Welcome to my webpage. I will make my journal entries about one of my favorite TV shows Grey's Anatomy. I' currently watching the fifth season and I will base my journals on it. I think GA is a very intersting show and there are a lot things you can talk about. I love the fact that the show presents an inside scoop of the medical field. I will probably talk about the different methods doctors use when treating their patients.
It is a television show centered in the lives of surgeons. It shows how a group of surgeons carry their daily lives while dealing with many intersting cases.
One of the things that makes Grey's Anatomy such an interesting television show is the fact that there is a lot of diversity on it. The characters, their backgrounds and stories, are very different from one another. Grey's Anatomy gives the viewer the variety needed to keep the show entertaining season after season. The diversity in Grey's Anatomy involves race, sexual orientation, and personal beliefs. There is a character, a story, any person can identify with. The fact that it is not a cookie cutter television show but rather a television show that shows realistic circumstances and characters makes Grey's Anatomy different and enjoyable to watch.
If we talk about race and nationality, Grey's Anatomy has a little bit of everything. Regardless of the show taking place in Seattle, Washington, there is an Asian, a Mexican and two African Americans as part of the main cast. Cristina Yang, Callie Torres, Richard Webber and Miranda Bailey represent the minority of non Caucasian Americans on the show. The fact that all the characters are not white makes it more realistic because in a real hospital, you would find people from different backgrounds working together in order to save lives. As a Hispanic, I really liked to see Callie speaking, or rather fighting, in Spanish with her father during the season's twentieth episode Sweet Surrender. To see how these characters' physical appearance and behavior show how they are part of a minority while not being different in any other aspect from the rest of the characters is really interesting.
There has also been an emphasis on sexual orientation during this season. Although Callie had her first homosexual relationship during the fourth season, she admitted and embraced her homosexuality during the fifth season. I think that Callie and Arizona's relationship and the fact that they are lesbians add something distinctive to the story. Nowadays people are more comfortable about their sexuality and who they are. This has led doctors to be more open about who they are, allowing them not to hide their sexual preferences. Although Callie was not very sure at first, after she admitted she was a lesbian, she embraced it and even broke up any type of relationship with his father when he did not want to accept her homosexuality. I think that his reaction is also something that you could expect from a father, especially a Hispanic father, after being shocked by this discovery. However, Callie's reaction was respectable because she was owning who she was and therefore showing the viewer that it is OK to be different as long as you are being yourself.
As in real life, the characters on Grey's Anatomy have different points of views on life and even medicine. Cristina is the strongest and most methodical person on the show; she is the best doctor and likes doing everything by the book. Owen is Cristina's polar opposite, after being a doctor who served during wartime, Owen is broken and those things based on the situation, his methods are not precisely orthodox. I think that showing these different behaviors and personalities also make the show more relatable to the audience because in real life people are different from each other; you would never see everyone behaving in the same way even if they have the same profession.
In conclusion, Grey's Anatomy is different and unique. It does not follow the usual themes, the characters and their stories are special in that they are not necessarily common. I think that the diversity in this television show makes the show believable, real, and easy for the audience to identify with. I think it also helps the audience to feel comfortable and even feel as part of the story. Moreover, the diversity on Grey's Anatomy makes me proud of who I am while also making me appreciate how special and different everyone else is.
One of the things I like the most about Grey's Anatomy is the voice over at the opening and closing of each episode. The voice overs, or monologues, serve a simple function to deliver the message in a simple, concise and direct way. At the beginning of each episode, a monologue, usually told by Meredith, explains what the episode is going to be about. The closing monologue gives a short summary or explanation of what that day's message was. Most of the monologues use analogies and metaphors to explain feelings or some aspects of daily life; sometimes, they even teach a historical fact or just a random comment about something you might have never thought about. After being a fan of this television show for various seasons and listening to various monologues, I think the fifth season monologues have been the ones that have affected me the most as a viewer because they have emphasized on both the surgeon and the person inside the characters.
Unlike in other seasons, this season's monologues have made a lot of references to surgeons' lives. Although Grey's Anatomy is a television show centered on the lives of surgeons, previous season's monologues have focused more on the human side of the characters, what they believe as human beings rather than surgeons. This season, however, has placed a certain emphasis on what being a surgeon is about. Monologues mention what surgeons feel, what they think and how they see things differently from the rest of society while still being part of it. For example, in the season second episode Here Comes the Flood, the monologue states how "As surgeons, we are trained to fix what's broken. The breaking point is our starting line at work. But in our lives, the breaking point is a sign of weakness. And we'll do everything we can to avoid it" showing how something as a breaking point may symbolize polar opposites for the surgeon.
Moreover in Rise Up, the sixth episode of the season, the monologue sets a clear distinction between regular people and the surgeon, separating them into different entities based on their believes about death, "If you're a normal person, one of the few things you can count on in life is death. But, if you're a surgeon, even that comfort is taken away from you. Surgeons cheat death, we prolong it, we deny it. We stand and defiantly give death the finger." However, An Honest Mistake, the season's 15th episode's monologue, turns the table and shows regardless of everything else surgeons are just people "Patients see us as gods. Or, they see us as monsters. But the fact is, we're just people. We screw up. We lose our way. Even the best of us have our off days. Still, we move forward. We don't rest on our laurels or celebrate the lives we saved in the past. Because there's always some other patient that needs our help. So, we force ourselves to keep trying, to keep learning...in the hope that maybe, someday, we'll come just a little bit closer to the gods our patients need us to be." These monologues, as the show itself, show the similarities between the surgeon's life and that of people who are not surgeons while always noting the differences between the two.
Although this season monologues have centered a little bit more on the surgeon, they have not lost the main aspect that made me like them in the first place, they make you think. As simple or bogus as that may sound, these monologues make you analyze your behavior as a person, your views on life, and they open your mind to other points of view. They discuss love, trauma, fear, success, failure, pain, those things we all experience regardless of who we are or what our job is. They discuss things we can identify with, things that make you think about how you are living your life. Karev's closing monologue during the 18th episode explains trauma in a different light making the viewer realize that something as painful as trauma sometimes may help us grow "Trauma always leaves a scar. It follows us home, it changes our lives, Trauma messes everybody up, but maybe that's the point: All the pain and the fear and the crap. Maybe going through all of that is what keeps us moving forward, it's what pushes us." I am not saying that these monologues change your life or anything like that however they make you reflect on things that you may not even consider although they are part of your life.
In conclusion, the monologues in Grey's Anatomy do for the viewer what a prologue or epilogue may do for a reader. They introduce the topic that is going to be discussed without giving away the story, and later they analyze the topic discussed giving an afterthought. In my opinion, the monologues might even do more than the prologue and epilogue because they take a step further and give the audience the opportunity to engage on what they have experienced through the episode. I do not believe Grey's Anatomy or its monologues are perfect but I do believe that they teach me something I may not have noticed before.
A really striking aspect of Grey's Anatomy is how sexuality is treated. I have been watching this show since its second season and it still amazes me how sex is portrayed in the show. You can almost say that sex is a character itself. The characters usually have casual sex with random people, nurses, other doctors and even roommates/best friends. The fact that they have so much sex is nothing noteworthy but the way in which the characters treat the whole subject is what makes you pay attention to it.
The main character, Meredith Grey, is the queen of casual sex. Although in this current season she is trying to settle with Dr. Derek Shepherd, the four previous seasons, especially in the second one, she was notoriously known for her many "hook ups." Meredith is one of those characters that has slept with more people than she can remember although she has not had any type relationships, other than sexual, with many of them. In this season, after four season of Derek (also known as McDreamy because he seems to be the perfect match for any woman) trying to have a committed relationship with Meredith, they have decided to move in together. This has not been easy for Meredith because she is terrified of compromise. The fact that she is scared of compromise makes you wonder if this is the reason why she would not mind sleeping around with everyone and would even prefer it to other options.
Another character known for his sexual behavior is Mark Sloan, also known as McSteamy. McSteamy has slept with all the nurses in the hospital and he is basically known as slut by everyone. The fact that he has slept with all the nurses without taking any of them seriously caused him not to have any nurses to assist him during some surgeries. Unlike Meredith, Mark's issue is not that he has commitment problems but that everyone expects him to act like a whore therefore he just meets the standards. Unlike many others characters, Mark was celibate during a previous season. However, the interesting thing about Mark's behavior is that the can even see sex as an educational activity. In the first episodes of the fifth season, Mark had sex with Dr. Callie in order to teach her how to be with a woman. Callie was having her first homosexual relationship and did not know how to deal with the sexual part therefore Mark, who had been her lover in multiple occasions, helped her by showing her how to be with a woman. Although Mark wanted to help Callie, he mostly did it as an experiment which he could investigate later on. Even though it may not seem that way, Mark is a complex character who may seem simple because he is mostly seen as the man who wants to "get laid."
The thing about sex on Grey's Anatomy is that everyone presents in a different way. They have sex to escape from some situations; they have sex even to prove themselves to other people. They have sex in public places, mostly the hospital during working hours, and everyone seems fine with it. The funny thing about this is that although sex is an suject that receives a lot of attention in the show, Grey's Anatomy is not a random show mostly based on its characters being sex addicts. It mostly shows that sex is another aspect of life and that sometimes we may use it for the wrong reasons.
I think that recurrent appeal to sexual relationships in Grey's Anatomy makes the television show more relatable to people. It does not show sex, or even casual sex, as a bad thing but rather as something natural that happens nowadays. Although I do not agree with some characters' point of view about the subject or to be more specific their actions regarding sexual behavior, I think that the fact that it is being discussed and presented to the public makes the show more relatable to people. I think the main reason why I like this television show so much it's because it shows you the human side of every situation, the good and bad things about people and their behavior. Sex, just like selfishness, is not sugar-coated so the characters appear to be proper and extremely excellent professionals and the audience may like them. The characters in Grey's Anatomy are as real as a script would allow and the way in which sex it's treated is evidence that supports this claim.
One of the things that has called my attention about Grey's Anatomy is how selfish the characters in this story are. Selfishness has been one of the main focuses during the first five episodes of the fifth season. Regardless of the fact that the characters are doctors, whose main priority should be to care for patients, they have a high sense of self that sometimes inhibits them from seeing beyond what is in front of their eyes. The characters compete among themselves for the best surgeries, for the things that will make them shine, not caring much about the patients' well being. I am not saying that these doctors do not care at all about their patients because some of them do but that as a whole, one of the most notorious things about this television show is that the characters think too much about themselves.
One of the best examples to explain what I mean by the characters being selfish is Cristina Yang. Cristina is one of the brightest, not to say the brightest doctor at Seattle Grace, however her motives to be the best are not what would considered typical or traditional in a doctor. She is an excellent doctor, extremely smart and dedicated but patients are just trials to her. She considers relationship with patients unnecessary and has a hard time connecting with them. She wants to be the best and she probably is but she is not necessarily the patients' favorite doctor. Cristina is a good sufficient doctor because she is good at being "good" but she does it for herself, to prove that she can be the best.
Another example would be Richard Webber, the chief of the Seattle Grace Hospital. Richard is not what you would necessarily call a selfish person but upon discovering that Seattle Grace had ranked number twelve as a teaching hospital after being on the top five during the fifth season's first episode, Richard shows a side of his personality unknown to the public before. He wants to be the chief of the number one teaching hospital and he would do everything to obtain that. He implements new teaching policies which disregards patients' treatment and doctor-patient relationship. In the third episode of the fifth season "Here Comes the Flood," he even risks patients' lives by preventing them from evacuating the hospital after a flood. He mostly does it for himself, because he does not want to be the chief of the number twelve best hospital. His pride does not allow him to see that medicine is a discipline that should be based on serving others not in being number one. Although Richard is an excellent chief, he is organized, intelligent and considerate, he can be a little too focused on himself sometimes. My point with this analysis is that Grey's Anatomy shows some aspects of the medical field that are usually hidden. You would think that the directors of this television show would show how excellent these doctors are, how much they care about their patients and how noble their work is. However, the directors show you a not so nice but nevertheless humane part of the job. They show how although the motivation is not always the right one, these doctors are human beings who make mistakes and deal with situations the best way they can. They show a part of the characters that make you doubt if they are on the right profession but at the same time makes you value the effort of the whole team.
Although Cristina is a selfish character, she is one of my favorites just as Richard is one of the characters I respect the most. The fact that they are selfish sometimes makes me relate more to them. I am not saying that being selfish is a good thing, it is totally the opposite but it would be a lie to say that people on their majority are selfless. As human beings, we try to do things that would benefit us in the first place rather than do things that would benefit others. Our sense of self, our pride, sometimes motivates us to move forward. Although it bothers me that the characters do things for the wrong reason, I like to see how human nature is presented without being sugarcoated for the public. Selfishness is presented in Grey's Anatomy as a part of the characters' personality, not as the only thing the characters are. I chose to do my journals about Grey's Anatomy because I believe this show is very real and relatable and the way in which selfishness is presented helps me support this claim.
I hope you enjoyed visiting my webpage as much as I enjoyed creating it.