You're probably wondering why I thought the best time to write a blog was slap bang in the middle of writing the most important essays of my life. Procrastination is the answer. Procrastination that leads to me thinking about what the hell I'll be doing this time next year.
The term 'quarter life crisis' was drawn to my attention recently through various BuzzFeed articles and the brilliant Instagram account 'quarterlifepoetry' (go follow her- very funny)! It seems people around my age, that may just be finishing/or have finished uni, are suddenly realising they will have to get a real life job and get their acts together- no more 'going up on a Tuesday' for us!
We're probably all familiar with those who are a little bit older telling us to chill out and stop worrying about the future. However this concept is quite hard to accept when that guy from school just tweeted 'just got a job for next year at the most prestigious banking firm in the whole world' or the girl from your course that uploads her #ootd to insta from her internship at Vogue magazine. Yeah cheers for that guys! Cos when I was reading about all your achievements I was probably watching House of Cards in bed eating cold pasta. This then most likely led to me freaking out and rearranging my CV to make myself sound marginally better. The next step probably involved me trying to start those essays that loom over everything I do, and getting progressively more stressed about how I'm definitely going to fail my degree. This, my friends, is essentially a quarter life crisis.
However I am here to spread some relief to those suffering from this awful experience. In one of my usual breakdowns, my flatmate (go Hannah D!) provided me with the best, if not slightly cheesy, metaphor for our lives right now. We are caterpillars. Yes that's right. We are caterpillars and one day we will be beautiful butterflies that are totally in control of our own lives but for now this is the period of the caterpillars life where they're thinking WTF am I doing in this cocoon?!
If that image still didn't just change your whole life (for god knows what reason!) just remember that while your CV may not be bursting with wonderful, life altering internships you've definitely achieved more than you think you have. For me personally, uni has been the greatest experience and I know I have changed so much over these past few years (side note: change is good, means you're growing). So if all you've done is made great friends and enjoyed yourself whilst adding another qualification to the list isn't such a bad thing. So stop stressing and remember that...
When I was in Year 4 I was asked to draw a picture of my
hero and write why I admired them. I chose my sister because I looked up to her
and hoped that when I was an adult I would be as kind, caring, funny and generous
as she was. Ask a child of the same age today and you might see a drawing of
Kim K or a member of One Direction. Even if resemblance between Kim K and my
sister is uncanny (lol!) I can assure you they are very different people.
A recent survey of 11-17 year olds showed that more of them
had a higher opinion of Kim Kardashian than David Cameron and that ‘having lots
of money’ was more important to a third of those surveyed than being
intelligent or being kind.
In a time where it is blasphemous to even utter a bad word
about Beyoncé and the hashtag #BeyonceIsGod is commonplace on the twittersphere,
it isn’t surprising that kids grow up believing that fame and fortune is what
makes you successful. While I’m not denying her unbelievable talent (please
members of the BeyHive don’t send me hate mail/attack me in the street) you
must admit the way people worship her is only a reflection on a
fame obsessed culture. A touch from Beyoncé is enough to make people claim
'their lives are complete' when Beyoncé will never ever remember the day she
met you.
Another celebrity with an unbelievably loyal fanbase is of course Justin
Beiber, Mr Drunk and disorderly himself. Again, I can appreciate people enjoy
his music, I mean I have been known to YouTube his entire album from time to
time (that's normal right?!) but most of his fans, mainly young hysterical
girls, are totally obsessed with someone they have never met or will queue 24
hours for a mere glimpse of.
American talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel decided to test the loyalty of his fans by coming up with outrageous lies about the superstar's life and see what his fans had to say in a video (below) made for his show. After being told that Bieber has tyres made out of baby seals, that he punched his grandma and that he parked in a disabled parking space when someone disabled was about to park there, their responses included 'He can do whatever he wants', 'He is the King of Pop' and 'I would have made [the disabled person] wait becuase Justin Bieber is Justin Bieber.'
When I
watched this video for the first time I laughed uncontrollably but then after a
while it dawned on me that these girls were so keen to defend a person they didn’t
know, simply because of his fame, that they made excuses for even the most
awful claim.
Although
I'm sure both Beyonce and Justin Bieber have many attributes to look up to, I
think that most of our time could be better invested in looking up to far more
inspirational people. Why is it that we all know every pointless detail about
Joey Essex's life but we probably don't know the story of inspirational people
like Malala Yousafzai or even take notice of the ordinary people who constantly contribute to society
in a positive way.
For
those of you who know me, you probably know I'm not an exception to those who
are totally obsessed with reality TV shows, I mean there's nothing better than
the final 2 mins of Made In Chelsea when something actually happens. But, I
think it’s time we stop putting the lives of so-called 'famous people' ahead of
the people we should really be looking up to. Yes, watching TV or celeb
stalking on instagram can be fun pastime it shouldn't reach the extent to which
we put these celebs on a pedestal.
Instead of aspiring to be as famous as Kim Kardashian
maybe we should really be aspiring to become as kind as our mother or as
charitable as the person in the local paper.
If you ask most
people my age if they would consider themselves to be religious the most likely
responses would either be ‘no way’ or
‘yeah a bit.’ It has been said that by the year 2041 religious people will be
in the minority but does that mean that our society is doomed or that nowadays
being religious has nothing to do with
being a good person or even believing in God?
Despite many of my friends coming from a family that has
some kind of religious association not one follows a specific religion devoutly.
In my experience most young people find that the disconnect from their
religious background comes from the condemning nature of most religions. Many
of the world’s major religions criticise things such as homosexuality and marrying
outside the same faith. Yet, in such an increasingly liberal society where gay
marriage is widely supported, and where inter-racial/inter-religious couples
are a common sight these views seem ridiculous. However it seems these days these are the beliefs that so-called
religious people fiercely hold on to in order to prove their commitment. Today
it seems that people’s skewed reading of some religious views has left religion
to become associated with hate more than love.
Also, for most of us we have grown up in a world where
nothing means anything unless it can be proven. Science has always been one of the most valued
subjects at school (much to my disappointment) and from a young age each of us
have been taught numerous things that come into conflict with religious
teachings. When I asked one of friends
from a Christian background why they found it hard to connect with religion,
they said the overwhelming amount of hours spent in Science lessons diminishing
any truth in religious teachings, like the creation story, didn’t seem to help.
And it doesn’t stop there! Many people I know come from a
Sikh family and a lot of young people find it hard to even understand the
teachings, as it’s written in Gurmukhi, a language most people my age are unfamiliar
with. Thus in the Gurdwara, the Sikh
place of worship, you can usually find the odd teenager slyly on their phone or
chatting to their friend.
Yet despite many young people feeling quite dispassionate
about following a religion, well, religiously that doesn’t mean to say we
should necessarily be worried about the recent trend in declining religion. By a certain stage in your life most people
manage to decipher for themselves what they consider right and wrong, and while
this might not align with what certain religions class as right and wrong, they
are probably more accurate for the time. Nowadays even believing in God is not
exclusive to being religious and it’s good to realise that trying to have your
own morality can make you a much better person than holding onto specific rules
that were written centuries ago. While for many the details of religion may not feel right to follow to the letter, the fundamentals
of what they all try and preach usually tend to match up with what feels morally right.
‘It seems today that all you see is violence in movies and
sex on TV. But where are those good old fashioned values on which we used to
rely.’- Family Guy Theme Song
I think we've all had that moment at least once in all our
lives where something inappropriate comes on TV and you’re sitting right next
to your mum and dad and you wish you weren’t alive. A tad dramatic, I know, but
a scenario many of you will be able to sympathise with. Although we may be coming to an age where
these moments seem to happen less, it still doesn't take away from the fact
that recently you can’t escape the overwhelming amount of sex on TV.
I wouldn’t call myself a prude, I mean I love Game of
Thrones as much as the next guy, but it really agitated me the other day when I
was flicking through the channels and I saw at least 3 pairs of breasts in
about 30 seconds. No it wasn’t 4am and no I wasn’t flicking through the
indecent channels either. Since when did it become the norm for such exposure
to be so casual on our TV screens?
Within the music industry it has almost become a given that
we see superstars such as Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga in nothing more than a
thong and nipple stickers and sometimes it feels like I’ve seen Rihanna’s naked
body more than I’ve seen my own. However more recently, it seems that this
theme has trickled down into many much-loved TV shows, which I think is such a
shame. Series’ such as The Tudors, True Blood and indeed Game of Thrones use
nudity as bait to draw an interest and a buzz around the shows rather than
getting people intrigued in the stories of power play and the multi-faceted
characters.
There has always been a relationship between nudity
producing lower value viewing and actresses such as Sarah Jessica Parker and
more recently Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys in GoT, have had clauses built
into their contracts to rule out nude scenes in order to protect their
credibility as artists. So if indeed this excessive use of nudity lowers the
tone of a TV programme then the creators of such shows must believe audiences
are far too unintelligent to find such storylines captivating without a bit of
cheap sex thrown in for effect.
I think it is time TV producers trusted audiences to be able
to appreciate shows without having to have a barrage of naked bodies appearing
on our screens. I’d like to think the
average viewer is cultured enough to be able to enjoy a series like the ones
I’ve named without the ubiquitous, over exaggerated sex scenes.
‘How did it happen that four such smart women have nothing to talk about but boyfriends?’ -Miranda Hobbes, Sex and the City
After finishing my essays last week I found myself in front
of my laptop searching for ‘good films to watch’, naturally being the top
priority over trying to get an internship or any other productive things. As
many of you know finding the right film to watch can be a tricky task depending
on a variety of factors and because I’d just been writing rather depressing
essays about exploitation and abuse of women (cheery, I know!) I wanted to
watch something with a bit of girl power minus any chick flicks, I mean we’ve
seen them all about 5 times right?! Scrolling through imdb’s top 250 films I
found myself looking at a list of films including; The Shawshank Redemption,
many a Godfather, 12 Angry Men, Inception and one of my fave films Goodfellas.
A good list of suggestions, I’ll give you that, but where were all the women in
these classics?
Disappointed, I asked my flatmates what film I should watch
and gave them my criteria to which they responded that I’d find it difficult to
find such a film and haven’t I heard of the Bechdel Test? Let me, with the help
of google, fill you in. In order to pass the Bechdel Test the film must:
- include at least two named female characters
-they must talk to one another
-if they talk it must be about something other than men
Well that must be easy for any film in 2014, right?! Well apparently
not. Even the films that do pass only do so because the female characters talk
about marriage or babies. Surely films that portray such a simplistic view of
women must be those ones we see with 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes that no one
really watches anyway. But to my surprise, 5 out of 9 of this year’s Best
Picture Nominees at the Oscars fail the Bechdel Test including the winner Twelve
Years a Slave- #notfeelingthis. While the men in these Oscar nominated films go
around defending their freedom, making
millions and defeating Somalian pirates the women are either non-existent or
stand around chatting about ‘boy troubles’ in the midst of such action. Do film
makers really believe that even in epic tales that document slavery, wars and
even alien invasions, the one thing on a woman’s mind is men! I can’t believe this 1950’s view that women’s
lives revolve around men still exists in some of the greatest films that are being
made today what made me even angrier was that I hadn’t spotted it sooner. Even though I’ve never had the pleasure of
enduring it, I hear that even in the 100 hours of the whole Lord of the Rings
Trilogy not two women speak to one another and the highest grossing film of all
time, Avatar, can’t even manage a convo between two ladies that doesn’t revolve
around men!
Saying that, does this criteria really affect my enjoyment
of these films? After all these revelations about the film world my shock and appal
didn’t stop my from watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding that night. I enjoyed
it.
