Response Essay #3

Friends

            As a little kid you can't wait to get older. You are barely in first grade sitting in your little chair and small desk. There is a pencil box at the corner of your desk and your name that you decorated at the very top. You can only imagine what can possibly be ahead of you. As you get older you can't wait to be in high school finally. To finally be able to drive, stay out later, go to prom, and start dating. Once you get to high school it becomes what you did or didn't expect and then it ends, in a blink of eye. After that, the next chapter of your life begins. It can consist of moving out maybe, getting new jobs, paying some bills, going to college, still figuring out the whole dating thing, saying bye to friends and making new ones. In America we are give these opportunities that once we start getting into adult hood we the power to literally do whatever we want. We can choose to go to college or just work full-time. We can also decide to maybe take a risk and move across the country or stay in just where you are. The decision making can seem like you're trying to count all the stars in the sky with a limited amount of time.

            With all the choices I've realized I've had to make while barely entering my twenties, make watching the television show Friends that much more comforting. This television show follows the lives of six friends who are trying to figure out most things young American adults go through. These six best friends all in their twenties, are trying to overcome the struggles of work, life, love and common mishaps or chaos for people in this age. Even though the show is taken place in Manhattan and in the 1990's it is still effective today and catches many young viewer's attention. The majority of the people that watch the television show are also people in their twenties making them the targeted audience. Although there can still be younger and older viewers like, my mother and sister, who also view it and seem to enjoy it. Since these friends are in their twenties it reels in other's in the common age group most because of the similarities of their lifestyles.

            One of the major popular culture believes are the stereotypes in the group of friends. There are three women and three men in this group. Out of the men, there is one who is sarcastic, funny and an insensitive man who is afraid of commitment who has a good decent office job. The other one, which is his roommate, is the dumb hot guy that sleeps with a lot of women who has big dreams of becoming a big time actor. The last man who is a hopeless romantic, is the one who always embarrasses himself  when talking to women. He also has had continuously failed marriages and has a kid with his lesbian ex-wife. He is a paleontologist which also makes him the smartest and goofiest of the group. In a nutshell this seems to sum up most stereotypes of men in America. The girls in the group also date some men which brings a broader variety of characters to relate to in the show. For some reason it's hard to put a man together that can be a mixture of all of them.  It is implied most of the time in varies way in popular culture that it's hard to find the perfect man who is smart, goofy, handsome, funny/sarcastic, shy, sensitive and with a great job.