As the holiday season approaches, many SCHS students and staff find themselves reaching for familiar, feel-good movies and shows. For most, comforting content brings nostalgia and excitement, leading to the appeal of rewatching.
Math teacher Susana Hernandez mentioned her bond with the series “Friends.” She explained that growing up watching the show has led to her changing perspective about the characters and the plots.
“My mom used to watch it (“Friends”) when I was a kid. Obviously, as a kid, only the really silly parts stood out to me,” Hernandez said. “But now as an adult, I understand their friendship dynamic better. It’s been a show that I’ve watched – I want to say – for the last 20 years.”
While some students and staff enjoy the comfort of rewatching familiar shows, freshman Javan Tran finds the thrill of discovering something new more rewarding than rewatching content. He also urges others to embrace the excitement of exploring new genres.
“I personally like exploring new things and love trying out different genres and movies. The whole feeling of watching a new show is just more exciting because you never expect or know what is coming next,” Tran said. “If people are too afraid to step out of their comfort zone, just try it out, and if you don’t like it, you can just stick to the shows you are comfortable with.”
While Tran encouraged people to push themselves beyond familiar boundaries, junior Amanda Casem believes that sticking to familiar shows allows people to build a stronger bond with the content and the characters.
“You’re a little more sad that it is over. I mean, you want that comfort back,” Casem said. “For a new show, I think you don’t resonate with it as much. It’s something new to you, whereas, with a comfort show, you’ve kind of built a connection with it.”
With the festive months approaching, students and staff are indulging in their go-to cozy, winter media. Special education teacher Victor Hakopian reminisced on watching Christmas movies with his family during his childhood.
“When I was a little kid, it was really exciting. When you’re five, six, seven and eight years old, Christmas is more exciting. Therefore, the cartoons were really exciting,” Hakopian said. “I still remember my brothers and I would get really excited about watching Christmas cartoons when they came on.”
Hakopian elaborated on how he is passing on the tradition of Christmas classics, making them as meaningful for his children as the movies were to him.
“When my three kids were younger, we would watch various classic cartoons that I still have in my possession from a long time ago,” Hakopian said. “I just don’t think they have the same kind of value as they did when you were a child, so it’s important to watch during your childhood.”
Similar to Hakopian’s connection to holiday movies, Casem finds a special relationship with “Home Alone,” rewatching the movie during November and December.
“I remember, when I was first introduced to ‘Home Alone.’ Me and my brother were just all over it,” Casem said. “I think it was the funniest Christmas movie we watched, and we love the music. We love the characters. We made it a tradition to watch it every year around Christmas.”
Hernandez also sees the Harry Potter movie series as a resemblance of Christmas time and the season of giving. An important scene for Hernandez in “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone” is when Potter is given a memorable gift.
“It reminds me just how special it was for Harry to receive his first Christmas present,” Hernandez said. “When I was a kid, we didn’t get a lot of Christmas presents, and just the fact that there was a magical world where all of Harry’s problems were being slowly solved just meant a lot to me.”
By rewatching the movies multiple times, Hernandez formed a connection with Potter and the characters in the series.
“I resonated with it by having a childhood that I didn’t have a lot of control over,” Hernandez said. “Then how slowly things work out, and people come into your life that you didn’t expect, and they just make it better.”
When it comes to watching shows and movies, Hernandez finds the relationship between comfort shows and personal identity meaningful.
“I think it’s nice that most people have a show that they find comforting to re-watch because most people that I know, if I ask them this question, they all have a show, and it kind of is a little reflection of who they are as a person,” Hernandez said.