Experiment 1: Cultured Vultures

Checking out shows outside of our comfort zone in the name of expanding our horizons.

Background

You know how there’s that person in your friend group who’s obnoxiously picky about the entertainment they consume?

That person is usually me.

Or, it usually was. You see, I’m working on it.

There’s many ways to enjoy a show, and one of our top ways is probably a form of “hate-watching”. That’s when you watch something you suspect you will passionately dislike, for the purpose of bringing on the snarks.

I’d say “hate” is a pretty strong word for what my friends and I engage in - sure, sometimes we go into a show fully expecting to be disappointed, but it’s never a malicious exercise from the get-go. Rather, it’s a way to turn co-watching into a more social activity. In fact, I want to thank these shows for giving us some variety in the dynamics of how we hang out.

Increasing active participation aside, it can be quite fun to flex the humour muscles and work to throw quips out in the name of entertaining your circle. And there is a childish glee in being called “savage” when you deliver a particularly incendiary put-down. But it’s all in good fun, really.

So you see, “bad” shows can be upcycled and nothing in life has to be wasted.

But what if it was also possible to sort of unrefine one’s palate back towards naïve wonderment, and life didn’t have to be an endless march towards asymptotic cynicism?

A friend and I recognized that our pickiness was getting quite unsustainable - boldly assuming there’s at least two-thirds left of our lives to live, if we’ve already peaked as entertainment gourmets to the point where 90% of shows are unwatchable, the next few decades will be sore indeed.

So we decided to forcibly expand our pickings. Once in a while, we’d psych ourselves up for trying something we’d usually never even consider consuming, and then dive in pinching our noses instead of turning them up.

We started out by “good vibes”-ing anime. Sometimes you have the misfortune of looking at a poster along with its accompanying synopsis in this media type, and having to fight to keep your food down. Being on treacherous ground, we didn’t get too adventurous here - just tried to be slightly more generous with the benefit of the doubt.

And it seemed to be working pretty well! If it weren’t for this new positive attitude shift, we never would have picked up Talentless Nana, or Jujutsu Kaisen.

The Method

Taking it a step further, we wanted to try expanding our sources of entertainment to various live action content as well. To inject a sense of novelty back into our get-togethers, we came up with an extensive list of the types of shows out there, and resolved to get through at least one iconic representation of each - no matter how seemingly unpalatable initially.

Objectives

Not only might this unexpectedly unearth new avenues of entertainment, it could make us much more open-minded towards what other people consume. Things that’ve acquired a “trashy” label often don’t turn out to be all that bad - and it’s not cool to hate on something just because tribalistic status signalling.

So another key desired outcome for this experiment was to broaden our horizons and become cultured enough to talk to anyone, be they swooning Korean drama fan or beefy sports enthusiast. Call it cultural appreciation, just… for the general other humans out there.

(The logic being, there’s really no prize for insisting on feeling miserable about being surrounded by unappetising entertainment - why not try to increase the number of things in the world that make you happy instead?)

1. Travel - Dark Tourist

It was a bit painful for us to think about travel during the pandemic (because we’ve been responsibly cooped up in our homes, and sorely miss going places), so dark tourism seemed an appropriate fit for our mood.

“Dark tourism has been defined as tourism involving travel to places historically associated with death and tragedy.”

We watched the first two episodes, “Latin America” and “Japan”. I’d say the whole thing was more eye-opening with regard to the people, rather than the locations and their histories themselves. Some very colourful characters certainly made their appearances.

I think it helped drive home the point that people are the same no matter where you go, and also that there really are all kinds everywhere at the same time.

2. Animal Documentary - The Crocodile Hunter

Steve Irwin has got to be the name that comes to mind when we think about shows featuring animals. In our case we fired up “Steve and the Dragon” on YouTube, and were transported into a magical world almost wholly concerned with Komodo dragons.

Focusing our entire mental faculties on Steve and his adventures frolicking after Komodo dragons was actually pretty recreational and not as boring as I imagined it might be (being that our personal lives and interests have little to do with either Steve or Komodo dragons). But then, Steve’s energy on camera is pretty infectious, and his penchant for what certainly feels like risky ventures keeps things spicy. I could probably watch him do anything and develop an interest. Extreme ironing, maybe.

Born and bred in a concrete jungle, I’d say my connection to wildlife is somewhat lacking. Steve’s apparent passion for wildlife, on the other hand, is positively inspiring. Definitely feels like my horizons expanded somewhat here. Plus, I now know way more about Komodo dragons than I ever planned to in this lifetime.

3. Chick Flick - Sex and the City

Note: ”Chick flick” is apparently a sometimes pejorative term, but I’m not intending to use it in a derogative manner, and in the absence of a suitable replacement I’m keeping it as is.

We knew this genre was coming, but we weren’t prepared for it to turn up quite so soon. When the roulette landed on Chick Flick, much collective groaning ensued. There is the unfortunate reputation of the genre, sure, but more than that, we’re just not really into either drama or romance. And chick flick tends to be known for heavy use of both.

I honestly don’t know the difference between most rom-coms and chick flicks, and whether Sex and the City is bona fide chick flick or not, but it’s definitely a big name that we’ve heard of.

There were plenty of wince-worthy moments, but overall I’d say it was surprisingly bearable. Some of the central messages of the show were quite progressive, not necessarily something I expected from a mainstream 2008 movie:

• It’s fine to marry “late”, and not have a big fancy wedding shouting your love from the rooftops with glitz and glamour
• Couples counseling does not mean failure, it means a willingness to work towards forgiveness and reconciliation - two common, normal things necessary for any relationship
• You don’t have to drink society’s Kool-Aid about monogamy/relationship exclusivity if it’s not for you - not even out of gratitude to your partner

Another amusing thing was how the movie treated male characters more or less the same way a lot of “standard” media treat female characters - often as little more than sexy lamps. So that was kind of refreshing in a way - though it’d be better if everyone just took a leaf out of Alien’s book once in a while.

We probably won’t go out of our way to check out more chick flicks in the future, but at least we can now have a more mature reaction than recoiling like it’s got cooties.

4. Gameshow - Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

We tried to play along a little bit for this one, to entertain thoughts of becoming millionaires ourselves through the power of obscure trivia. Result: big nope.

Some questions felt like obvious giveaways to us, others were bafflingly elusive - either way, we didn’t see anyone come close to the jackpot, and probably would’ve been incredibly lucky to come away with 50 grand ourselves.

As strong as our urge for collecting meaningless trivia might be, this genre probably isn’t one we’d pick over others either. It was somewhat entertaining to watch together, but I can’t help feeling like I’ve wasted my time by the end of the episode.

I will say though, the entire premise is worth it just for legendary moments like these.

5. Reality TV - The Bachelorette + Queer Eye Japan

The Bachelorette

We found this one pretty bizarre. I’ve met people who are really into the show, and I can’t say that I understand the appeal much more now than before I watched an episode. Then again, we went into it without really having done any study ahead of time. (So, like, the titular bachelorette picks a guy out of the battle royale pool to propose to/accept a proposal from? And then they have to get married on camera later or something maybe?)

We also weren’t sure why someone might genuinely want to participate in the show, fame-seeking aside. Maybe the fancy excursions abroad in the later rounds has something to do with it? There are probably worse ways to spend your time than travelling the world with attentive romantic interests, even if televised.

Judging just based on one short episode, the host seemed like the most balanced and appealing character, honestly. I wonder if there’s a season out there where the host actually gets with the bachelorette in a wild turn of events. Now that’d be entertainment.

Queer Eye Japan

Reality TV being such a broad category, we decided to try something else that was less romance-focused as well. I’ve watched Queer Eye before and it was fairly eye-opening with regard to how people of different backgrounds live, so it wasn’t too hard to get us Japanophiles on board.

I did go on to finish playing the series in the background while working on other things, so it’s definitely very agreeable content, even if not something we’d glue our eyes to. There probably isn’t enough upbeat vibes and positive affirmation in the media we usually consume, and this show made me realise that a little more viscerally.

6. Korean Drama - Crash Landing On You

Similar to Chick Flick, we greeted landing on the K Drama genre with choruses of “oh boy” followed by much “hmmm”ing at search results for top picks in this category. Luckily, I remembered that my penpal recommended this particular title at some point, and the synopsis seemed funny enough for us to take a look.

The number of animesque moments were laughable, and we had fun calling out those moments ahead of time. I definitely appreciated the comedy in the show, and our favourite character has to be that guy who keeps bawling over South Korean dramas. Such great casting for him.

We were intrigued by the portrayal of North Korea (not that we really expect to gain any level of accurate information thereby) and ended up watching a second episode, but that was about as far as we got for the experiment. Unfortunately our collective tolerance for most romances just isn’t that high. Still, coupled with faint memories of being shown scenes from Jane the Virgin, I definitely have a better impression of comedy in live action dramas now.

7. Theatre - Hamilton

We remembered that the Hamilton recording was now available online and that immediately trumped the other options. I guess this isn’t personally expanding my horizons so much, since I’d actually bought tickets to go see the show, but then the pandemic hit and that was that. Though one good thing about watching the recording is that you get to see way more details and close-ups than if you’d gotten reasonably priced tickets like we did.

We were pretty chatty for the first few numbers, but as the show got more intense we barely spoke at all - definitely the mark of an engaging piece. The whole thing was so long and captivating that it felt as though a lifetime had passed, so much so that it was a little hard to get on with the other tasks of the day right after. Definitely a draining experience (but not in a bad way).

I definitely have a weakness for musicals.

8. Comedy - The Great Dictator

We thought that one of those slapstick silent films in black and white would be an interesting response to the comedy genre, but the title we ended up picking was neither silent nor black-and-white. I’d already watched a bunch of Buster Keaton films (and loved them), so we decided to go for one of Charlie Chaplin’s.

Current events being what they are, some political satire on the topic of Nazism and fascism seemed fitting - hence, The Great Dictator.

We had a lot of fun watching the slapstick, the choreography, the way Charlie Chaplin totters about and ducks into windows and dives into bins - not to mention the various cartoonish technologies that serve as humorous props.

They certainly also didn’t hold back with their own brand of German (and later, Italian) - we cackled at the multiple uses of “sauerkraut” where they had no business being in a dictatorial speech, along with made-up phrases like “Democrazie schtonk! Libertie schtonk! Freespracken schtonk!”. “Cheesen und cracken” had me in stitches as well.

I find it really hard to believe that this is a film that Hitler himself might have watched - twice - and although it’s not like I had any opinion that would be changed by this film, I do feel eminently more cultured after watching it for some reason. Definitely deserves its spot in the US National Film Registry.

9. Ballet - Swan Lake

This one made me feel the most uncultured by far. I definitely appreciated the athleticism of the dancers, but apart from the eponymous swan theme music, I barely felt a thing throughout the show. We were joking with scathing remarks about our interpretation of the scenes throughout. Not a few times did I wonder, why all this sacrifice and hard work just to produce a show like this?

If the whole experience had been shorter, I feel sure that it would have come off as a poignant, adorable little folk tale to be remembered every now and again. But as it is, I’m convinced I can’t enjoy much of theatre music other than the big names. (Although, I’m also idly wondering if maybe we simply didn’t watch a very compelling production of it - checking out a video of one done by the Mariinsky Ballet now, the pas de deux seems positively captivating.)

10. Martial Arts - Enter the (Fat) Dragon

I actually totally forgot that I’d already watched Enter the Dragon, so we ended up going for its natural and indisputable successor, Enter the Fat Dragon.

We had a pretty good time with this one, although that’s probably more due to the comedy rather than the martial arts, as impressive as it was.

Overall just a popcorn show, the plot wasn’t particularly compelling by any means and this genre probably still won’t be something we’d go out of our way for. Still, don’t regret watching it, we had plenty of laughs.

11. Noir - Double Indemnity

By all accounts this is a pretty celebrated movie, also making it into the film registry and being much lauded in its day. I can definitely see how it was tops back then, though I can’t say we experienced any real emotional highs or lows watching this - it was too fast, and yet too slow.

Too fast, because the main character’s motivations developed at breakneck speed, then changed directions again quickly enough to give whiplash. This is a movie with big stakes, like lives and money, mind. A rather unsteady character, I suppose, if not outright silly.

Too slow, because as with shows back in the day I reckon that’s just how pacing used to be. With the number of developments and just the sheer amount of information being transmitted, it probably could have fit pretty well under an hour. Double Indemnity took nearly twice that, and before we were even halfway through, I was getting quite sleepy and disengaged.

Overall, not sure I’d recommend this to anyone these days - the noir aesthetic is still pretty cool, but I can’t say that this movie makes me want to go out of my way to watch more in the genre.

12. Space Western - Firefly

Upcoming. Cancelled — looks like we’re not getting that far. We did have another hurrah by watching an episode of Love is Blind: Japan (if you put “Japan” in it we will watch it) after wryly noting that there were people around us who were unironically into a reality show called 90 Day Fiancé but didn’t want to drop any money finding out what it was about.

Conclusion

I mean, it was fun. We might similarly good-vibes more shows in the future now that we have this concept of bringing in shows we normally wouldn’t give the time of day. Horizon expansion has definitely been a success, and trying out other things does cast what we usually like in a new light.

I won’t say that we experienced any groundbreaking discoveries about ourselves, but it was an experiment worth conducting 👍