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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

skins - 3rd, 4th


I admit that in High School I admired one girl, maybe two but not at the same time and no others.  The girl I dated as a Senior in High School was a friend of a classmate.  I was in class, forget what subject, this girl who never paid me any attention dropped her pen to the left of me.  In High School we have these tables in which you can only exit out of your seat from the left because the tables had a arm rest where it blocks exiting to the right.  The only way she would be able to pick up the pen is to lean over and stretch to pick it up or get out of her seat and walk to my row to pick it back up.  I picked the pen up for her.  She smiled and it started with her saying hi to me every once in a while.  One day after school she said hi again and we started talking with two of her other friends.

A show I use to watch growing up was The Wonder Years, skins is the complete opposite end in contrast.

I hate when I am hanging out, oh wait, I am an adult now, I hate when I am socializing and my peers point out a girl and pressure me to go over and say hi.  I use to have no problems doing it when I was younger but now I am older, less flirtatious and a little more inhibited.  There is another reason why I hesitate sometimes.  I am particular about choosing my mate, I am looking for someone that will compliment and accept my unique character and then thus I in her.  So, I hate when I am pressured to make a connection when I don't feel it's right, maybe even if it could move to something good or she is very attractive.  Any case, if I find someone right, I think I can move on my own will, not someone aiming my focus for me.  I like what I like, not what someone else thinks I should be liking.

The American version of skins is in it's fourth episode on MTV.  The third episode focused on Chris Collins, he wakes up with a big boner that will last throughout the episode because of some pills.  He comes downstairs to find a wad of money left by his mom in an envelope that has a label addressed from a utility company.  They count it and find it's a thousand dollars or more.  The question presented to him by Tony is: "How are you going to spend it?".  The answer in the next scene is a big party, the next morning he can't even afford to pay the pizza guy the full amount due.  He tries to sell some of the electronics to make some money but eventually sells a wheelbarrow, but instead of accepting cash, he trades for drugs.  His mom has some issues and left.  His dad who he later tries to visit wants nothing to do with him.  It's fount out during this scene he has an older brother, Peter Collins, who has died, Peter Collins was the good child.  It seems that the family has been through some turmoil.  He's left in a messed up house with graffiti and even the toilet has been taken.  The worst part is, there's a stranger in his house who kicked him out.  He's lucky to have his friends and a teacher he is crushing on who later takes him in.  In the end you see him taking some more pills, estrogen pills.

The fourth episode focuses on Cadie, a girl who is seeing many psychiatrist being someone who seems to be having mood issues and has a psychological issue with pigeons.  Through all her psychiatrists she is getting prescription pills, some are for her depression.  When Cadie was originally introduced into the skins crew of friends, she was supposedly set up to help Stanley lose his virginity.  This episode is now giving a little more detail into her character.  The first three episodes and characters also has the a similar introduction, she is waking up to her home life.  Her mom in the episode makes a comment that "feelings are not real" and she makes her daughter feel her ribs, displaying she is thin or in good shape.  Her vanity is engulfed in beauty, right now being in a television show based on that, beauty.  Cadie's father has his total interest in animals.  He hunts them and seems like a taxidermist.  Cadie is being used originally to vouch Stanley is not a virgin and now for her access to pills.  That's what she gets invited to this party for, her pills.  As if that were not bad enough, she finds it out through Tea.  What's even worst is she then gets molested by an old pervert but she willingly allowed it out of emotional sadness when she finds out that Stanley is not her love, boyfriend.  That idea that she had Stanley as a boyfriend was one of the only thing that made her happy, it helped snap her out of her mood issue a little.  In a parallel topic: Stanley is still in love with Michelle not Cadie, Tony's girlfriend.  Tony is still obsessed over Tea from episode two when they had there connection.  After Tea took a mood enhancer from Cadie's pill supply, you see Tony glaring at Tea making out with another girl.

---It's interesting what brings someone's attributes to our forefront, I'm not even talking about love.  Just what does bring their traits to our attention?

---Kids and even adults associate with others based on what you have and use others for what they have.

---The media does not do well to help on the topic of child abuse because the media opens up the subject or idea to those that would not have this in their minds, causing the topic to be more widespread to those that would have not have that as even a considered thing to do.  From the last year of Elementary School and throughout Junior High School, I walked home alone, not once did it occur to me that I would have to deal with such a issue that would traumatize a kid.  So it is understandable that a kid would not know what to do or know how to react unless an adult helps them or they would not bring out the issue until they were an adult.

---Yes, watching this show, though it was not like this for me growing up, brings me back to moments in High School, which I enjoyed.  Drugs weren't even an issue until High School and even by then the "Just Say No" slogan worked, it was in my brain.  Though I did have my first beer before High School, at the age of thirteen or fifteen.  I had two supportive parents though both worked and I would only see my mom until 10pm or later and my dad twice a week.

---The interesting terminology that came out of the episode that raised my eyebrow like The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) were two phrases: Hetero-normative and Gender-Coercive.  The Asian looking girl that was kissing Tea said "this party is so hetero-normative" and "your friends are totally gender-coercive".  These words are not simple words of the day meant for progressive vocabulary learning, but words of the neo sexual deviance wave.  My un-politically favored opinion is that homosexuality is not a good thing because without the hetero-normative part, there would be no more normal production of offsprings.  There's also the normative part of me that does not want to see two men in sexual acts, maybe two women (it's arousing).  My view is still hetero-normative and I do not want to be desensitized.  There's been a liberal movement trying to coerce culture into accepting non-hetero-normative ways as being okay.  That is completely okay because differences have the right in freedom, but do it in your own place, don't intrude on my place.  The gender-coercive part I understand, after all I am Chinese and knowing the government of the country my father came from, has the one child policy.  If you were restricted to only have one child with severe enforced punishment for not obeying, would your choice for an offspring be male or female.  In Chinese society, the male is considered strong, not just physically but as someone that can bring home the bacon, a provider.  The male preserves the surname in Chinese culture, the surname is an important lineage because it sort of describes your ancestry.  In Chinese culture the female is considered to have a role of wit, beauty and home maker, even though in the manufacturing era, like the American manufacturing era in the early-mid 1900s, women are making their way to the work place and some are gaining grounds on better rights.  In China, the ratio of men outweigh women and the gender-coercive side sometimes involves extreme measures to get a boy.  But the way she implied it is there is no difference between a guy and girl, which is neo sexual deviant thinking, no thanks.

---I like the show.  Kill the critics.

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