I admit it: this is not one of my more thoughtful pieces. It’s more my expression of confusion! At the age of 60, I sometimes get accused of being “out of it” when it comes to popular culture. Well, my recent attempts to catch up to popular culture have not necessarily made me feel any less out of it!  

Oh yes, I’ve found some television shows that I like. I’ve even found one stations that advertises “characters welcome.” I just don’t think they’ve been to my neighborhood. Characters around here are frowned on. If you don’t fit into a mold, you’re shunned. Sometimes it’s done politely and hypocritically, sometimes not. But you’re definitely treated rather like one of the non-pod people in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”  

The problem with not fitting into any mold is that the specifications of those molds are usually decided by people on the basis of little-to-no information. Someone takes a look at you and decides “you’re not one of us” without a second thought. It’s not just me I’m talking about. I hear stories from friends and clients all the time. And they don’t just mention skin color. One brow piercing or turquoise hair streak is enough to elicit a pointing and screaming that outdoes the body snatcher movie! 

I remember when the only quirky people on television were William Petersen (CSI) and Vincent D’Onofrio (Criminal Intent). (I know ‘cause I had a crush on both of them.) Now there’s quirky people everywhere, many of them women! There’s an Israeli ex-Mosad agent who mangles every metaphor, brilliant flaky artists with strong scientific skills, lab rats who dress Goth, forensic anthropologists with esoteric specialties, – most of them with high IQ’s who don’t get popular culture any more than I do. (Whoops! I mean “did.”)  

There are people almost too young to be working and people old enough to remember cultural references I can remember! There are also FBI agents who remind me of people with whom I’ve worked. Yes, there’s vain, shallow people, but also surprisingly complex people. Sometimes they can be obnoxious but they are very human. They care about humans and puzzling human behavior. They like to argue with those who think differently for the fun of learning. They are, all in all, very interesting. They are not one-dimensional, and they can’t be defined by one physical characteristic. 

But I still don’t get some things. I don’t understand jokes about “shoes.” I find “dishing” distasteful and boring, and the word “fashionista” makes me cringe. And there’s some shows I don’t understand any more than I understand people laughing over old Seinfeld episodes. 

Once at a mental health training I made the mistake of asking why people would watch a show after work that showed people behaving so badly that you wouldn’t want to work with them during the day. A female psychologist (yes, a psychologist, and one older than I am!) tartly responded that I was a “freak” from “another planet.” But that only made me feel more shunned and didn’t help my understanding of the issue at all.

If the people on that show were considered “normal,” it just didn’t seem like good advertising for being “normal.” Rudeness, hypocrisy, and human venom just didn’t seem funny to me. They still don’t.  

So I think I’ll stick with today’s characters. And if you know a place where quirky and interesting people are not shunned, please let me know. I’d love to move there! Meanwhile, I have some friends nearby who today are celebrating Groundhog Day, Imbolc, and Dia e la Candelaria. I think I’ll head off to celebrate with all of them! Fooey on “normal”!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Psychotherapy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.