I was talking on the phone with my friend about TV-quoting the other day when something she said rang true: There was nothing that brought out the feminist in her more than when a group of boys was rapidly quoting television shows and she could easily contribute.
I'm sure most of you ladies out there know what I'm talking about. You're with a group of guys when all of a sudden they fall into a pattern of speedy and arbitrary TV-quoting. You've seen the shows they're quoting. You want to join in on the fun. Only there is some inherent programming in their system that makes TV-quoting an exclusively male bonding experience not easily infiltrated by females, unless they want to end the conversation feeling like they're in pigtails wearing a ""My Little Pony"" shirt.
Personally, I think quoting TV displays a lack in the person's original sense of humor anyway, so why do guys feel so good after a rousing round of quoting? We girls don't go around quoting ""Sex and the City"" as a form of bonding. Instead we like to decide which character suits each other best, which I suppose is just as annoying in its own way.
But before I sound like an embittered and humorless woman, I will admit that gender-based TV interests swing both ways. As I may have not-so-subtly hinted at in other columns, I find ""Six Feet Under"" to be the best show ever written, which is why I was deeply saddened to hear an intelligent, male classmate from high school say ""Of course you like ‘Six Feet Under,' you're a girl."" I was shocked.
Does my girl brain make my television choices as warped as I think a boy's taste is when he thinks ""The Wire"" is the end-all, be-all of television?
Quite possibly. I mean, I loved the WB's ""Everwood,"" for crying out loud. An episode of that show featured a boy guiding a wild deer back to its habitat and breaking down because the deer reminded him of his mother.
And although I don't go around quoting things like ""The deer can't make Mom come back,"" the self-realization made me understand that most TV shows simply are not able to appease both genders.
I feel this struggle when I watch ""It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."" It's a hilarious show that I spend time and Netflix bills laughing at.
But then Charlie and Dennis will engage in that type of male banter that always makes the character of Dee feel a little left out, and my heart goes out to her, making me resent the guys just a touch.
Maybe some of you psych majors out there can do a study on male banter and let us girls know what we can do to infiltrate it. What is it about these TV quotes that reach the core of every man to draw them together like that monolith thing in ""2001: A Space Odyssey?"" Please let me know so I can be as cool as my male friends and never miss a beat when the next mass round of quoting comes along.
Are you a psych major interested in performing tests on Ali's TV preferences? E-mail her at rothschild@wisc.edu.
