Let me preface this with a quote from Nick Hornby's excellent novel High Fidelity, it's not something you'll necessarily agree with, but it's an interesting point of view:
"A while back, when Dick & Barry & I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you *are* like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for potential partners, a 2 or 3 page multiple-choice document that covered all the music/film/TV/book bases. It was intended: a) to dispense with awkward conversation, and b) to prevent a chap from leaping into bed with someone who might, at a later date, turn out to have every Julio Iglesias record ever made. It amused us at the time... But there was an important & essential truth contained in the idea, and the truth was that these things matter, and it's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party."
I'd highly recommend giving it a read but if you can't be bothered with that (in which case I sympathise with but also deeply pity you) then the film is also very good.
Anyway, the above quote is what I'll use as a jumping off point for this entry because it's a subject I've attempted to write a solid blog entry on as many as 4 or 5 times without resorting to getting bored and doing top 5 lists or getting overly preachy about the appreciation of good entertainment and how the world wouldn't be the same without it. The key note question is if what you like is so significant, what do people's preferences reveal about their character? Having said that I'm almost immediately reminded of this:
Stewie's got a point, you can never express your true self by way of other people's ideas and creations, but that was never what I was talking about, my posting of that leaves no margin for misinterpretation (and I do love to post family guy clips in my entries). There's also the fact that people expressing themselves via myspace are likely doing so in a tawdry and superficial way, they probably haven't even heard half the bands they cite as favourites but were just following the fold, that's not representing one's self, that's social conformity. Sorry got a little side tracked there. Let me set a scene for you, two people meet for a first date, they don't know each other all that well and this is the first chance they've had to have a one to one conversation. One says to the other:
"So, tell me about yourself"
The other says the following:
"Well, I work in an office down town, I go out to clubs on weekends, I'm Jewish, my hobby is tennis, I drive a BMW 3 series, I live in a two bedroom apartment with my room mate Larry and I'm diabetic."
Notice anything wrong with that? Ok, same question, but this time the answer is this:
"I have mild paranoid personality disorder, I lie awake some nights contemplating the nature of death, I was bullied briefly in high school and have trouble trusting other people, I hate liars, I used to cry a lot and drink when I was on my own, I've had a total of 8 sexual partners, my last long term relationship ended when I had an affair, I often call said ex-partner, mostly when drunk, I'm prone to violent outbursts especially when jealous and I tend to masturbate 5 to 6 times a week."
If you didn't notice anything wrong there then you need professional help. The first answer revealed absolutely FUCK ALL about the character's personality, the second revealed far too much. Here's a third answer:
"Well, I like tennis, both watching and playing, never miss Wimbledon, I tend to watch a lot of movies, The Shawshank Redemption is my favourite, music wise I tend to prefer relaxed Jazz, Coltrane and Miles Davis mainly and I eat quite a lot of seafood, shellfish in particular."
This is by far and away the most reasonable answer, the character doesn't actually say anything about their personality but reveals a fair bit, take say, The Shawshank Redemption as an example. It's over ten years old now so it shows that they aren't fickle, it's well regarded as a classic and one of the all time greats so you assume this person has a reasonable knowledge of film, it's a period piece which could suggest an interest in past settings, it's lauded for the talent of the cast so perhaps this person appreciates acting talent and it's about a falsely accused man escaping a prison and meeting his closest friend in the process, perhaps this person has a particular liking for such plot points.
This indeed says a great deal about a person without them actually having to reveal anything. I'm not suggesting by any means that you should blather on and on about films or music until the sun comes up and goes down again because you'll be a bore but just knowing what you like is a quality all too rare these days. The issue with media is that if people are told they should like something they tend to like it. Take Avatar for example, it's the highest grossing film of all time and its posters are spattered with positive review snippets from top selling newspapers, it's a critical and commercial phenomenon so I imagine if you stopped 90% of people walking out of a screening and said 'Did you like it?' they'd say yes, then if you asked them if they'd kept up the hype to any extent they'd probably say yes again, even it means they've just looked at the poster and seen the review snippets. The snippets said it was good, it's made a fuck ton of cash, it's gotta be good, right?
It's no different with niche or smaller scale cinema, in fact it's actually worse on many levels. That has a lot to do with the critics, well known critics such as Roger Ebert, Anthony Lane, Peter Bradshaw, Mark Kermode etc. They'll generally be expected to be sceptical about block busters and be very appreciative of everything else. The problem with this is something that Benjamin 'Yahtzee' Croshaw, possibly the world foremost game critic, picked up on in an interview once, I'm having to paraphrase here because the original source is missing without trace but he pointed out that a reviewer's job is merely to provide a recommendation whether as a critic's job is to provide a critical opinion and as such, critic's articles are better read after seeing, hearing, reading or playing the subject in question. Reading a critique beforehand can colour one's opinion of the film/album/book/game. This is the problem, people do read these reviews beforehand and if Ebert or whoever else likes it, they assume that it must be good and fail to form their own opinion on it. There's no real solution to this and it's a terrible shame, one of the many evils brought about by the internet, I'm not suggesting that information should become more limited again but people tend to lack self restraint, which is why such internet grotesqueness as Rule 34 and trolling exists (if you don't know about one or both of those things it's probably wise to start exercising that self restraint now and remain blissfully ignorant).
I've pretty heavily digressed from my original title but what I'm trying to get across is this: we see ourselves in everything we do and one of the great things about all forms of entertainment is that it's the most universal method of reflecting your personality in an easily relatable way, so if anyone's listening to me, be opinionated, have favourite films, albums, books, tell people about them, let the good times roll.
Finally, as is my custom and in concordance with High Fidelity, I'm going to post yet another iteration of my lists of favourite things as they stand at this point in time:
Top 5 films:
American Beauty
Oldboy
Akira
The Shawshank Redemption
Survive Style 5+
Top 5 Albums:
You Are There - Mono
Kid A - Radiohead
Time Control - Hiromi Uehara
Discipline - King Crimson
The Fragile - Nine Inch Nails
Top 5 Books -
1984 - George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Battle Royale - Koushun Takami
Top 5 Games -
Shadow of the Colossus
Super Mario Galaxy
Metroid Prime
Mass Effect 2
Earthbound
And so, I bid you adieu until next entry
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