If you have yet to see "Shameless" start watching it immediately. Six seasons of the show are on Netflix for your binge-watching pleasure. "Shameless" is about a family from the Southside of Chicago and their ups and downs with life. It focuses on Fiona, a 20-something and the eldest sibling of six as she navigates her own life of dating and mishaps while trying to raise her siblings in place of her absent alcoholic and bipolar parents. The show is a good mix of drama with comedy and reality. Here's why you should start watching "Shameless" on Netflix immediately.
It is real.
Most shows just feel so staged, and while the characters may go through "life" experiences, they never really seem like something that would ACTUALLY happen to you. While they're fun to watch, they're usually not relatable. Well, Shameless is. Given there are some parts that are overly dramatic because at the end of the day it is a TV show, but it is more real than most shows I've seen. The characters aren't overloaded with makeup, designer clothes, or hairdos for the episodes beceause they are actually supposed to look like real people. They wear everyday boring clothes that they even refer to buying at Goodwill so it is so much more down to earth. Fiona doesn't wear makeup or have styled hair in each episode. Similarly, they aren't eating ridiculous meals that we would never eat in everyday life. Since the show is supposed to be about their struggles with money and living expenses, they eat really normal foods instead of dining out all the time like characters in other shows do, or randomly having the money for daily bagels and coffee. The characters don't even own a car, and instead walk or take the train everywhere.
It doesn't cover up controversial things.
Say what you will, but I actually respect a TV show that doesn't try to cover up controversial topics and images. Obviously this has to do with the channel and the audience that the show aired for, but it is awesome that the director doesn't care about these things as much. There is never any full-on nudity, but they aren't afraid to show topless women and backsides of people because it is breaking the taboo that these things are bad to see. The show is also very open about sex. The characters all have sex multiple times every episode, so I guess if this is something that makes you uncomfortable you shouldn't watch the show, but I think it just makes things more real and honest. Many of the characters have also have bad relationships with drugs, and I just think that a lot of the topics that the show explores are actually real life problems, like alcoholism. There is also significant swearing throughout the show, but I hardly notice it because I feel like including these kinds of things actually just makes the show appear to be more like watching a scene play out in real life rather than something on TV.
A lot of the struggles the characters go through are commonplace.
Instead of focusing on relationship issues as the main problems that character s face like so many other shows, they actually go through a lot of real life problems, like alcoholism, teen pregnancy, trying to go to college, coming out as gay or mental illness. Of course there are relationship problems for them, they aren't just about whether someone texted them back or wanted to go on a date. The problems and lives of the characters just have more depth and reality to them.
So next time you are looking for a break from your everyday life without seeing a ridiculous display of drama on TV, look to "Shameless" as your next show! I promise you won't regret it.
