I’ve always been a weirdo when it comes to pop culture. Most of it leaves me cold and it’s not just because I’m a contrarian. The more someone tells me I’ll like something, the less likely I am to like it. It’s not as if I’m telling myself, “I’m not going to like this to spite you”, but I have very specific tastes that are hard to cater to. Add to that, I don’t like movies and TV in general because my imagination can produce scenes vastly superior to anything concrete and that my brain doesn’t work the way most people’s do and the visual mediums of movies and TV shows leave me cold.
I was dating someone whose favorite movie was Pulp Fiction. This was years after the movie had been released and it was showing at a theater nearby. He was eager for me to see it and I knew nothing other than it was a Quentin Tarantino movie with a lot of violence. I didn’t love violence in my movies, but I could deal with it. I was eager to see what made my boyfriend tick so I agreed to see the movie.
Big mistake.
Now, remember, I went into this movie ready to be amazed and awed. I wanted to like it because it was important to my boyfriend. I was primed to like the movie is what I’m trying to say. It wasn’t like other examples I’m going to mention in a bit because I knew I wasn’t going to like that movie and went, anyway.
With Pulp Fiction, I wanted to like the movie, but I didn’t. I instantly hated it and its faux hipster/edgy vibe. I found it repellant, repugnant, and with no positive value. I gritted my teeth and sat through it, grimly determined to see the end of it. Afterwards, my boyfriend eagerly asked what I thought of it–and foolishly, I told him the unvarnished truth–which took me twenty minutes. Afterwards, he looked at me and said, “I can’t be with someone with that world view” and broke up with me on the spot.
We tried to remain friends and he wanted me to see Titanic. I knew I would hate it, but I ungraciously gave in, admittedly because I wanted to get him back. Did id hate it? I did, indeed. By the second hour of people running around the ship, screaming their heads off, I wanted to stand up and shout, “Just fucking die already!” Later, he wanted to take me to see Dangerous Beauty, a movie about a French courtesan who is in love with a French nobleman who loves her, too, but cannot marry her. I think it’s set during a war? Supposedly based on a true story and cast as a love story.
Afterwards, my ex was raving about how it was the most romantic movie he’d ever seen (which, by the way, apparently, IMBD reviewers agree with) and how good the couple were together (he visited her to have sex with her, natch), and I said incredulously, “Of course they’re good together! She’s been trained to cater to his needs and he doesn’t have to do a damn thing!” He was not happy with me after my outburst, I’ll tell you that much for free.
You know, the moral of this story is that I probably should have stopped going to movies with this man, but my takeaway from it was that I should not share my thoughts about movies because it was threatening. And while that’s obviously not true, it’s not that false, either. Not even partners, but just people in general, When I used to be more active on Twitter, I’d get into trouble for saying things such as I’d choose neither the Rolling Stones or the Beatles when presented with the choice (dunno why this is a thing, but it is online). I got shit from both Stones fans and Beatles fans. Let’s not even talk about how overrated I think the Beatles are.
I really don’t understand why people get so mad when you don’t like the same thing they do. I mean, yes, a bit disappointed, but why mad? And I actually do know why–they identify with the piece of art–but it’s very uncomfortable for me. I’ve learned to dance around the topic if the other person is getting overheated, but it’s exhausting. I don’t give a shit if someone else likes what I do if they’re not dicks about it. I will say an ex watched one of my favorite movies with me and complained about it all the way through (and fell asleep!) and I did not like that one bit. But I don’t do that. I rarely talk about a movie during the movie, anyway. And these days, I probably wouldn’t give my unvarnished opinion to someone about something they love if I hate it, but I understand why people don’t like the things I do. I can’t wrap my head a0ound being such a stan for something, you cannot brook any negatives about something they love.
This holds true for video games as well. I don’t like most of the popular games. Some like the Collar Duties (Call of Duty games) it’s just because they are not my kind of game. Others like Skyrim should be my kind of game and was for fifty hours, but then ultimately, I hated it when I finished it twenty-five hours later. That was completely my fault, though, because I scarfed it down as I do with those kind s of games, and I tried to do absolutely everything in the game I possibly could. That included joining all the, ah, covenants? I don’t think they’re covenants, but I can’t be arsed to look it up. The equivalent of covenants in that game. It was not a good way to play the game so I’ll take the L on that one.
One of my biggest examples of this is Last of Us. I have not played the game, but I watched a playthrcough of it. i didn’t play it because zombies aren’t my thin–nor are laconic and moody white dudes unless they’re named Geralt. When it reached the end (*SPOILERS*) and Joel had to make the choice between saving Ellie, his adopted daughter, and saving the world–I mentally pleaded with the game not to make the choice I knew it was going to make. Joel had lost his daughter in the beginning of the game and I knew what this moment was leading to. I so wanted him to do to the right thing, the hard thing, but no. The game took the conventional track (albeit the one that more intimately tugs at the heartstrings) and had him kill everyone in the hospital to save Ellie. I knew why they chose to go down that road, but I disagreed with the choice. And, yes, I know the argument that it was done that way deliberately so people would be upset with the choice, but I don’t buy it. It was the safe choice, the conventional choice, and the one that would be the most popular with the players.
Let’s talk about the Life is Strange series–which also should be my jam. They are story-driven games about disaffected youth–and I hated the first game. I played the first chapter and found it contrived, precious, and not believable at all. In addition, I was tense playing it because you can rewind and replay the sections to get different results. I didn’t enjoy the first chapter of the first game at all (Warren is the worst) and quit right after. What I’ve seen of the other games haven’t changed my mind–which saddens me because the latest game features a bisexual Asian empath woman.
In general, it’s difficult for any medium other than writing to create complex and nuanced situations–at least for me. It’s the reason that I will always prefer novels to movies and TV–and I don’t play most games for the story.