Reality TV Group
I realize, sadly, that this will surprise some people out there, but Harvard Law students like reality TV. I don’t want to generalize, because at school the size of HLS there’s gotta be a few people who don’t, so I’ll just speak for myself—well, myself and the group of HLSers I have been watching reality TV with every Wednesday for the past two years.
I don’t want to give the impression that we’re really crazy about this or that we have perfect attendance or that anyone is devoted enough to be Tweeting or blogging about our weekly get-togethers (yes, I realize this is a blog, but this one doesn’t count. It’s a blog explaining that we don’t blog.). We just have made it a point to hang out and watch trashy TV together at our friend John’s house ever since we started law school. It began with a group of people from our 1L section, but we have attracted people from other sections and other class years, mostly based on the criteria Do-You-Like-America’s-Next-Top-Model, and Do-Your-Top-Chef-Watching-Habits-Allow-You-To-Be-Quiet-During-The-Show-But-Make-Funny-Snarky-Comments-About-The-Contestants-During-The-Commercials.
We always have tons of food, and we always have a great time dissecting what we see. We do not talk about how these shows might relate to law or theory or legal practice; we talk about how stupid the word “smizing” is (the Tyra Banks term for smiling with your eyes), and whether it is tautological that no human can win a Top Chef challenge with gnocchi. Occasionally, someone won’t be able to help themselves when a contestant who was hit in the back of the head threatens to sue for assault, and will mutter, “Under tort law that’s not assault, it’s battery—he never saw it coming,” but those relate-it-to-law-school type comments are loudly booed down by the group.
Full disclosure: our group also used to watch Project Runway, but this year they moved it to Thursday nights, causing a spin-off group to form to reconvene the next night for Runway and that tag-on show about its models that comes on afterward. So yes, I didn’t think I was going to admit this, but I am actually a member of two HLS-based reality watching TV groups. I’m not sure if that’s sad or awesome, or maybe a little bit of both.
And as for the HLSers who don’t watch reality TV, I’d love to hear from you. What do you do? Study the law? Somebody should make a reality show about that.
- Erin
