"House" & "Fight Club"

I just finished watching the first season of "House," a favorite show of mine. I had recently read an online editorial criticizing that show and several others that are favorites of mine for being kind of antisocial, of setting a bad example for people. In each of the shows this guy criticized, the characters mentioned had some pretty negative characteristics. He was right about that. But, "House" and a movie that he criticized, "Fight Club" have something in common. They say some pretty interesting things, things that are true. I got to thinking, what is it about "House" that I like. I think I've got it. In a day of information overload and political correctness, when everone is encouraged to be positive because we think we'll all kill each other off if we don't encourage everyone to play nicely, Dr. House dares to say the negative things that need to be said. After a day of saying positive, politically correct half truths to people that we really don't care for, we come home and turn on "House," where he does what we wish we could do, just tell people the plain, honest truth.

Fight Club is another show (a movie this time) that this columnist criticized. It did the same thing in a way. It said some things that we wanted to hear somebody say, because those things seem true. "Your father left you. . . . Did you ever think that God hates you?" says Tyler Durdan. The things he says ring so true with me, part of me is afraid those things might be true. Tyler teaches an unloved, unwanted generation to take control of its own destiny, in the most horrible way. I would never do the things, any of them, that he advocated. But, I am that generation. That's why I like that movie. It doesn't pat me on the head and reassure me that I'm loved. I'm tired of being patted on the head, as though I was a dog being petted. I have eyes of my own. People can keep telling me that I'm all wrong about everything until kingdom come, but I'm not blind. I wish I was. I can't stop seeing. Christians hate me because, as my therapist would say, I'm one of those people who just won't stop pointing out that there's an elephant in the living room. "Yeah, we know, we know. Hush, now." "Well, . . . Aren't we gonna do something about it?"