What’s Wrong With The OC?
Arts | April 10, 2008 | Share
Ever flipped through channels lately and seen pictures of a couple of scrawny looking white kids and a couple of older, heavily botoxed people hanging around them? Ever gone through profiles on the Internet of any block of Indian teens and seen The OC making a whooping 90 per cent appearance in the ‘favourite TV show’ slot? I’m no member of the moral police but my dislike for The OC stems from the show’s definition of reality, morality and everyday life.For those of you fortunate folks who don’t know what The OC a.k.a. The Orange County is, allow me to give you a quick lowdown. It is a television show that is being advertised as ‘America’s favourite teen drama’, and as we must live up to our ‘copycat/ trash bin’ title, we obviously follow the show avidly. It is about poor little rich kids who live in the high-end Newport Beach and who seemingly have everything but, if you look closer you will realize that, hold your breath, their lives aren’t as perfect as they seem. They go through plenty of ‘everyday’ problems, such as teenage pregnancy, parents getting divorced, low self esteem, ex-girlfriends popping out of nowhere, drugs – both hard and soft, gambling, taking sleeping pills, having psychiatric problems and all the other mundane things we bunch of fascinating people i.e. teenagers go through. However, their parents and their plentiful affairs, give the kids a run for their money as they both compete to be more promiscuous than the other.
As for the protagonist, he is this bloke from the ‘wrong side’ of town, which shows that the producers have a conscience and are well aware that there exist other worlds. So Ryan is a typical teen with a twist, speaking as little as possible and when he does, he speaks in short terse sentences which makes you wish he would stop talking (which is saying a lot). He has had a rough, rough life, he has seen everything, and he is a toughie this one and brings the ‘street’ right into California’s most posh address. His ladylove is, who else, but the girl next door, Marissa, a beautiful, anorexic little thing who has unbelievably bad hair and horrifyingly poor acting skills. This character whimpers through her life, as she clucks around Ryan, talking or crying about all her problems.
Then there is Summer and Seth. Nope, this is the name of a pair of clowns’ part of a traveling circus. They are just the other, ‘cuter’ couple. Seth is the remarkably unremarkable guy, he’s Jewish, curly – haired, fast talking, wit spewing and redefines the desirable nerd. Summer is his dream girl, and of all the others who watch the show I bet, she is sufficiently dumb and proportionately well endowed to constitute the ‘hot’ category. Shudder, shudder.
This show is 100 per cent trash and though it might manage to squeeze in a good ‘moment’ or two here and there, its context is so exceedingly unrealistic that my resistance to it and all other things American rises tenfold. Media is supposed to be steeped in reality; voice people’s aspirations and show things that essentially remain unattainable to us, so we in effect can live out our fantasies through the characters. Hedonism, escapism, pursuit of perfection, you name it – this show cashes in on everything, and to think it is only a teen drama. Whatever happened to worrying about homework and getting into college? Whatever happened to ambition and self-respect? The bottom line is that there should be no need for all this excessive drama in one’s life. Self absorbed people with self-inflicted problems just do not have my sympathy and far from being entertaining, make me cringe. There are grander things to focus on in life apart from our concern and efforts and ourselves should be diverted elsewhere. Tables turned, you might say – Lighten up, it is just a TV show. I couldn’t agree with you more, so why not change the channel?
Inayat Sabhikhi
(8 votes, average: 2.88 out of 5)
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[Image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/agi_t_prop/310567494/]
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I agree that the OC isn’t great programming, but this piece just seems like an effort to put it down. FYI – the OC is not just a teen drama.
Teen drama == Just Mohabbat. \m/
But then, like you said – There are grander things to focus on in life apart from our concern and efforts and ourselves should be diverted elsewhere. – I’ll just flip to another web page.
Oooh. No wonder. It’s you!
I like the point you make. It’s ofcourse highly opinionated and almost rant-like, but hey, makes for a good read.
No wonder? =O
I’m not that vitriolic. I make a nice critic. =P
COME ON !!! “its just a tv show”….its quite obvious that you hate the show, n no doubt u write well, but u havent brought out the releveant reasons for not liking it….
1. merissa has awesome hair!!
2. if it were not for these self obsessed people, it would not be an entertainment show, would it??i mean to make ppl get glued to it, they have to stray from reality…n thats what we all like…something different-an imaginary situation where people are supposedly lucky with money but have emotionally tormented lives….
3. n please dont say anything about ryan!i love that guy and everyone i know loves the way he speaks..
4. you have a problem, then YOU change the channel. dont be a spoiltsport, n dont spoil my little one hour bubble of imagination…
5. but you know, you write really well…im going to read other articles by you…:-))
obviously, you too have been watching the show…..
totally agree with sharanya…although its because u urself are hooked onto watching the show that you know that marissa has bad hair…lol…good article otherwise..
Inayat Sabhikhi- this was hilarious. I am with you in hating this show, I have found nothing new or interesting in it. I once described it as a few people who don’t know how to keep their pants up and a few who refuse to drop them. If anything this is one of the many “K shows” of the west. Kudos Inayat Sabhikhi, nail on the head!!
To clarify, this was written way, way back in 2005 when the show had just hit Indian shores and it’s tone might be a bit more hyperbolic that what the show currently merits.
Ofcourse I saw a couple of episodes Sharanya, how can you have an opinion on something without knowing anything about it right?
See you can absolutely have your one hour of escapism knowing full well its tosh but still wanting to watch it. However, one becomes what we see and listen to and read. One might think that oh yea, it’s nonsense but I’ve had a bad day and I just want some brainless TV, I’ll watch those serious documentary type things later, but before we know it we’re only watching movies like 27 dresses and only reading Nicholas Sparks books, then that sort of becomes the extent of our cultural life. Like it or not it IS defining us.
That being said even though the ratings have been dropping in the US since the first season, apparently with the fourth season the show is returning to the quality that existed in the first season and my OC-fan friends are as hooked as ever. So it’s a win-win situation I suppose..
To begin with, the OC is not on air anymore.
kvot – but before we know it we’re only watching movies like 27 dresses and only reading Nicholas Sparks books – un-kvot.
I don’t get the whole “i-watch-brainy-stuff-so-i-pwn”.
The part where you talk about becoming what you read, see and hear, is where your personality kicks in. Why do we forget that we are a nation where a sappy Shahrukh Khan movie has more takers than the Prime Minister dying?
Manmohan Singh is dying?
yea seriously? he is??