{"id":7743,"date":"2016-10-18T11:04:51","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T15:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=7743"},"modified":"2016-10-18T11:04:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T15:04:51","slug":"bonding-through-bad-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2016\/10\/18\/bonding-through-bad-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"Bonding through Bad Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watching TV and movies is a good way to bond with friends. Many of my friendships originally began because we shared an enthusiasm for a particular show\u2014I still have go-to friends to text when I watch a new show that I love. But let\u2019s be honest: when it comes to being close friends with someone, you need to have more than just a couple shows you watch in common. To take that final step to becoming close friends, you have to talk about something other than the newest episode of Jane the Virgin<\/em>. (That said, the season premiere of Jane the Virgin<\/em>, which aired yesterday, was emotional and hilarious, and I\u2019ll love anyone who watches that show.)<\/p>\n

I went on a \u2018retreat\u2019 this past weekend with a few of my friends for fall break. We stayed a night at my friend Christian\u2019s parents\u2019 cabin on Sage Lake. There may have been some drinking going on\u2014not that I partook, obviously<\/em>, since I won\u2019t be of legal drinking age for another two months. But in terms of actual activities, we played some card games, played a game of sardines, and mostly just hung around by the lake or in the cabin. It was definitely a fun way to spend a day, with lots of good company.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of the night, we settled down to watch a movie. The movie was largely fun\u2014it was Avalanche Sharks<\/em>, one of the terrible Syfy schlocky movies about poorly rendered sharks terrorizing civilization. (One of my chief complaints was that there weren\u2019t enough sharks! There should\u2019ve been more gore! At least we got to hear the phrase \u201cit\u2019s spring break\u201d uttered 30 times.) I\u2019m of the firm opinion that if you\u2019re aiming to bond with friends, it\u2019s much more fun to watch a shitty movie than to watch a good one. A couple people wanted to watch Blue Velvet<\/em>, which I\u2019ve been meaning to see, but on a night when we\u2019re supposed to be having a bunch of fun, is watching a quality neo-noir drama really what we want?<\/p>\n

Some of my best experiences with watching movies have been watching dumb shit. My brother and I regularly quote Birdemic<\/em>, the famously terrible amateur movie about a bird attack. I still smile remembering the night in high school when I got together with some friends and watched Mega Shark Versus Crocasaurus<\/em>. (We also watched Paranormal Activity 3<\/em> that night, but high-quality horror movies might be the exception to the \u2018good quality = bad for fun\u2019 rule.) The thing is, most good movies you can watch anytime. You don\u2019t need to be with friends to do it. In fact, I\u2019d probably prefer<\/em> to watch Blue Velvet<\/em> alone; it\u2019d probably be more impactful that way. When I\u2019m with friends, on a night kind of meant for bonding, I don\u2019t just want to check off something on my movie list. I want to do something fun.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s why I started to get bored after Avalanche Sharks<\/em>, when we decided to just watch some TV on Netflix. I get it. It\u2019s a comforting default to put on an episode of Parks & Rec<\/em> or 30 Rock<\/em>, especially when everyone is tired. But one of my few disappointments of the retreat was that we started to fall back on TV when we could\u2019ve made more of an effort to connect. Then again, maybe a trip where the explicit purpose is to \u2018bond\u2019 is a little forced from the beginning.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just learned more and more recently that most good TV and good movies I prefer to watch alone. There are no variables\u2014I don\u2019t have to deal with possible spoiler sources, or the slight self-consciousness that prevents me from really physically reacting the same way I might alone. (For example, I actually said \u2018what the fuck\u2019 many times when I was alone watching Dogtooth<\/em>. If I\u2019d watched that with a friend, I probably would\u2019ve said the same thing, but more for their benefit, for the social aspect, than as a genuine reaction.) I don\u2019t have to have my opinion influenced by someone else and what they might be thinking. I don\u2019t have to get pulled out of the experience by some annoying theatergoer who\u2019s laughing a little too<\/em> hard, or a crying baby, or a guy who\u2019s pointing out the logistical issues in the third act of Finding Dory<\/em>. I can react the way I want to.<\/p>\n

So yeah, there are a lot of reasons I don\u2019t usually like watching high-quality movies and TV with friends. It\u2019s usually better to just pop in something stupid. Sure, it\u2019s sometimes fun to watch It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia<\/em> when I hang out with friends from home. But every time I\u2019ve watched Caillou<\/em>, I\u2019ve had a much more memorable time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watching TV and movies is a good way to bond with friends. Many of my friendships originally began because we shared an enthusiasm for a particular show\u2014I still have go-to friends to text when I watch a new show that I love. But let\u2019s be honest: when it comes to being close friends with someone, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2178,"featured_media":7744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1040,1042,858,198,1041,606],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7745,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7743\/revisions\/7745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}