, I’m not sure if Lena Dunham planned this (I doubt she did), but this is a very female oriented show, and all of the girls are independent with short nails.

As times are changing, are women wearing their nails shorter to assert their independence?

What do you think?

Before you start reading this post, I feel I should leave a disclaimer that I love Sex and the City as much as the next girl. I started watching in tenth grade just before the first movie came out, and fell in love. I also think this show has had an undeniably remarkable impact on pop culture and on women in general and was genius in many ways. So this post isn’t about me judging Sex and the City… it’s about me judging everyone else.

I started watching a little bit of Bravo’s new show Miss Advised, about sex columnists who can’t find love, and started thinking about the effect Carrie Bradshaw still has on women today. Carrie Bradshaw was an amazing character that exemplified everything women want: to be skinny, pretty, fashionable, have great friends, a fun job, and gorgeous men asking you out left and right. She doesn’t really do much other than go out, eat, and have sex, yet she can afford all of the Manolo Blahniks her heart desires. Even though her life is a fantasy, akin to the life of Bella Swan in the Twilight series or Anatasia Steele in the Fifty Shades series, for some reason many women don’t view her as a character. They move to the city after college and expect their lives to be as glamorous as Carrie’s. They have the mentality that a pair of shoes will solve all of their problems, and writing or talking about their issues will make them go away in 30 minutes (just like they do in an episode of Sex and the City!).  Twitter and other social media websites make this even more easy, because now every 25 year old’s twitter is a Sex and the City column.

Here is my point: no one is a Charlotte, or a Miranda, or a Carrie, or especially a Samantha, just as no man is an Edward or a Jacob. Sex and the City was a fun show, but girls need to start looking deeper at themselves than Carrie Bradshaw ever did: “Is my relationship like a pair of shoes?”

What do you think?