XOXO Cartoon Girl

When the TV show Nashsville aired for the first time, I watched it differently that I did anything else. I was paying less attention to the characters and the plot lines and looked more closely at the shoot locations. What school was that? Where was their favorite place to get coffee? Why was that the statue they chose to keep showing all the time?

I never even thought about what moving to New York would do to me.

Think for a second about all of the TV shows and movies that are filmed in New York City. Now I don't see nondescript city-ness, I see downtown. I see the upper east side. I see Washington Square Park and I see the Flat Iron district. I watch characters walking down the streets and I remember seeing the small store fronts on my walk to class every week. The whole entertainment aspect of film is different now because of it.

For instance, the line, "No no no. Ely and I don't go beyond 14th street," would have meant absolutely nothing to me half a year ago. Now I find myself thinking, "Oh my gosh I bet that character LOVES the Union Square Christmas Market.

I have a friend who has lived in the city all of his life and used to have the same complaint about every super hero movie.

"They always destroy New York," he'd shake his head,  "and it's just hard to watch. That's my city!"

Now, I don't feel completely comfortable calling NY my city, I mean, I've only been here for a few months, but I totally understand where he was coming from.

And films with NYU students in them? Forget about it. I'm shoulders deep in a film that is so terrible I'm rolling my eyes at every line, but she's an NYU freshman so I can't hit pause. It's a sickness.

I am currently thirty minutes into a terrible movie that I will not name, in which they are hanging out inside of a dorm room. A year ago I couldn't have imagined what a dorm room at NYU looked like, but right now I'm thinking about the fact that they just did a close up of Weinstein and I'm sifting through the names of the people that I know that live there.

Nothing is the same anymore, it's wild. I keep trying to come up with a better way to describe it than just using words like 'connection' and 'familiarity' cause it seems like more than that.

You know the show Gossip Girl? Anybody who even looks at me can probably tell it's not my style. Overly privileged NYC kids with lives full of petty drama? Not really my thing. Everyone here watches it, and I do too. I can't help myself. (In part it's because my best friend since diapers really wanted me to watch it. But it's mostly for the aforementioned reason.) To be honest I hate the show. I understand it's appeal, sort of, but I just kind of can't stand it. That said, I'm in the middle of season one and don't foresee myself stopping, at least not before the characters go off to college at--you guessed it--NYU.

So, next time you see some interesting (or not so interesting) movie centered around an NYU kid in the city, let me know. I'll probably wanna watch it.