When I was growing up, my mother referred to the television as “the brainless” (a noun that, as a current English major, I have a few problems with). Her mother before her referred to it as “the idiot box.” Unsurprisingly, I have developed a taste for television that requires little to no thought (Think TLC after it lost its credibility as “The Learning Channel”). I’ve seen every episode of One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, and Flavor of Love, but refuse to call them “guilty pleasures” because I feel no guilt.
I also enjoy low-budget horror films (bonus points if the English voice-overs don’t match up with the foreign actors’ mouths) and trashy reality shows like Toddlers and Tiaras – but not Honey Boo Boo – and Dating Naked – but not Naked and Afraid (even I have my limits). I prefer Adrien Brody to Adam Brody, and my Netflix suggestions have been finely whittled down to “Movies Based on British 19th Century Novels with Strong Female Leads” – a.k.a. every Jane Austen adaptation ever made.
I have started and stopped watching Mad Men, Dexter, Game of Thrones, and American Horror Story, but stuck with River Monsters, True Detective, and True Blood. I’m a huge fan of movie popcorn and have only walked out of a theatre once, during a particularly intolerable scene during Rise of the Planet of the Apes and I bet you can guess which one. I watch Hocus Pocus every Halloween, Love Actually every Christmas, Disney Channel’s Luck of the Irish every St. Patrick’s Day, Pearl Harbor every December 7th, and Forrest Gump every time it’s on TV (a mere 10 times a year). I like puppies, books, and tennis, and hail from a small town in Arkansas called Forrest City (no relation).