Some thoughts provoked by allmovie.com:
1. Braveheart
Although described as 'stirring', 'rousing', 'inspirational', this is one of the few films about which I'm most reluctant to hear argument. It gives me a small, tight knot of fear in the pit of my stomach, a sickened feeling of sadness and the loss of humanity.
It speaks of, and has been used to define, 'the societal obligations of the modern citizen-soldier' - and what would they be? What? How do these atrocities get justified? I'm incapable of believing that one man glorying in the blood of another could ever, ever be considered 'societal obligation'.
That must be the core of my disgust at this movie: that not only do people slaughter each other, they find joy in it. It fulfils them. The act of murder becomes an act for God and country, never mind that both God and country are born of human relationships which, for the sake of everything, require humans!
Okay, so that was my single thought; after going down that path I don't feel up to exploring another. Have a good day...
Oh, what the hell.
2. Snow White
This film is... well, it's magical. It's the home and salvation of innocent pleasure, sweet and pure. We don't care, watching this, that it reinforces gender stereotypes. How could we? This is Disney! It's the kind of film which allows you to finish watching it with a huge smile on your face, one which seems all the better for having been left until you're (well, I'm) 17 years old and just done with your senior formal. (That was great, by the way. :D)
Time to disappear and do some reading for English, Oracles and Miracles. Have a good night. ^^
Purge
Just so you're warned, this is going to be a battering out of personal issues and hence may be very boring / confusing / ill-thought-out / self-indulgent. Most definitely the last one. :-)
Right, so... How? How can people do that much twisting of your inner spirit just by looking at you, or not looking at you; by laughing or taking a deep breath, frowning, saying something obviously stupid or obviously elitist (his word), all the while knowing that you'll (I'll) read into it way more than he could ever have meant? It's as Sayuri explains, in Memoirs of a Geisha: she pulls out her practised smile, spreads it upon her face and leaves anyone who's looking to decide their own interpretation. (I'm tempted to use another literary reference, but that might just mean that I'm feeling threatened (which I am) and feel the need to make myself feel smart (which I do) - and those feelings have just created the last sentence. This is a very confusing topic.)
So this frighteningly observant, clever, opinionated and flawed human being has just managed to set off a cascade of self-doubting thoughts within my brain, which as usual are answered by those of justification: nobody's-perfect, pull-yourself-together, think-about-something-else, stop-being-selfish, prove-your-worth. You know the ones. Only this time the justifying arguments are leaving behind (being allowed to leave) a tiny dark smear, precisely because I know they're justification. The idea of convincing yourself to do something, of overcoming instinctive reluctance, seems unnatural to me - and no matter how illogical that view, it's still there.
"She knows who she is." The words make me laugh now, after this half-effective unleashing. The ideas they set in motion are too many, too complicated and too contradictory to ever be truly understood; and so, they're amusing. Humans in general, me in particular - we're just so amusing. And that's not in a bad way, far from it. We're magical. Colour, music, magic, light: that is humanity. Every little turn of our minds, the sheer oddity of conscious thought... it's a miracle.
(Note the withdrawal from analysis to a more comforting appreciation. *snuggles deeper into pillowy softness*) Ah, that boy. Or is he a man? Can he be counted as a man if his impact on others is so vast? No, I don't think that makes a difference. Dad, you could flesh out this argument. *pokes*
There's a distinct element of competition in the way I relate to him. When I've been truthful, I've said it: I've said out loud, to others, that there was no way he was getting my Excellence in English. It was mine. He could have History (and deservedly), but English is... something special to me. It's taught by one of the finest teachers I've known, someone I can admire for both his heart and his mind. He's human in all the best ways. They feel this, my teacher and that nameless, indescribable ripple in the world; they know the fact just as well as I do. I can do it.
Somehow, this is helping. Mixed in with all the uncertainty is a shy fragment of hope. Cartharsis?
He always asked the questions. Damn that boy and his common sense.
Woman
I have a new love affair - with Wolfmother! They. Are. Awesome. ^ - ^
I've been studying for practice exams, not as hard as I should be but more than is absolutely necessary. I think it's a nice balance. *dancing away to pounding Aussie rock music* Damn, Wolfmother are good. A "sprawling beast" is how they describe themselves, and it seems pretty apt.
To continue, and enscribe some thoughts which have been bouncing around inside my head (surely these things pester everyone) on the nature of reality. Kind of a big topic, I know. In fact, that's what I've been wondering about: when does it become too big? When can't you handle it any more? And why on earth do we feel that that point could ever come? Why is it that wise men and women have said for centuries that we must think of others' happiness before we can truly enjoy our own, and yet we find it so hard to do just that?
In one of the short stories we studied this year Owen Marshall says 'there is no dichotomy of flesh and spirit when you are young'. It almost seems to me that as we grow there evolves a seperate split, not between body and mind but between 'you' as you think of yourself and 'you' as you really are; between the person you want to be, and the person your actions cast you as.
Why is it that when we feel we are good, we somehow lose our innocence? Why is ignorant beauty more pure than the beauty of the aware?
Why does having someone to beat lead you to justify more actions than you would otherwise? Does competition inspire negative degradation or positive delusion; or, perhaps, positive truth? (I would add in 'negative truth' for matters of symmetry, but the existence of that is so obvious it probably doesn't even need acknowledgement.) :P
I don't have answers for those, not yet, and there is a part of me that never wants to. I like the idea of open-ended questions. They're food for thought.
Hope you're having a good time out there, wherever you are.
Updates for Daddums: stuff from a Media Studies course that has somehow been transformed into four hours a week of graphic design.
Pages 1-4, Rockquest feature...
