Alternate viewing

Cracked.com has ruined a lot of things I like. It’s mostly my fault: no-one is making me look at funny lists of Star Wars bloopers, but once I’ve had them shown to me I can’t un-see them. I’m now that guy, the one who points out editing gaffes or continuity errors in films, just to spread the misery around. You know, that one person who comments on the submarine scene in Raiders even though ‘no gives a crap, oh my God will you shut up about cinematic mistakes, we’re trying to watch a film, why do we even invite you over.’

Occasionally, though, Cracked drops something good in my lap. A recent article suggested a reading of The Catcher in the Rye in which the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after the death of his younger brother. It’s an interesting theory; Caulfield does demonstrate some of the symptoms of PTSD (mood swings, fluctuating sexual drive, feelings of alienation etc), and equally fascinating is the fact that J.D. Salinger suffered from combat stress reaction or ‘battle fatigue,’ which is thought by many psychologists to be a precursor to PTSD. *clenches fist* Suddenly it all falls into place!

Now when I read The Catcher in the Rye I have difficulty discarding this theory, even though it came from an admittedly left-field source. It indelibly informs my understanding of the book. I can ignore it if I choose, but it’s added a new and interesting dimension to the novel (one I wish I’d heard about when I was at uni. Man, would I have looked smart).

There’s a fan theory about Ferris Beuller’s Day Off in which Ferris is merely a figment of Cameron’s imagination: his psyche’s attempt to break Cameron out of his funk and go and enjoy life a little bit. As a reading it lacks some depth (the fact that Cameron sees plenty of people interacting with Ferris elevates him from charming mental projection to full blown dissociative personality), but like all the best alternate readings once you’ve set out the ground rules you can twist the actual narrative to fit, if you want.

You can apply an alternate reading to whatever you want, even if it’s something you hate. Who’s to stop you? The Thought Police? (I’m hoping that’s not a thing yet.)

I’m not a huge fan of Jedward, but there’s a reading of Jedward that I quite like. My brother claims to have come up with it but I’m pretty sure it was Russell Howard. Anyway, my preferred decoding of Jedward states that one of them (it can be John or Edward, I don’t think anyone remembers which is which anymore), really, REALLY hates being a part of Jedward. That with each camp wave and power kick a little part of him flutters and dies. He stares at himself in the mirror, starkly lit by the sodium lamps of another Butlins dressing room, and wishes himself anywhere else. He wanted to be a surgeon, a captain of enterprise, a hostage negotiator. He dreams of filling their back page column in Heat with his informed feminist rhetoric... but instead has to fill in little coloured bubbles about what their favourite fizzy drink is, or what they dream about at night (Column answer: riding with their fans on unicorns. Real answer: holding Louis Walsh’s head under the water until the bubbles finally stop).

The cast of Made in Chelsea are not, as the show would have us believe, rich, under-educated sociopaths, who cannot either be interesting on their own, or act interesting even when prompted. Instead they are a collective of penniless orphans, given one last chance to act their way out of the workhouse, playing the parts of rich, under-educated sociopaths who cannot either be interesting on their own or act interesting even when prompted, and giving the performance of their goddamn lives.

Remember how the first series of Big Brother was pitched as a genuine psychological experiment, with scientific talking heads and everything? People immediately realised that they were happy to simply watch other people do stuff (which is, when you think about, all you basically do in your daily life anyway), and after a few seasons people were mostly watching it for Russell Brand pulling down his trousers and pants, but to begin with Big Brother was legitimate viewing. And you can do the same to almost any TV show, with a little creative thinking.

The Bachelorette is part of a super-soldier breeding programme. Tool Academy is beamed into space as a counterpoint to ‘the best of humanity’ plaque that went out with the Voyager probe, so that if aliens ever find us we don’t look too stuck up. The men in Playing it Straight are all homosexual. So is the female lead. It’s all a big gay practical joke. The kids that get booted off the island in Shipwrecked are in fact killed and eaten by the remaining cast as supplies dwindle.

The only flaw in my genius scheme to single-handedly save television is that you could just go and watch something else, something not crap, and save yourself a lot of time and effort. But I don’t watch Made in Chelsea because I like it, I watch Made in Chelsea because my flatmates like it, and I was here on the sofa first and it’s cold in my bedroom. They get irritated, and rightly so, when I pick holes in their entertainment. They know it's crap. They don’t care. I could easily go read a book. Since I can’t be bothered to get up, the least I can do is find a way to enjoy what I’m watching.

I’m not suggesting you put up with inferior entertainment forever. I’m always suggesting that you go read a book. But media is yours to enjoy, and yours to exploit and mutate. Go nuts.