Impertinent Perception #4: Your Favourite IS Good Enough

When I was younger, I always found myself on the outskirts of regular social gatherings. So many of my friends seemed to be in on something that I simply wasn't. It was almost as if I were speaking another language and no matter my attempts, I couldn't decipher the code. I've realised since that everyone feels that way at some point, and at varying degrees of intensity, but they still feel it. The hope is that you eventually get comfortable enough in your own skin that you don't really need to decipher the code. Pretty soon after that, you relax and speaking the language gets a little easier. That's the idea anyway.

For a person who writes a blog about movies, it was actually film and other entertainment that was the hardest to relate to. So many people my age were into things that I completely did not get. Try having a conversation about 'The Godfather' with someone who just got back from seeing 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' 3 times. When I was listening to Bob Dylan, they were rocking Lil Wayne. Even contemporary things I couldn't find others who I could relate to. While I was getting 'Lost' others were 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians'. Of course, that's not to say any of those things, were inferior to my choices. 

That's what's really at the heart of this article. Last week Sunday the Oscars were on, and while I watch every year for the ceremony, the host and the antics of hilariously unprepared award presenters, I don't hold 'Academy Awards' to a particularly high regard. The name alone inspires absolute credulity. Why would you care about what an "academy" says about a movie? That's like having someone dictate what's worth your attention and favour. Yes, I write movie reviews which give my take on a movie, but it's entirely my take, never to be taken as a dictation. My favourite thing in the world is to hear someone else's opinion on something. It's incredibly more valuable to me since it's something I don't already have. 

So many people were outraged at the nominations alone when they were announced in January, and of those nominations, so many were outraged at the eventual winners. That outrage comes from the innate response that people have when they feel that their view is discounted. I call this blog Impertinent Perceptions because I know that in the larger scheme of things, my view isn't important to many people, but it is mine, and I'm proud of it. Your opinions don't have to matter to other people, and you shouldn't think it has less value because it fails to receive external recognition.

There's an exclusivist mentality when it comes to entertainment, largely because, everyone wants to be in on something. I did, but at a certain point, I realised that it was okay to like the things that I liked. In this age of mass communication it's easier to find people that liked them as well.  I noticed that there was even something special about liking this thing that no one knew about. Not from a sense of hipster superiority, but because I had something I could share with others. Sure they might look at me weird if I started talking about the new strange thing they'd never heard of, but at the end of the day, I wasn't bothered if they didn't get it. So I stopped being bothered when I didn't get their stuff. 

What I'm saying is, there's no grand council that decrees group A of movies as good and group B of movies as bad. Everything subjective will always be more valuable than a false objective. If you like that thing you like, then go ahead and like it. Chances are they're making a movie about it one day. Then when other people start liking it, try not to be a tool and act like you're better than them for knowing about it first. That just perpetuates the behaviour and only creates a situation for insecurity and inferiority. The best way to go about it is to be secure in the things you like, while still being open to new things around the corner, and allowing others the chance to do the same to you. In my judgement anyway.

Thanks for reading and if you liked this article, or hated it, you can leave me a comment. I also did a podcast this week where we discussed those pesky academy awards and showed how very wrong our choices were, and you can listen to that here: