The bath salts – they're starting to effervesce

Oh what glorious weather! I'm so used to cold weather that I was still wearing my thick robe over my flannel PJs this morning. I decided to get dressed and felt a bit scared that I was only wearing a t shirt and shorts. I haven't worn single layers since Thailand. I have the day off again (thank you!) and I've found myself in a bit of a slump but I think getting dressed certainly helped things.

I think my problem is that I watch way too much TV. I'm onto the last season of Friends. I don't know what I'll be watching next, although I'm very pleased that all my favourite shows are coming back on air this week! That's the thing with TV: it's a bit of a weird relationship. You get sucked in and you rarely want to do anything else. However, I do think I have something to write about today that relates to the TV I watch. Like I said before, I've been watching a lot of Friends. As a show, it's funny. It's good background fodder, really, and sometimes you need that. You rarely get massive LOLs but it's not unfunny enough to make you not watch it.

Anyway, I've realised that I have a few issues with Friends when it comes to their portrayal of masculinity. It actually does bother me quite a bit. One of my favourite characters is Chandler and I've noticed that he gets panned a lot, and usually the insults are directed at his lack of masculinity, perhaps more at how he doesn't reach the general standards of masculinity. And usually, that just means he's possessing feminine qualities.

One example that springs to mind is when Chandler takes his first bath. He enjoys it very much but he needs a toy ship in the bath with him to assert to himself that it's OK for him to do a seemingly "girly" activity. Apparently the toy boat cancels out all the candles and bubbles.



I suppose it just annoys me that TV’s way of showing what isn’t masculine is by being feminine, and it shits me a lot. There’s nothing wrong with being feminine and I don’t see why it should be a problem for a man to possess feminine qualities. And in fact, these ‘feminine qualities’ aren’t exclusively female if you think about it. Wanting to be clean and odourless (or, just pleasant smelling) is a pretty standard thing for men and women, so why is there a problem with a man having a bubble bath? Hygiene and being hygienic shouldn’t be exclusive to one gender.

Anyway, that’s my mini rant. I should probably look into some academic papers on Friends. I think it would be interesting.