Greek

I'll admit, ABC Family's Greek is totally my guilty pleasure. I watch it every Monday night, and if I miss it then I'm sure to watch it on Hulu as soon as I possibly can. I sit there hoping that Casey and Cappie end up together, that Rusty breaks up with Dana soon, and that Calvin and Heath get back together soon. Mostly though, I sit there wishing that I were one of the characters on the show.

Greek has all the typical characters that you would expect to find on a sitcom about college, but they mess around with the stereotypes, which is awesome. There is the blonde sorority girl named Casey, but she’s not just going to marry some rich man and not have her own career or anything, she’s going to go to law school. There is the popular, good-looking, president of the number one fraternity on campus named Evan. However, he gave up his trust fund because he didn’t like the rules that his parents were laying down for him. Now he has to actually work for a living. There’s also Rusty, the polymer science engineer “nerd”, who also joined the number one party fraternity on campus. Then there’s Calvin, who is gay, but is also in the number one fraternity, and an incredible athlete.

These are some of the main characters on the show, and each one of them doesn’t fit into the stereotypes that are seen in almost every other show that is aimed at teens or early-20s adults. The sorority girl isn’t just some dumb bimbo, the frat guy isn’t a total party animal, the nerd isn’t just into science, and the gay guy isn’t just into going to Gentleman’s Choice, the gay bar near campus.

This is what I love about the show. The kinds of characters shown on the show could exist in real life, outside of Cyprus Rhodes University. These kinds of characters can be found on any college campus. Although there are definitely some stereotypes that are found within the show, Greek at least tries to break away from that a little bit. This is an example of how the media is reflecting society instead of our society just copying what we see on the media. It’s also an example of how we’re breaking down stereotypes more and more, and how that is actually becoming acceptable. That, at least somewhat, is progress.