We talked about movies and their effect on our view of genders in class on Monday, and I wanted to continue that conversation. Sal was talking about all the gender implications in movies, and people like Xena and Lara Croft. Then he said that Juno just had normal people, and that's one of the reasons he liked it so much.
My theory about movies is that we're living out our fantasies, or even just another life through them. For 2 hours, we want to feel like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, or Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator. Or we want to feel like Xena, or Lara Croft. We want to feel extraordinary. We want to ooze sex appeal and danger. We want to be that witty, smart, confident and beautiful person on screen. We live our fantasies through them. Even in Juno, I'm willing to bet a lot of people saw it and thought "I wonder what I would do." You're escaping from your life by being in theirs. You wouldn't go see something that's normal for you. You wouldn't go watch a movie about a 17 year old who goes to school for 2/3rds of a year, and only occasionally encounters moments of hilariousness. You go watch a movie about a guy who compulsively draws penises, and a guy who changes his name to McLovin. Because it's not your life.
Who wants to watch their life magnified on a 20 foot by 20 foot screen, as they do nothing out of the usual? Nobody wants to see themselves, or anyone who looks like them, crack a joke that they got from the internet the previous night. You want to go see a movie with someone who is prettier than you, wittier than you, and better than you. Between me and you, we both know that they're human too. But not in the movies. In the movies they're like Greco-Roman Gods. So, for those 2 hours, you're that character on the screen, living out your fantasy. This works for books too. I know that in the 1000+ books I've read, that I've done it to escape from my life.
It's not the responsibility of the companies to make it more 'realistic' because 90% of the time we don't want realistic. And even if they do make it realistic, like Dove, you think they aren't thinking of the market appeal of being one of the first to have the "Regular Beautiful." ad campaign? Maybe they have good intentions, but if they didn't expect returns from this investment, with people who feel like Sal who buy their products because of this nice, homey campaign that they can relate to, do you think they'd be using it? (No offense Sal, =P)
It's the responsibility of the people to decide what they want. For myself, I'm going to continue reading the Sci-Fi books where I can for a moment, live in the future. I'm going to keep watching those hilariously unrealistic movies and even less realistic action flicks. Because even though I feel comfortable with myself, very comfortable even, I still have fantasies. And I don't think this is bad. It's all about knowing that after those 2 hours that my life isn't worth any less then theirs. Especially since theirs isn't real.
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3 comments:
Interesting post. First, to examine this with a sociological imagination, you have to ask why we want to live out those fantasies in the movies? Where did that desire come from? And why is the way women are portrayed in the movie defined as sexual? Couldn't sexuality be created another way?
Don't over state the argument. I don't think all movies are part of the issue here, Super Bad and other comedies are different than the action flicks.
However, it is interesting that we are doing community service for class and yet you are saying that we feel extraordinary by watching these movies and not helping to make someone's life better through community service. You can change someone's life forever by volunteering - how extraordinary is that?
I am not offended, because I know that you are reflecting the ideas of many Americans. What I wonder is, if we don't want reality, what do we want? What kind of life do we want to create? I can see Iraqis or Rwandans wanting to create an alterior reality because of their reality, but what are Americans looking for and why?
I think alot of people want to escape from reality, either because it's too hard, or it's too boring. It's impossible to win in that situation, unless you take a step, because the sitatuion will always be wrong.
And often I think when people try and help people they don't feel like they really made a difference. You give a couple of dollars to a homeless man, and maybe it helps him get a meal. But really, you feel bad because you're thinking "He went and got some booze." It applies to many such things. I just think people aren't confident in that what they're doing is making a difference.
Not to mention it's hard to help people. It can be exhausting. And when you help people, sometimes they want more than you can give and you feel bad for saying no, so you never even enter the situation. So people take a trade-off of easy, lose your reality for 7.50 at your local theater, or change your reality now and risk being hurt or hurting someone.
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