Apparently, a popular question to ask in interviews is what’s the candidate’s favorite book/movie/musical group/tv show/some other bit of popular culture. I learned this at Ask A Manager. The people who said they asked the question in interviews claimed not to care about the actual question, but that the candidates were able to talk about something non-work-related in a casual way. Someone pointed out if they were going to be working with someone for forty hours a week, they wanted it to be someone they talked to.
Someone else retorted, “Oh, so someone who is just like you, then?” Which was snide, but true. Even though they all claimed that they didn’t care what the answer was and that the person just had some answer, I call foul on that (as many other people did).
First of all, everything I like is niche. I don’t read popular books for the most part. I mostly read people who are in minority categories (usually several at a time), and I can’t think of any that have been bestsellers. In fact, one of my favorite books is about a Burmese brother and sister duo who had to flee their homeland to the United States beacuse of political unrest. The narrator is unreliable for many reasons, and she ends up in a mental institution. It’s a very harsh and raw book, and I bet very few people have read it.
Some people tried to argue that you can just talk about any book you like–not your absolute favorite. That doesn’t erase the fact that you’re still making people consider unconscious bias and that what does that really have to do with work? It’s considered a low-stakes question, but only if you assume that people will respond in a certain way.
If you’re trying to get a feel for how someone can converse in a casual way, why not ask about the weather instead? That’s truly the most banal of banal qquestions, but it’s easy to talk about that one. Unless you’re asking about what kind of weather the candidate prefers.
I was thinking about this and it led me to remember my favorites in various pop mediums. Oh, and also, if someone asked what my favorite TV show was or movie, or which I’ve been watching/have watched, I would have to say none. All my favorites are from decades ago when I still tried to watch movies and TV. I just can’t be bothered because I don’t like the mediums. I always felt funny about it, but I’ve embraced it now.
My brother laughed and said that of course I didn’t like movies because they weren’t very real. He’s right. I like musicals for the very reason that it’s highly artificial. There aren’t many times in real life when people burst out into songs and jazz hands. I wish there were, but that would be distracting to actual life.
Anyway. Reading this old post on AAM made me think about the things I liked when I was younger and wondering how they would hold up. Ian’s playing Train Sim World 3 (Dovetail Games), and I mentioned that The Station Agent from 2003 was one of my favorite movies. That’s just barely in this millennium! Is that the last movie I liked? no. That would be Guardians of the Galaxy, which was 2014. So nearly a decade ago. I am going to watch Michelle Yeoh’s award-winning movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once soon because it’s supposed to be amazing, but other than that, I’m pretty over movies.
My idea is to review the pop culture that I liked in the past to see if it holds up. So, kid books like the Little House on the Prairie series and the Ramona Quimby series. Plus Pippi Longstocking. Yes, I like stories about young girls who are feisty and outspoken, why do you ask? Oh, I also liked Charlotte’s Web, which fell in the same category.
I would like to reread a bunch of books by Asian women I read in my twenties and thirties. That was basically as a way to make up for all the dead white men I’ve had to read for my education. When I made it known in college that I was partaking on this journey, an asshole (white dude, duh) told me this was just as racist/sexist or ever reverse-racist/sexist as if I only read white men. I looked at him and said I bet that I had read more dead white men than he had people of color. See, I was generous! I did not even narrow it down to women. Or as I would do it these days, anyone non-male.
Anyway, I want to re-read the book I mentioned above, which is The Coffin Tree by Wendy Law-Yone. That was such an incredible (and heavy) book. It has stuck with me for decades, and I wonder how it would hold up. It was very frank about how difficult it was to be an immigrant, especially a political refugee to the point of causing mental disorders (at least that’s how I remember it). I want to say her brother also had mental health issues because of it? Or he tried to kill himself? It’s been a while.
I also want to go back to Banana Yoshimoto. I was obsessed wvith her for several years, ranging from Kitchen to Amrita. The latter is also one of my favorite books, but I am not sure I would feel the same about it now. It’s funny because Amrita was not the last of her I read, but apparently it was the last of the ones she wrote, chronologically, which makes sense.
The Tattoo Murder Case by Akimitsu Takagiis another one I would like to revisit. It felt very surreal at the time, but I don’t know if that was just my reading of it. It’s one of a series, so I would like to see other books in the series.
I think I would do it in groups. So, like my three favorite movies in one review. THen, a book series for another review. Maybe do this for a video series because I’m trying to move over to videos rather than writing. This is an idea that is fomenting in my mind.