WHY DID YOU DO THAT?
Last night, Ro and I were sitting down to watch the TV offerings of the day I like to call Awesome Tuesday. On Awesome Tuesday, the CW gives us Gilmore Girls, followed by the unspeakably incredible Veronica Mars. (Seriously: It's not like I forget how great a show it is, but every time it comes back from an absence I actually feel how great, funny, smart, sweet, scary, and perfect it is. It's as though it impossible to really hold in one's mind how good a show it is, because part of the goodness is actually a visceral reaction of joy that I have while watching it, and you can't really recreate that feeling in your mind when the show is off the air for a while. Yeah, that's right, all that over a TV show.)
Obviously, I feel really strongly about these shows, VM in particular. Because they are, at times (GG in particular), girly shows, dramas involving discussions of the dreaded "feelings," shoes, hair, etc. Everyone is pretty and shiny and on GG there are minimal car crashes and explosions (though in the season premiere, that was not true). VM actually has a fair bit of action and suspense, though if you don't watch it 1) start, 2) you won't believe me until you do. But Ro's enjoyment of these fine programs is a testament to the fact that they are so much more than girl-dramas, and in fact, they aren't even really girl-dramas at all.
Which is why it was so appalling to see the the CW had placed, at random commercial breaks, some sort of short . . . thing featuring a bunch of girls sitting around a sectional sofa in their casual best, talking about the shows. I died inside. It is already nigh impossible to convince people to watch these shows if they do not already. THIS WILL NOT HELP. Ro termed it insipid, and she is not wrong. It was. A little research this morning on on the Interwebs (yes, I am leaving on vacation in like 6 hours, shut up) revealed that this is some sort of devil-inspired collaboration between the CW and American Eagle, purveyor of surprisingly good jeans. (Really, try them out, they are great, and cheap!) It is called "Aerie Tuesdays," and apparently, it is meant to make me want to buy clothes from AE's new line of clothes.
Problems ABOUND, people. The first of many is that while I am sure that these shows do draw a fairly large audience from the girl-teen population, they also draw a good number of smarty-pants 20- and 30-somethings. Moreover, having these terrible Aerie Girls moments? Not going to expand and grow that audience, CW! The shows don't have stellar ratings, and any guy just tuning in at the behest of his girlfriend or wife or friend is going to take one look at these girls chatting and giggling and RUN AWAY. As he should.
I can't tell from the "Meet the Aerie Girls" section of the above site how old these girls are, though in fairness there appears to be a good spread of ages. And I actually can't tell you what they talked about in the spots, so deafened by my own rage was I. Maybe it was about the social implications of having a sexual code on college campuses, as provoked by an Take Back the Night rally on VM. I doubt it though.
In sum:
1) Watch Veronica Mars (you should watch GG, but it is in less danger of cancellation)
2) CW: please kill off the Aerie Girls in a terrible, soft clothing-related accident.
At one point they were talking about their own real life experiences that mirrored the show. Like, how it was difficult to keep a high school romance during college. And how they've all been in relationships where they didn't realize till it was over how much they loved the other person. I wanted to die. Partly because they all looked 14, regardless of this alleged age spread, and partly because they seemed to be focusing on the relatability of the shows. Boy do I hate that whole scheme. Relatability is low on my list of things I want in televised entertainment, and I have never been watching a show and thought, "Oh my God, you guys, it's just like something that happened to ME!" Ugh. I hate everything.
Posted by: Ro | October 04, 2006 at 11:30 AM