Wild Sound

when one spends too much time at the movies one develops a warped view of the world…a warped movie-morality. movies are made by people but they are so grand and bombastic that they project an air of importance, permanence, significance that makes them seem super-human, makes us give their messages too much importance. they are tricky and they are the most powerful brainwashing tool known to man–governments use them as prime propaganda, the quickest and best way to influence the masses. but my point is not about the government, it’s just about movies and their impractical morality that everyone buys into.

for example. in the movies it is common knowledge that ugly people are actually the most beautiful people in the world–on the inside. physical beauty, as the moral goes, means nothing, and each ugly person is a gem on the inside waiting to be noticed.

in reality, however, ugly people are so knocked around and rejected in life that they more often are horrible people on the inside too. not all, of course, but my point is that all that pain and rejection affects you. you do not wade through a lifetime of it without it affecting you, you develop bitterness and resentment and personality disorders so that ultimately your insides end up matching your outsides. whatever gem is inside gets harder and harder to reach. i once dated a man who was quite unattractive, but wickedly funny. i was nuts about him. but he was an ASSHOLE, and had major resentments toward women (and everyone else) because of the way he’d been treated in his life. it didn’t matter how nice i was to him, it didn’t matter that i didn’t care what he looked like, it didn’t matter that i was nuts about him. his long-held bitterness came out despite all that; he was just waiting for reasons to spit it out. he was SHREK, but in the real-life story shrek grabs the princess by the hair and shoves her face in the mud and walks away laughing, back to his hut to be alone and angry forever.

i am writing a screenplay on this topic, the anti-shrek.

then there is the movie-mentality that is permissive of freakish behavior…romantic hi-jinks that in reality could get you arrested. things like sending lots of flowers or gifts or very elaborate games/setups for dates/meetings…in reality people can’t handle that stuff and you will be labeled a stalker. believe me, i know first-hand. i recall an onion article on this topic too, headline something like “man arrested for wacky sitcom behavior.” amen, brotha–i once succumbed to this movie-morality line of thinking and was slapped in the face with the reality of how uncool, in reality, it is to act on that kind of impulse. people can’t handle it. should they? i don’t know. i was once the recipient of it too, and i gotta say it made me very uncomfortable.

Filed by cynthia rockwell at 10:22 am under
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