when we're exposed to american sitcoms, are we to generally believe that americans act that way? the same goes for television shows...are all americans as nice as they seem in 7th heaven [farewell, jessica biel, you were the ideal preacher's daughter], as lost as they are in touched by an angel, as well-endowed as they are in baywatch...you get the idea. is everything as pastel-coloured as it is in friends? mmm. smiling faces, talking heads, but we don't get the point. if everything was so brown nosed in the states, i guess that we wouldn't be having wars, that they'd be fighting world debt alongside the countries that need it, and that they'd be having a government deficit in the budget from being overcharitable. charity starts at home...wait, don't let me get started on unemployment and the economy...and the global temperament. this is about television.

i remember, back when saved by the bell was showing on sunday mornings on tv2, we'd spend the next day at school, talking about zach and screech and cohorts...and being prepubescent teens [is there such a thing?], we'd focus on the snuggling and the kissing...the whole physical thing. that paved the way for the whole "i want a girl/boy/girl-boy" thing, and we started it...asking girls out, the whole giggly phase...because they did that stuff on tv. friends was all about yuppie relationships and possibly even sex...i'm not a big fan but it's possibly the best show on tv right now...more on that later. the few shows that i've embraced in the past were probably...well, ally mcbeal, because she was so neurotic, and the x-files, because i just didn't get it. and now, it's probably csi, because i od'd on it in brazil, and because nothing like it has come before...to my knowledge. makes you want to become a forensic scientist...for a day.

but do americans really talk that way? it's the same when you see a gritty movie like narc [jason patric, ray liotta]...are all blacks really the stereotypical nigga dealer? does everyone swear on cue? pop and bustem' caps? no? yes? i know that we should distance ourselves from television, that it blurs the line between reality and fiction, but...there's a little bit of us in that show that the idiot box is showing. just how much, we'll never know. all i know is, we take from it...which is probably dangerous, i guess. then again, in a world like today's, brown-nosed is good.

throw away your television? i think not.