Sunday, December 9, 2007

Bathroom Monologue: Things weren't supposed to be this way

Puck: There is a way that things are supposed to be, and then there is the way that things usually are. I expect that you sometimes create an idea of the way things are supposed to be from the way that things usually are, which is a terrible idea. Watch a hundred movies, and the first ninety-nine all either have the guy getting the girl at the end, or the girl dying, or the guy dying, or some mixture. Then the hundredth is different. The girl wasn't there at the end, and the guy didn't die. Other relationships explored in the movie are abruptly severed -- and because I've seen ninety-nine movies lately that all ended with the guy dying or the guy getting the girl (or the girl dying), I can't even appreciate what the end or suspension of those relationships meant. It's different, and the good parts of my brain have rusted over, oxidized by the redundancy of old stories, so I start off any thoughts with a dislike for this movie's difference. That ain't right. That's a collective consciousness gone wrong, a collective close-mindedness, a self-enforcing stupidity. So now I try to think differently, because once I watched a hundred movies, and now I'm afraid that I've neglected the one or ones that were different in good ways. Now I'm careful to check if I'm disliking something because it's not the way it's supposed to be, or if it's just not the way things usually are.

Lo: Oh, our story is way better than that. Even if you don't like the way things develop, we get fightscenes for every couple of plot points. That makes up for any literary faults.

Puck: Oh yeah, this, this, this is great! I was talking about, you know... other stories. Of course.

Lo: Of course. And what's a movie?

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