Follow-up grown-up
Jul. 15th, 2004 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissa(I need a distraction this morning.)
I realized, when thinking about the books question, that my parents treated movies somewhat differently: I was only allowed to watch approved R-rated movies until I was something like 15. They approved several, but I needed to keep asking.
I'm not sure why that was. It may be that movies were social events: there's a big difference between having your 14-year-old daughter reading sexual content at home on her own and having her sit next to a boy in a movie theatre and watch sex or highly sexualized situations. I didn't watch movies by myself, and once I wasn't watching them with the folks, either, mostly I was watching them on dates.
It may be that walking out of a movie in the theatre is socially more difficult than setting down a book. (Personally...well, that's varied a lot. I don't recall walking out of any movies. But for awhile I compulsively finished books, too.)
It may be that they felt there was less flexibility with image than with word: that if I was 8 and read a battlefield scene, I might miss or misunderstand a gory metaphor or a medical term, but if I was 8 and watching a battlefield scene, the blown-off head would be blown off right before my eyes. This one is a double-edged sword: the Balrog of my own mind was a million times scarier than the one on the screen in the LotR movies.
It may be that books allow you to process things at your own pace and movies go at their own pace. If you need to set the book down and go cry awhile over Leslie's death, the book will let you. If you're watching a movie at home, you can pause it -- but I think that the activity/passivity is reversed. Pausing the movie is the active choice. Continuing to read the book is the active choice. (Maybe?) And in a theatre, of course, there is no stopping the movie. There have been scenes in books I could not have handled at someone else's pace. There are movies that have left me feeling battered for that reason.
And it may be that you are at least partially complicit in the world of a book. You can choose not to create in your mind the book world in which friends betray each other and lie to each other and hurt each other. You can set it down and deliberately say, no, that is not how things are, you are wrong. I think it takes a bit more to say that to a movie, to people acting on the screen as the director/writer/etc. will have them act.
The times I've had a violent "NO" reaction to movies have been much more violent, even though I love books more, a million times more. "Suicide Kings" made me swear that people are not like that, don't have to be like that, will not be like that at my house. And "What Dreams May Come" -- oh. I watched that not so long after a friend's suicide. And I found myself sobbing and rocking and repeating, "It's not like that, it's not like that, that's not what happened to Stephanie. It's not. It's not. I won't believe it. That movie is wrong." (There's a difference between fictional and wrong. This movie was both.)
(The woman who killed herself in "What Dreams May Come" -- and I do apologize for the spoiler -- is eventually redeemed. But everyone in the movie swears it has never happened before.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
greykev once suggested that the other characters only said that to spur her husband to greater action, and that the suicides were all saved. I see no internal evidence that this is the case, and it seems like a darn poor motivator to me, and in any case I think someone who feels awful enough to commit suicide does not need further suffering in the technicolor afterlife and should not be subjected to it, by herself or anyone else. And if she is, I certainly don't need to watch it.)
"What Dreams May Come" is PG-13. It didn't affect anyone who recommended it to me the way it affected me.timprov was on the same page as I was while watching it with me (he was the one going, "shhh, no, of course it's not, that movie is wrong"), but my point is that the rating and even recommendations are not always a good way to tell what will or won't disturb you.
When I was little, my daddy called me Sunshine. (Still does, sometimes.) And I would get really upset when he sang the song "You Are My Sunshine." Finally when I was 12 they asked about it and I could explain in retrospect: "Please don't take my Sunshine away." Someone was trying to take me away. And my big strong daddy could do no better than plead? This was serious bad stuff.
You never know what will hit people wrong, kid or adult. Some stuff I can codify: I don't like watching sexual or domestic violence and will avoid it if I can. I don't like nihilism ("Suicide Kings," yep yep). But other things are much quirkier, harder to predict or formulate.
Did your folks treat movies differently than books? If so, how?
Also, have you ever walked out of a movie? Which one, and why?
Are there movies (or books or paintings or any other art form) that affected you in a strong negative way that other people would not or could not have predicted? Anything that has strongly struck you as just plain wrong?
I realized, when thinking about the books question, that my parents treated movies somewhat differently: I was only allowed to watch approved R-rated movies until I was something like 15. They approved several, but I needed to keep asking.
I'm not sure why that was. It may be that movies were social events: there's a big difference between having your 14-year-old daughter reading sexual content at home on her own and having her sit next to a boy in a movie theatre and watch sex or highly sexualized situations. I didn't watch movies by myself, and once I wasn't watching them with the folks, either, mostly I was watching them on dates.
It may be that walking out of a movie in the theatre is socially more difficult than setting down a book. (Personally...well, that's varied a lot. I don't recall walking out of any movies. But for awhile I compulsively finished books, too.)
It may be that they felt there was less flexibility with image than with word: that if I was 8 and read a battlefield scene, I might miss or misunderstand a gory metaphor or a medical term, but if I was 8 and watching a battlefield scene, the blown-off head would be blown off right before my eyes. This one is a double-edged sword: the Balrog of my own mind was a million times scarier than the one on the screen in the LotR movies.
It may be that books allow you to process things at your own pace and movies go at their own pace. If you need to set the book down and go cry awhile over Leslie's death, the book will let you. If you're watching a movie at home, you can pause it -- but I think that the activity/passivity is reversed. Pausing the movie is the active choice. Continuing to read the book is the active choice. (Maybe?) And in a theatre, of course, there is no stopping the movie. There have been scenes in books I could not have handled at someone else's pace. There are movies that have left me feeling battered for that reason.
And it may be that you are at least partially complicit in the world of a book. You can choose not to create in your mind the book world in which friends betray each other and lie to each other and hurt each other. You can set it down and deliberately say, no, that is not how things are, you are wrong. I think it takes a bit more to say that to a movie, to people acting on the screen as the director/writer/etc. will have them act.
The times I've had a violent "NO" reaction to movies have been much more violent, even though I love books more, a million times more. "Suicide Kings" made me swear that people are not like that, don't have to be like that, will not be like that at my house. And "What Dreams May Come" -- oh. I watched that not so long after a friend's suicide. And I found myself sobbing and rocking and repeating, "It's not like that, it's not like that, that's not what happened to Stephanie. It's not. It's not. I won't believe it. That movie is wrong." (There's a difference between fictional and wrong. This movie was both.)
(The woman who killed herself in "What Dreams May Come" -- and I do apologize for the spoiler -- is eventually redeemed. But everyone in the movie swears it has never happened before.
greykev once suggested that the other characters only said that to spur her husband to greater action, and that the suicides were all saved. I see no internal evidence that this is the case, and it seems like a darn poor motivator to me, and in any case I think someone who feels awful enough to commit suicide does not need further suffering in the technicolor afterlife and should not be subjected to it, by herself or anyone else. And if she is, I certainly don't need to watch it.)"What Dreams May Come" is PG-13. It didn't affect anyone who recommended it to me the way it affected me.
timprov was on the same page as I was while watching it with me (he was the one going, "shhh, no, of course it's not, that movie is wrong"), but my point is that the rating and even recommendations are not always a good way to tell what will or won't disturb you.When I was little, my daddy called me Sunshine. (Still does, sometimes.) And I would get really upset when he sang the song "You Are My Sunshine." Finally when I was 12 they asked about it and I could explain in retrospect: "Please don't take my Sunshine away." Someone was trying to take me away. And my big strong daddy could do no better than plead? This was serious bad stuff.
You never know what will hit people wrong, kid or adult. Some stuff I can codify: I don't like watching sexual or domestic violence and will avoid it if I can. I don't like nihilism ("Suicide Kings," yep yep). But other things are much quirkier, harder to predict or formulate.
Did your folks treat movies differently than books? If so, how?
Also, have you ever walked out of a movie? Which one, and why?
Are there movies (or books or paintings or any other art form) that affected you in a strong negative way that other people would not or could not have predicted? Anything that has strongly struck you as just plain wrong?
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 11:03 am (UTC)I have only ever walked out of one movie: Titanic. Because it was the most boring movie ever, and since we were at the dollar show, we didn't feel compelled to stay.
I can't think of anything that really struck me wrong--I can think of a number of songs/albums that make me inexpressably sad because of the circumstances of my life when I first heard them, but they're mostly sad songs/albums (the one exception to this is R.E.M.'s _Out of Time_, which, to me, is the most depressing album ever and I only ever listen to it when I'm really, really sad).
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 07:29 pm (UTC)But a friend of a friend of mine was apparently surprised when the ship went under.
Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 11:23 am (UTC)I mostly refuse to walk in to movies rather than risk having to walk out. The only one I recall walking out on was Peter Brooks's King Lear. But that wasn't frightening so much as aesthetically offensive. I hated the way they kept changing the camera angle at every caesura in one of Lear's big speeches. I thought they should leave it the hell alone and let the actor do the work. He was plenty well up to it. No, wait, my boyfriend and I had to leave a college showing of Olivier's Othello because we were laughing so hard. But I mostly don't see movies if I think I'll have a problem with them; really, I mostly don't see them at all.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 01:57 pm (UTC)I think I read that in a book one time. And then it occurred to me, it might have been a book you've written. But I can't actually remember, and now I'm having some sort of weird meta-moment.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 08:54 pm (UTC)Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 08:55 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 11:32 am (UTC)Books were regulated, too, but since "out of sight, out of mind" was kind-of my parents thing, I just didn't show them what I was reading. I learned that after getting reamed for reading something "offensive" when I was like 9 or something.
Note to parents or potential parents: Getting punished for negligible infractions didn't teach us the error of our ways, it just taught us the things not to get caught doing.
I don't think I've ever walked out of a movie. Bad movies, when I was younger and going with a gang of friends, was just fodder for ridicule. It was good conversation for the going-out-after foodfest at the local mall or IHOP or McD's.
I don't think there have been any art forms that have unexpectedly affected me. I have found some to be ridiculous, or silly, or trite, or over-blown, or gratuitous, or just plain cheeeeesy, but nothing I considered to be "wrong". But art (books, music, movies, etc.) is one of those very individual things.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 11:33 am (UTC)If I'm watching a video by myself I have a much smaller tolerance for annoying content, and will pause/stop the movie often. The only flick I've been tempted to walk out on was Kill Bill Vol 1, but I was with friends and sat through it all. (wretched horrible very-bad movie)
Re-watched What Dreams May Come recently. I still think they were lying to him. He has as authorities: his son (who spends his time helping people let go of life and adjust to the afterlife), his daughter, and a mentor/father figure. I cannot consider them reliable narrators since each misrepresents him/herself in appearence and action, even going so far as to answer to false names. At that point I feel free to decide what's really going on. Which doesn't include suicides doomed to hell. Hell is a silly concept, IMO.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 11:49 am (UTC)Now that I think about it, it's a marvel that I'm able to pass for normal until I open my mouth. ;-)
I did see movies during summer camp (Gallipoli, 1776, a good deal of Woody Allen...) but I also remember choosing to sit out many of the films at school in favor of hiding in the library. Definitely major control issues; I'm terrible at watching real-life conflict and stupidity, never mind manufactured ones, and it doesn't take much for me to feel trapped. On the other hand, I lived next door to the campus film society my first two years of college and went often (admittedly for the artier stuff, though my first date was to Dragnet. Oy...), so I didn't stick completely to my cave.
Walking out of movies: at camp, a bunch of us walked out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (which is now one of my favorites, but at the time, the room was crowded-stinky and I Just Didn't Get It) and Rocky Horror Picture Show (because being pelted with wet rice and other damp foodstuffs just didn't seem as fun as the hype had made it out to be). And there was a James Bond movie (I forget which) where I told my date I was leaving about five minutes in after they started beating a woman for no damn good reason, as far as I could tell (but I enjoyed the novels, so go figure).
It's been argued that I'm seriously humor-impaired, and perhaps that's so, but as I see it, there are worse flaws. I'm not telling other people they shouldn't make/see/enjoy movies, sitcoms, etc.; I just don't want them to insist that I participate. I suppose there's a certain arrogance in that (i.e. being the one who would rather not be in the room if the movie/show doesn't happen to be something absolutely irresistible), but I only have so much energy/time to spare and it isn't nearly enough for all of the walks and books and recipes and other things I do find deeply satisfying.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 02:01 pm (UTC)I've had strong negative reactions of disgust to things before; innumerable ones. I won't even bother my brain to come up with things. Because the reaction to I Who Have Never Known Men was so much worse, so much more effecting. I felt the author, the book, the editor, the publisher, the entire country of France, had literally tried to do me in.
Alas, I don't know anyone else who has read it, so I don't know if anyone else could have predicted it.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 03:35 pm (UTC)(kicks brain) (and that's hard to do)
But I do mean "literally tried to do me in." Because I *felt* that.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 02:17 pm (UTC)On my way out the door for anniversary celebrations... sorry no time to delve deeper! :)
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 09:31 pm (UTC)My parents never really looked at ratings or anything when we saw a movie, but then, me and my sister were usually only interested in cartoons until around middle school (well, me). We did watch lots of movies at home on HBO Asia, which edited out most of the bad words, so I am quite well versed in bad action movies (my dad's favorite genre -- action movies, not necessarily bad ones ^_~). It probably also helped that I was an easily scared kid and was never really tempted to watch anything with blood and gore and lots of violence.
I've never actively walked out on a movie, but I've definitely slept through quite a few. If I'm watching at home, I'm much more like to drift off and do other things if it's too stupid or offensive or plain boring. One of the biggest differences between movies and books for me is that I can really easily fall asleep during a movie, but I almost never fall asleep when I'm reading.
I used to be scared of some pretty strange things as a kid -- there was one of those Values books on Pasteur, and I was always scared of the cartoon pictures of the rabies viruses. I was also scared by one of those kid astronomy books because I was terrified the sun would go nova and turn into a black hole and swallow up the earth (never mind that the red star bit would get the earth first). I was also terrified of Willow the movie and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a kid (my sister still refuses to watch them).
no subject
Date: 2004-07-16 06:55 am (UTC)movies, videos, CDs
I only ever walked out of one movie theater, at my companion's insistence; I think "Diary of a Mad Housewife" was the film.
More recently, a friend and I rented "From Dusk Till Dawn" and fast-forwarded through most of it; for me, its only redeeming feature is that the diner scene was shot in my town.
My father tells me he was terrified for years after seeing "The Invisible Man" as a small child, and I can believe it. It is a good movie for adults, though, and it's interesting to ponder how they did the excellent effects way back then.
As a little girl, I was terrified by what was purportedly a child's movie, an account of, I think, "The Prince and the Pauper" in which an unsuspecting little boy is stabbed in the back, or nearly so, by a grown man.
And even as a teenager I was scared of the section of the Time-Life book on medicine that shows rats being burned in a photoillustration re-creation of the Black Death years. My brothers would show it to me just to push my buttons.
I think the saddest musical recording I know of -- but one of my favorites -- is "Farewell Angelina" by John Denver. All the songs are about death, depression, alcoholism, love gone wrong or suchlike except for the final, 11th one. I don't have the same reaction to "Out of Time" by REM.
Re: movies, videos, CDs
Date: 2004-07-16 04:19 pm (UTC)I found "Psycho" to be ruined for me by cultural overexposure. By the time I got around to watching it, I already knew the tropes, so none of it was shocking or surprising. I had much better success with "Vertigo" and "Rear Window" -- the latter is one of my favorites, because it's visually interesting, which is something I often find films are not.
Re: movies, videos, CDs