By GWU's Alexis Gentry AKA LaTaviya Goldstein-Martinez

Kind of like a blog, kind of like an editorial, here's Alexis' comments on life at The George Washington University:

11-9-05



The truth finally came out today as the annoying girl in my class finally admitted she didn't know something.

Let me set the scene for all the readers. There is a girl in one of my classes here at GW, let's just call her Angela. This girl is from a political family, I believe her parents are diplomats, and she truly believes that she has all the answers to any question posed by anyone on any subject. I'm sure you know people like her at work or in your social life. You ask any question, "I wonder why they did that?" or make any theory, "I bet it was that way because..." and she has some answer or contrary theory that she backs up with "factual evidence" and "research" on the subject.

Today, the subject was television. I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all, but I know my TV. She openly admits that she hardly watches TV and has done very little reading or research into TV, yet she still believes she knows more than the rest of the world. For her presentation, she chose to play part of an episode of Sex and the City and discuss the way the show makes men and women feel, an audience response analysis kind of thing.

First of all, her "sample audience" of men was hilarious: her dad, her brother, ALL (emphasis included) her ex-boyfriends "because if they were dating me I made them watch it, like, I forced them to" and a couple of her friends. Her theory was that no men watched the show and they all hated it because the main characters were women and men hate shows that show women in any kind of power. Right. You bet. No men have ever watched one of the most popular shows in the history of HBO. Not a single one. And ALL men are threatened by TV shows that put women in positions of power. But how would men even know this about Sex and the City because, after all according to her research, no men have ever watched the show to begin with. There were so many times when I started to roll my eyes but she'd turn and look at me and I'd have to act like I was looking at something on the ceiling.

Second, all her analysis of the show was purely content based. She talked about the different characters, the dialogue, the way the narration sets the scene. (During this time she never once mentioned the writers or directors who create the content that she was blathering about. Apparently the actors just walked around improvising lines and there just so happened to be a camera crew there to record it and put it on TV.) She never once mentioned the style of the show or the way that the content is edited to appeal to certain demographics. All that's fine and good, if she would just admit that there are some things she doesn't know. I mean, I'm only 21 and I understand that there are millions of things I don't know. I mean, look at this site for Christ sake, I don't even know HTML. I just hate the people who go around acting, and really believing, they know everything.

The other thing that really bugged me about "Angela" is the way that she looks down on everyone who doesn't have as much money as her or who has different interests than her. I should be used to this elitist rich-kid attitude by now, I've been at GW for four years now, but I still get really bothered when people think they're better than other people. I try to appreciate the fact that everyone is different, we all have different interests and opinions and it's great that we all don't agree because it makes life interesting. So frequently at my school, people tend to classify things as "low culture" or they politely call something "working class" to imply that it's for poor stupid people. This attitude from spoiled rich brats is about as creepy as it gets.

This is why I was so thrilled today when "Angela" admitted that she didn't know everything about TV. It was only after a few of the other people in class made comments about the show and elements she had not thought of that she was willing to say that she really didn't know it all. None the less, it was one of the highlights of my day.

Anyway, as I type this, I'm waiting for my film class to start and my friend just came in so I must stop typing and tell her all about this distinctly GW display.