Real feelings when watching fictional TV?

S

sstiel

Member
Hi all,

I enjoy crime dramas and watched the third and final series of the BBC’s Happy Valley. I am beginning to understand why it is so loved. I am catching up the first series on BBC iPlayer.

Is it normal for me to feel intense anger, sadness and fear over the course of watching something like that even though I know it’s fiction?
 
It's normal for the neurotypical to feel validated by shows like these. The neurodiverse have learned self-defence by recognising attempts to push those buttons, and resist.
 
sstiel said:
Hi all,

I enjoy crime dramas and watched the third and final series of the BBC’s Happy Valley. I am beginning to understand why it is so loved. I am catching up the first series on BBC iPlayer.

Is it normal for me to feel intense anger, sadness and fear over the course of watching something like that even though I know it’s fiction?
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Yes! It was a very powerful drama with a very convincing / true to life cast. I experienced the same range of emotions while watching it.
 
sstiel said:
Hi all,

I enjoy crime dramas and watched the third and final series of the BBC’s Happy Valley. I am beginning to understand why it is so loved. I am catching up the first series on BBC iPlayer.

Is it normal for me to feel intense anger, sadness and fear over the course of watching something like that even though I know it’s fiction?
Click to expand...
I definitely feel physically upset and distressed when a fictional character in a TV show that I like is shown to be about to be betrayed without them knowing it. I get too invested I think :unsure:. I also have a physical reaction to when characters I like have a horrible ending in fictional stories. I just want everyone to have a happy ending! -Even the baddies!
 
I was schooled in the birthplace of the National Youth Theatre movement, with a production speciality rooted in voice. After a goodly career, I returned to performance, becoming a stagecraft mentor with Southbank's Voicelab.
Eric Berner's Games People Play deals with the ins and outs of interpersonal relationships, and teaches a lot about status, which can often be rather sadistic, as most of us know the hard way. In this case, I've a more fundamental question: do you really need to be tied to the goggle box? It's being used to tell the NT world what to think, and I've pretty much rebelled against it's button-pushing. Congratulations in realising it's fake, now spare yourself the angst. Use the Off button.
 
Rahere said:
I was schooled in the birthplace of the National Youth Theatre movement, with a production speciality rooted in voice. After a goodly career, I returned to performance, becoming a stagecraft mentor with Southbank's Voicelab.
Eric Berner's Games People Play deals with the ins and outs of interpersonal relationships, and teaches a lot about status, which can often be rather sadistic, as most of us know the hard way. In this case, I've a more fundamental question: do you really need to be tied to the goggle box? It's being used to tell the NT world what to think, and I've pretty much rebelled against it's button-pushing. Congratulations in realising it's fake, now spare yourself the angst. Use the Off button.
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I don’t think this comment was particularly directed at me? But I’ll respond anyway! 😆

I agree with what you say in terms of mainstream media. I haven’t had a TV for over 15 years. I’m not a fan of social media either. I don’t watch the news or read newspapers.

But I do like to stream the occasional drama on my IPad. Only those that I can engage with, that provide a bit of healthy thought provoking escapism. Programmes like ‘Happy Valley’ ‘Line of Duty’ and the ‘This is England’ series. It’s usually the quality of the actor that engages me - Sarah Lancashire, Vicky Mc Clure, Suranne Jones, Stephen Graham, Jodie Comer.

I watched the theatre performance of Jodie Comer in ‘Prima Facie’ on YouTube this year. It was gripping, compelling, touching, very thought provoking, socially relevant and validated the current real life experiences and struggles of women.

There’s a lot of value to be gained and learned through performance arts and drama. One of my first theatre experiences as a child of 7 was watching ‘Blood Brothers’. It allowed me to connect to my emotions, empathy for others and gain an understanding of my cultural / Liverpool working class heritage. This experience has stayed with me 41 years later and has served me well.

Just my thoughts on this subject.

Best wishes to all 😊
 
Examine my avatar. In Organisation Theory, there are three key players, the Leader, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Fool, the mediator. Zelenskyy. NTs fill the first two, an ND the latter. It's where our USP can succeed, dreaming up innovative ideas. I crashed because Boris saw it as a threat, then he learned he needed weirdos and misfits and still wanted to abuse us. I guess an amateur buffoon couldn't stand up to the real thing. I'll have his balls as my bauble by the time I'm done.
My introduction to the European Heads of State in person was by my first name, by Peter Carrington, the Head of the Bilderberg Organisation, at the 50th Anniversary Reception of the Western European Union, the European Foreign Office, which also housed the Military Staff, as part of the philosophy of the Continuation of Policy by Other Means. As a Staffer with the lead in Economic Warfare, we'd all been told to steer clear, unless instructed otherwise, and I was thus instructed, in accordance with my job. In, out, done. Except nobody knew that His Lordship knew me in a different context, early in his career, when I'd saved his reputation in the middle of the Falklands furore. I tell this tale not to boast, but to establish the reality that I'm more likely to have a film made about me than learn from one. Indeed, I'm already portrayed in one, I suspect, Bohemian Rhapsody, given I was the host Stage Manager at Loughborough the Saturday Rhapsody hit.
The entire point of those anecdotes is to show that one of our divergent abilities is to be leaders by diversion. The art of the diplomat has many forms,, but one of them is to ensure that other people have your way, and get the credit for it. This is the role of the Fool, to lubricate policy. Go study Jack Point, in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeoman of the Guard, or his real Tudor precursor, Robert Armin, one of Shakespeare's company, who invented the Second Order of comedy, intellectual humour: previously to 1590, only slapstick existed. After all, Stephen Fry's one of us, and if ever good humour is needed, it's now. This is precisely why we should break out from being preached to, and start preaching back, with wit.
 
sstiel said:
Hi all,

I enjoy crime dramas and watched the third and final series of the BBC’s Happy Valley. I am beginning to understand why it is so loved. I am catching up the first series on BBC iPlayer.

Is it normal for me to feel intense anger, sadness and fear over the course of watching something like that even though I know it’s fiction?
Click to expand...
Hello
I am 58, diagnosed 2021, only a few weeks ago I have begun to tell myself that Coronation Street and Emmerdale trauma isn’t real. Maybe I’ll still need to tell myself forever! Horror films and such like are a definite no no for me.
 
Well, fiction is simply enacted imagination, and so has a virtual reality to it. Even the news programs aren't completely factual (indeed, can be almost as fictitious as Teletubbies!)
You can get into my hole, where that triteness becomes uninteresting.
 
I don’t watch thrillers/Horror. It really stirs up fear and I don’t sleep well. I am very visual and have vivid dreams. I still remember « old Yeller » when the faithful dog had to be shot. I walked out of a Fistful of Dollars and several other violent films. I watch nothing rated 15 or 18. Language and sex don’t bother me but violence does. I’m currently happily watching Hindi films - the colours, costumes, singing and dancing in the romantic films suit me beautifully. I also happily watch children’s films with my grand children. i can be reduced to tears by almost anything emotionally charged.
I used to apologise because sometimes it was very embarrassing now I accept it’s how I am.
 
I've not watched TV in years, because they've stopped reporting objectively and rely on button-pushing. I guess I've had too many hands behind the scenes - my middle brother was Noel Edmond's sound engineer of choice. I SMed Queen the Saturday Rhapsody hit, and loaned the cash for the downpayment on The Last Emperor.
 
Definitely. Even though you know the characters and story aren't real, a well-written show can still make you genuinely angry, sad, or excited. I think the music, acting and the time you spend with the characters make it surprisingly easy to get emotionally invested. Sometimes a good episode can stay on your mind long after you’ve switched the TV off.

I’ve noticed the same thing when watching different shows through Viking IPTV UK the better the story, the easier it is to forget you’re watching something fictional.
 
sstiel said:
Hi all,

I enjoy crime dramas and watched the third and final series of the BBC’s Happy Valley. I am beginning to understand why it is so loved. I am catching up the first series on BBC iPlayer.

Is it normal for me to feel intense anger, sadness and fear over the course of watching something like that even though I know it’s fiction?
Click to expand...
you can new series by looking for iptv options from this website.
 
I’ve moved onto K dramas, the comedies, dramas and romances. I find their exploration of relationships, romantic, familial, friendships even workplace help me a lot to pick up on interpersonal cues I would miss in real life.
 
Hi,

I sometimes have to be careful of what I watch, and have a few times had to either switch the TV off or find something completely different to watch because I have found something that affects me greatly.
T.M.