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Passions
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For a man to try to get inside a woman's head is enough of a stretch into insanity, but to try to get inside a insane woman's head...
I blame it all on David Letterman. He made me a Passions addict. He started a regular segment on his show, showing moments from the series that explored the new, uncharted depths of what horrible acting could be. Of course he just wanted to get laughs-which he did- but for me it was a totally WTF? experience. Seeing that crazy old lady throwing a fake monkey down the staircase just made me want to learn more about insanity (and what constitutes horrible acting). So I'm now a Passions regular, but not for the same reasons as the middle aged housewives. And I doubt that they indulge in marijuana and harsh vodka shots chased with cheap beer while they watch it.
Bad acting offers to the viewer a new way of seeing things: the visions of the scriptwriters shed light on reality in a way that's analogous to Sartre's description of life in occupied France. He professed that he never felt so free as when he did under Nazi rule. When the pressure to conform is in your face, then at least you can step back into the chaotic void to try to understand it, but when it gets under your skin, then there is no escape; you've become one of the rebellious converted.
I picture the writers of Passions as a bunch of well dressed young men hanging around a New York studio with their feet up on the desk, their laptops sitting in front, looking dreamily into the afternoon sunlit streets, saying things like
"Didn't we marry that bitch off already?"
"Yeah, but who's gonna remember?"
Passions is like TV stripped right down to its rawest purest element. Not that anyone would be interested in that element.
I suppose that television moments have a special place in my heart, even though I'd like to think otherwise. One of my earliest memories was when I was just 2 years old, looking at the space shuttle on TV. It was sitting motionless on the tarmac, for what seemed like hours. Where are the astronauts? Are they afraid? What will happen when the door opens? Instead of seeing a bunch of waving, smiling men, will we see blood and guts strewn throughout the interior?
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