On TV and Movies as Conversation Topics

A lot of things have changed in the last ten or so months, many of them for the worse. It’s harder to go to the grocery store, try on a new pair of shoes, or maintain your sanity. Most of us have either passed up seeing our families entirely or, at the very least, radically changed how we socialize with them. Your job has either gotten more dangerous, more remote, or ceased to exist at all. But one thing that has, unexpectedly, gotten SO much harder is holding an interesting conversation.

One might expect that when most people are stuck at home day after day, week after week, conversation would be easier than ever before. Human interaction has gone from the norm to something we desperately seek out. The only problem is nothing ever changes these days. And when something major does happen (ahem insurrectionists storming the nation’s capital, Reddit turning into a makeshift hedge fund, etc.) we’re all so starved for new information that we immediately consume all of it! 

So, conversations generally involve tossing the same lines back and forth over and over, “How’s work? How’s your family? Have you sold your GameStop stock yet? (Yes, Mom. I sold it weeks ago like a dumbass.)” But, in this continual reciprocation of empty questions and answers, there is one query that today reigns supreme. One question to rule them all: So, have you watched anything good lately? 

TV and movies have always been there to transport us to new worlds, show us perspectives we’d never previously considered, and make us debate who really is the number one Hollywood Chris: Pine, Pratt, Evans, or Hemsworth (personally I vote 1. Hemsworth 2. Pine 3. Evans 4. Pratt). But today, they give us something even more valuable than that: something new and fun to discuss! From Tiger King all those months ago, to The Last Dance, to The Queen’s Gambit more recently. Whether you’re staying caught up on the shows that are miraculously still putting out new episodes or you’re going through all the “can’t miss” pieces of media that you somehow missed, each and every thing you watch gives you another wonderful conversation life line. 

And the real beauty of it is that we’re all consuming differently. You might be binge watching The Great British Baking Show (finding yourself lost in Paul Hollywood’s piercing blue eyes), while your best friend is watching every true-crime docuseries they can get their hands on. They can recommend you HBO’s The Outsider and you can fire back with The Good Place. Talk to enough people and you’ll have a list of shows and movies that you’ll never finish, each one of them someone’s favorite thing. 

While we’re all stuck in this never-ending Groundhog Day like hellscape there is one thing many of us have more of: downtime. And since we can’t do anything or go anywhere, watch whatever you like! Honestly, it doesn’t even matter if it’s good. If it makes you happy and passes the time, then it’s good enough. (p.s. if you like reality shows, Below Deck is some real entertaining schlock)