Category: psychology

I Love to Eat: Part Deux

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“You don’t know how to eat,” a friend of mine said. She wasn’t talking about health and nutrition, or the staples necessary for informed eating. She was talking about the method I used to eat food. I chopped up my spaghetti strands, and this offended her Sicilian spaghetti sensibilities. 

“You’re supposed to fork twirl the strands on a spoon! Like so,” she said, showing me. “It’s so much more elegant.”

When I said, “Nah!” she hit me with another:

“You don’t know how to eat.”

“Have you heard this line? People love it. It’s sweeping the country. They have this method of eating that if you just followed it, or tried it out, it would unlock the floodgates to the glory of eating. My dad used to tell me to combine roast beef and mashed potatoes on the same fork. He considered it divine. I disagreed.

“You don’t know how to eat.”

When a friend told me about his ingenious method of combining marshmallow and chocolate on a graham cracker, that we would all later call a s’more, I said, “Nah!” Boom:

“You don’t know how to eat.”

“I don’t know if they say this to humiliate us or just break us down, but I rebelled against the whole notion of it. I kept eating the way I enjoyed eating my whole life. My dad was the exception. He was so constant, and so insistent, that it’s basically his fault that I eat the way I do,” Barry said, “and it’s his fault that I place such value on food and eating too. My mom shares some of the blame. She was a pretty decent cook, and she made some decent choices for our meals, but she decided to die, so we were stuck with my dad’s definition of a meal.

My dad was an old man when he took the reins. He lived through The Depression, he was a military man, and he spent the next twenty years a hard-working bachelor. My dad spent the majority of his life eating whatever was placed before him, and he was grateful, so grateful that he’d eat just about anything. 

“Dad didn’t understand this notion of preferences. Finicky was the ‘F’ word to him. We displayed some preferences, but in the grand scheme I’d argue that we weren’t finicky. We just preferred to avoid eating crap whenever we could. “You’d eat that,” he’d say over his schlop, “if you were starving in The Depression, or all you had to eat were C-Rations.” 

“So, if you were to put two plates before us, one with this piece of crap on it, another plate of worse crap, and nothing at all, we’d choose your plate?” we would ask. “You’re right, we’d probably choose yours, but that’s not what I’d call a brilliant marketing strategy.”  

“This isn’t to say that my dad didn’t enjoy a well-prepared and flavorful meal. He enjoyed it as much as the next guy, but in his mind, any man could eat a meal that tastes delicious. What separated the men from the boys, in my dad’s worldview, was what that man did to a meal that was less than flavorful. Based upon his internal sliding scale of characterization, eating a foul-tasting, poorly prepared meal was a tribute to his ancestors.  

“You ever see those Old West movies with characters eating pork and beans on a slice of buttered bread? That was my dad’s definition of nirvana. We all know this image of a bunch of carriages surrounding a cook, usually named Schmitty, who cooked up some beans and put it on bread. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but I have to believe the traveling cowboys would’ve loved it if Schmitty dropped some fried chicken in their lap.

“The pièce de résistance of my dad’s personal campaign to pay homage to those who came before him, arrived in the form of a flavorless, bare bones sandwich. This hallowed sandwich consisted of one slice of the cheapest bologna mankind has been able to produce, between two slices of bread so flavorless that I doubt any competitors in the bread industry even knew this manufacturer’s name. Did he enjoy a condiment or two, well sure, but he didn’t need one. The notion of needing condiments was my dad’s definition of inherent privilege. “You mean to tell me that you can’t eat a roast beef sandwich without barbecue sauce?” 

“No, dad, but we prefer to eat it with a little barbecue sauce on it,” we said. “That makes the sandwich taste better.” He tried to break us down on the differences between need and want, and we conceded that it was all about want. He backed off a little, but he was disgusted by our preferences, because we never could’ve survived on World War II’s battlefields with our preferences.  

“Even with all that, though, it was obvious that if he had his choice, he wouldn’t eat his own schlop, and he made that apparent when an aunt informed him that she wanted to come over to our house to prepare a meal for us. 

“Your aunt has agreed to prepare a meal for us,” he mentioned to prepare us for the moment of her arrival. Nothing wrong with that, right? Like just everything else my dad did, he overdid it, “and it might just be the last decent meal we ever eat.” His intention was not to scare us, of course, but to instill in us a sense of gratitude for all of her efforts. He scared the hell out of us. I considered it possible that I might never eat another quality meal for the rest of my life after we finished The Last Supper of any quality.

“Comparing this meal to The Last Supper might sound like hyperbole, but that was my dad. He had us so amped up for the arrival of that meal that when it was placed before us, my brother leaned over to whisper something to me, I shushed him. “Shh, for God’s sake, eat. This could be the last decent meal we ever eat.” And, boy, did we laugh. My aunt laughed, my dad laughed, and we all had a whale of a time analyzing my admonition. I wasn’t laughing. I didn’t even smile. I didn’t get it. I thought it was almost a guarantee that I would end up eating schlop for the rest of my life after this meal, and I wanted to silently enjoy every last bite, as if it might be my last.

I didn’t care about the quality of the food but what kid does? If we drill a kid down to their basics, it’s all about Burger King, McDonald’s and Taco Bell for them. They’re forced to eat just about everything else. A nice, home-cooked meal is little more than a mandatory break from playtime. “Kids, it is now time to eat!” Aw, crap. You have to eat when you’re a kid. You have to take a break when it’s time to eat. You don’t care about quality. You just eat to shut your parents up, unless those who know the definition of quality food insinuate that it’s possible you never will. 

“My dad’s war on food, namely eating, and the proper procedures therein, might lead one to believe that he was a strict father. He was anything but. In every other area of life, my brother and I had total freedom, perhaps too much. By the definition of our friends, we lived an almost parent-free existence, but they didn’t have to abide by my dad’s near-militaristic meal time rules that would’ve been welcome in most penitentiaries throughout the world. 

“Much later in life, decades later, I found out my dad was actually quite proud of my eating habits. He didn’t say anything about the emotional or financial stability I achieved as an adult, and he never mentioned my ability to attain consistent employment through the years. For him, it was all about eating. “You’d eat anything,” he said to begin the greatest compliment he ever gave me. “I never had a problem with you, but I had to constantly be on your brother at the dinner table, or he’d drift off into la-la land.” My brother would chat at the table, he’d pause for a brief period of time that drove my dad crazy, and he’d drift off, or space out, as we called. My dad called it going off into la-la land. My brother didn’t do this to rebel, or to be naughty. He’d just forget to eat in the systematic keep-your-utensils-locked-and-loaded procedures my dad required. If he slipped into la-la-land, my dad would pounce, “Eat Arnie!” My brother would shake out of whatever daydream he was in and resume eating. My dad tried everything to keep my brother on task. He tried patient reminders, and he tried heavy-handed scolding. Nothing worked. His frustrations eventually drove him to develop a little ditty that we now call the Eat Arnie Eat song, and it went a little something like a this,” Barry said clearing his throat and humming out a couple chords, until he could find the right one. “Eat Arnie eat, eat Arnie eat. Eat Arnie eat, Oh, eat Arnie eat.” 

“Anyone eavesdropping on this one-off performance might have mistaken my dad’s brilliant “Oh” crescendo with a pleasing and creative bridge to the fourth stanza, but aesthetics did not motivate this tool man. Creating tools was his profession, and it defined him, outside-in and inside-out. He created tools to fill a need. His whole world was about need, not want, need, and he created that song to fulfill a need. He composed no other lyrics for the song, and once it served its purpose and my brother began eating, dad had no further use of it. He never sang the song again. He didn’t create this brilliantly simplistic song to be humorous. If you laughed, or thought it was funny in any way, that was your preference, but that wasn’t why he created his incredible Eat Arnie Eat single. If humor, or the looming threat of it, got my brother to eat then his brief foray into the world of art was worth it. Once that tool fulfilled its utilitarian purpose, my favorite single of all time could whither on the vine for all he cared. When we called for an encore at get-togethers and company functions, he shot them all down. He was not one to perform on demand, even with a couple of beers in him. 

“I wish that I could look you all in the eye tonight and say that all these exaggerated concepts and rules of food appreciation are complete nonsense. I wish I could say that I considered them such nonsense, and the minute I became an adult I laughed them all off as so over-the-top foolish that is nothing more than halfway decent material for a joke.

“I mean, who cares if we chit-chat when a meal is before us? Who cares if we look around the room when we should be eating? The big difference between my dad and I is I don’t talk about this nonsense, because I know it’s nonsense, but that super-secret part of me that no one will ever see or hear is absolutely disgusted by signs of a lack of appreciation for the food before you. I cannot stand it when you chit-chat with a perfectly good meal before you. When you take a break, I have to swallow my disgust if I want to have friends, or I want to avoid having others consider me a special freak. “Your entrée is getting cold!” I want to scream. The idea that you can’t, or won’t eat food without condiments absolutely disgusts me. I’ll talk about the need, need, that you have for mayonnaise on a ham sandwich for years. Want is fine, but need? C’mon, isn’t mayonnaise a first-world preference? Then if you dare to commit the cardinal violation of food appreciation, according to my dad, of leaving a restaurant with some food on your plate, and you don’t ask for a doggie bag? I will secretly decide, without noting it for you in any way, that I might never be able to dine with you again. Seeing it once will forever affect our relationship, but putting myself in a position to view it twice is a shame on me, in my book.”

“I still don’t understand why my dad was willing to go to war over food appreciation and eating, and I’m sure if some psychiatrist asked him why he did all that, he’d say, “Hey, I don’t get them all either.” The question I have for myself now, standing before you tonight, is why did I start doing it, why do I still do it? Why, after I spent my teens and twenties trying to do everything 180 degrees different from my dad for the expressed purpose of doing it different from him, do I now mimic all of his quirks and eccentricities? The only thing I can come up with is his great-granddad probably did it to his dad, and his dad did it to him, and he did it to us, and I now do it to you. I would love to be that fella who broke the chain and allow my friends and family to eat normally without some form of internal, critical analysis, but it’s too late for me now. It’s ingrained the way propaganda ministers once taught us that if you repeat the same line often enough, it becomes true to you. And if you insist on eating the way rational, well-adjusted people eat, I’m eventually going to implode in such a way that a “You don’t know how to eat” comment is going to rain down on you in the fallout.  

[Standup comedian Barry Becker is The Unfunny comedian, and this is one of his sets. If you enjoy this style of comedy, there’s more available at The Unfunny.] 

 

The Familiar Fiber

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“The Exorcist is the scariest movie of all time,” Gary said. 

“Really?” I said. “I didn’t think it was that scary.”

“WHAT?!”

“It just didn’t reach me on that level,” I told him. “It was a really good movie. The acting, the plot believability, all that, but when it evolved to the scary scenes, I just wasn’t frightened. I expected it to scare the beans out of me, because everyone said it would, and maybe that was it. Maybe I sat there waiting for it to scare me in a way I’ve never been scared before.” 

Horror and comedy, more than any other genres, are about time and place, state of mind, and expectation. Expectations can ruin the best of the best, and if it were possible for me to watch The Exorcist without expectation, it might have terrified me. The same holds true with all genres to some extent, but expectation seems to affect comedy and horror more. 

If the author of a story, be it movie or book, is able to bring us in slowly, progressively, and strategically, they might bring us to that place, but it’s touch-and-go. Everyone from the writers to the director, to the editor, and everyone else involved might think they have a hit, but no one knows how an audience will react. 

Some audience members stubbornly resist. “This isn’t real,” they say with their arms folded, “and I’m not buying it.” Of course, it’s not real, but it’s your job as an audience member, if you want to have any fun, is to suspend your disbelief for just a moment to get in to the movie. I did not stubbornly resist The Exorcist. I wanted it to scare me. I tried to invest everything I had into that movie, but it just didn’t reach me on that level.

The more common description of a movie reaching us on another level is “striking a nerve”. We could also twist the term ‘striking a nerve’ to describe how a movie gets under our skin, though some reserve that term for something annoying. The point is that quality horror flicks dig past the superficial, goosebump layer of the epidermis into the nerve, and tap into the axons, the cord-like groups of fibers in the center of a nerve, that we call the familiar fibers. If we want to move the illustration further, we could say that the great horror movies reach into the neuromuscular junction, but you get the point. If we’ve always had a deep seated fear of clowns, for instance, Stephen King’s It gave us one of the most horrific experiences we’ve ever had reading the book or watching the movie. Those with a lifelong fear of dogs found Cujo one of the scariest book/movies for the same reasons. For reasons that weren’t clear to me at the time, no movie tapped into my familiar fibers better than The Blair Witch Project. 

“That’s the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen,” my friend said, soon after seeing it, “and your movie recommendations will forever be tainted by the fact that you suggested that I waste my time and money on that stupid, stupid movie.”

I recommended The Blair Witch Project to everyone I knew, and they all, pretty much, had the same reaction. I found their reactions inexplicable, because they shared my taste in movies, and we were always on the lookout for the next great horror. I thought I found it in The Blair Witch Project. I thought it was a masterpiece, and while I figured they probably wouldn’t love it as much as I did, I didn’t expect them to question my taste in movies forever after. After wrestling with this, I eventually came to the conclusion that time and place are everything for some movies. (Expectations, as I wrote, is another huge movie killer, and I may have done this with The Blair Witch Project, as others did for me with The Exorcist.)

The time and place element obviously made a huge impact on my opinion of the The Blair Witch Project. I was in a theater, on opening night, at the midnight hour, with a bunch of teenagers who wouldn’t shut up. When they’re chitter-chatter, and the giggles (those blasted gigglers!) lasted 20 minutes into the flick, I thought I wasted good money. I didn’t think the giggles would ever end. They did. 20 minutes into the movie, The Blair Witch Project achieved what I considered impossible at the time: it silenced over 100 teenagers. The transformation from claustrophobic noise to claustrophobic silence ended up giving that silence a little extra weight. The sudden, creepy silence heightened my senses, and managed to narrow my perspective to tunnel vision so well that I was almost spiritually immersed in the movie. 

I could smell the burning wood from the campfire. I wouldn’t say that I was ever afraid of camping, or the darkness in the trees surrounding us, but the environment always creeped me out a little. The environment, and the compulsion to speak in whispers, is probably what makes ghost stories told by campfire so creepy. My goosebumps were always out before they started their campfire stories, and they didn’t have to do much to finish the job. The makers of Blair Witch tapped into a level of familiarity for me so well that I could smell the burning wood in the middle of the movie theater. I was there with the characters of the movie, in all ways but one. 

Then, the screaming started. I don’t know if the young girls in the theater, seated over my shoulder, took classes to help them reach the registers they did, or if their talent was granted by God, but I had my hand on my heart on more than one occasion. Those teenagers couldn’t have done a much better job if they orchestrated a plan to scare the hell out of me.

Based on that experience alone, I now tell anyone interested in watching a horror movie to try to duplicate my experience. “Even if you have to pay for the admission of a bunch of screaming, teenage girls. It might run into hundreds of dollars, but if you enjoy horror as much as I do, you might just have a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Follow the steps I did, have them annoy you in the beginning, then tell them to wrap you in silence so weighted that if someone drops a straw on the ground, everyone will turn around to see what the hell just happened. Then, in those key moments, have these young, teenage girls scream as loud as they can in your ear, in a manner that rattles you to bone.” 

Another element that separated me from my arm-folding brethren when it came to The Blair Witch Project was that I walked into that theater wanting to believe it. “But supernatural witches aren’t real,” Gary said to explain why he thought the movie was such an epic waste of his time and money. 

“Hey, if you’re having problems sleeping at night, because you think witches, vampires, or werewolves are knocking at your door, I’ll tell you they’re not real,” I told Gary. “If we’re about to watch a movie about them though, I’m going to pretend that they’re real for however long that movie lasts. It’s not the moviemaker’s job to convince you that they’re real. It’s your job to pretend, so that you can have a little fun in life. When I watch a movie, I grant the artist access to my innards. It’s a frame of mind I grant the actors and the director, and it’s their job to avoid screwing it up.” 

Not only was I there, smelling the campfire, but prior to entering the theater that night, I saw the movie’s faux documentary on Syfy, and I was a frequent guest on the The Blair Witch Project webpage. It was my first experience with web marketing, and that might have added a chunk to the believability for me. I can’t remember any of the details of the website, save one. One little nugget grabbed me. It was a note that suggested someone found five cannisters of film in the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland that the characters created, and the movie makers edited it down to 90 minutes. The Blair Witch Project was also my introduction to the cinematic technique some call “found footage,” “lost footage,” or “shaky cam.”   

As a result of all of the above, I now move my listing of The Blair Witch Project as the greatest horror movie ever made to one of the best experiences, I’ve ever had watching a film. It was a time and place experience that that no film maker will ever be able to replicate for me, for whatever the opposite of baggage is, as in he brought some baggage with him into that situation, I had that, and it wasn’t just an open mind. I was supercharged for this movie, because I wanted to be scared. I wanted this movie to be true, minus the murder of course, but that desire, combined with all of the above, is what made The Blair Witch Project one of my favorite movie experiences of all time. 

I’ve yet to watch The Blair Witch Project a second time, in a more traditional setting, because knowledge and facts have a stubborn way of ruining emotional experiences, and I don’t want to ruin one of the best experiences I’ve ever had watching a movie. 

The big debate at the time was whether or not The Blair Witch Project actually happened. Most of us appreciated it as a clever marketing campaign, but others believed that it was an actual event and the actors involved actually died in the film. If you said you enjoyed The Blair Witch Project back then, you were lumped in with “the believers”. I believed The Blair Witch Project for the 81 minutes it played on the screen, just like I believed in ghosts during Poltergeist, that cars could come to life in Christine, and that aliens were abducting people in Fire in the Sky. None of these movies made a dent in my overall belief system, but I thought all of them (save Christine) were great movies. When the furor over believers vs. nonbelievers died down, 86% on of the over 250,000 fans rated The Blair Witch Project positively on Rotten Tomatoes and 81% of critics did. I don’t post these numbers to say I was right, and the naysayers were wrong. I do think it validates my argument that once we gain some distance from silly arguments, we can see a good movie for what it is. 

The citizen critic can now post reviews on everything from the best horrors and comedies to the best and worst plumbers on various websites. We can recommend others watch, don’t watch; read, don’t read; and don’t even bother calling this fence specialist. There’s nothing on the line for the citizen critic, as they don’t benefit from a positive review, and they see no ramifications from a negative one. Some of us suspect that professional critics benefit from positive reviews in ways that lead us to believe the citizen critic is more honest. We’re probably wrong in most cases, but we tend to trust citizen reviews more than professional ones for this reason. The citizen critic is not afraid to let the internet know what they really think. The problem with their reviews though, is that tastes and experiences are so relative and subjective. If someone says the subject of the movie “is not real, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool,” they’re going to give it one star. One person’s The Blair Witch Project is another person’s THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT!!! Comedy is as subjective as horror, and both are relative to the person, and they’re subjective and relative to our experiences in life. One citizen critic might find the humor in Peter Seller’s humor in The Pink Panther dated, but we might find their current favorite comedy too juvenile. They might find Pulp Fiction so personally offensive that they wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, and The Godfather, Citizen Kane, and Gone with the Wind might be overrated, time pieces that haven’t aged well. The point is, we can now find negative reviews for every movie, album, and electrician, and if we read them, and heed their warning, we might never watch classic films, read classic literature, or listen to some of the greatest albums ever made. As an artist who tries to tap into those familiar neuromuscular junctions, I now empathize with anyone who tries to create art. As such, I try to keep my reviews, objective, impersonal, and constructive. 

[ If you enjoy this article, there will be more available soon at The Unfunny, and be sure to subscribe to continue to read articles from Rilaly.] 

Why So Insidious?

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“Why so serious?” – The Dark Knight, Christopher and Jonathon Nolan 

Why so cynical? Cynicism is truth. Cynicism is real. Scene: The cynical character confronts an optimistic, positive one. The positive character has no reply. Why does he just sit there and take it? The underlying truth is finally coming out, and the positive character just can’t handle it. We favor the cynical character, because, “He’s just being real with us.” He’s gritty, she’s so dark, and the cynical are no longer afraid to speak truth to power. The truth is that your precious, little world is awful, your neighbor is trash, and you’re probably no better. Cynicism is alarming, scary, hilarious, and so insidious.

“Harmful but enticing: seductive.” – Merriam-Webster.com’s definition of insidious.

Why so insidious? Want to write a best-seller? Bring the pain (muderporn). We readers crave a taste, a dose, and a heaping forkful of the worst elements of the worst moments of another’s life. We don’t want it too familiar, of course, yet we enjoy watching it from a distance. We may not bring it up in polite company, but if someone else does, we join in, and it’s difficult for us to hide the excitement in our voice. 

Why so violent? Violent narratives require a generous portion of brutality, but the most successful writers define it by clever and intelligent means. Undefined brutality is fine if we’re writing a mob narrative, or a historical recount of the Ku Klux Klan or Nazi, Germany, because they come backloaded with such a brutally violent history, but if we’re going to write about serial killers, we need to employ some level of poetry, symbolism, or some other form of intellect in their acts for it suggests the killer (and their writer) is surprisingly intellectual. In the cat-and-mouse game with the police, writers use law enforcement officials to define the serial killer’s intellect. “He’s obviously incredibly intelligent,” they will say at the outset, and at some point, in the chase, they say, “He’s too smart to fall for that.” If the writer can combine the killer’s savage sense of brutality with some ode to Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante Alighieri, Shakespeare, and/or Biblical references, it illustrates a shocking intellect that will lead to best-sellers, ratings, and clickbait. 

I’ve created fictional characters with whom I developed a mostly platonic relationship, and the answer to the question of what I was going to do with them didn’t involve whether or not they were going to commit violence, but how much? 

“We might develop a crush on non-violent stories,” I said to explain this predilection, “but if we’re going to fall head-over-heels in love, there has to be some violence involved, or at least the threat thereof.” 

Why so awful? We want to read/watch about awful people doing awful things to one another, with a dash of humor thrown in to further define, or even slightly contradict, their awfulness. At some point in the timeline, the awful writers began adding clever humor to add an element of the casual and the common place to their violence, and we loved it. If it’s not love we experience, it’s some complicated adherent. We’ll repeat a clever and humorous line with a chuckle. We might even knowingly invite such seductive characters into our home. We’ve all seen movies of enraged violent people, and it just doesn’t connect the way the calm, clever killers do. Look at our favorite performances, most of them involve actors portraying the most awful characters imaginable with a little bit of flair. The message to writers is clear: if you want gain, bring the pain, and it doesn’t hurt to add a little levity to their refrain. 

Why so artistic? Does art reflect society, or does society reflect art? Is society as evil as artists of modernity want us to believe, or do we interpret their attempts as beautiful works of art? Those who aren’t afraid to expose us to the truth of what’s going on in their neighborhood receive special accolades. Their exposes might be dark and negative but that’s their truth. Is it truth, or is it an embellishment intended to generate sales? I can see you, with your fingers poised above your keyboard, ready to defend your favorite book, movie, or TV show. Your reply will include something regarding how I can’t understand the plight of someone who might not experience the comfortable lifestyle I do. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but would you be so defensive if we were discussing a positive, uplifting narrative? “There’s nothing wrong with light-hearted fare, of course,” you might say, “but there’s no question that gritty, dark, and cynical are definitely more artistic.”

Why do repetitive? We love violence in our art, and we identify with cynicism as truth, but what is that truth? As we work our way through controversial, provocative portrayals of the truth, we often hear, see, and learn the same reportage, fictional and otherwise, over and over. How many times do we have to hear, watch, and read the same cynical exposés on the same institutions before we accept their portrayals as truth? How many otherwise beloved and trusted institutions in our society are the most corrupt in these narratives? There’s the member of the civil service, the man of religion, or military man you thought you could trust who turns out the most corrupt among them in our controversial and cutting edge stories. This trope is almost as repetitive as the all families are dysfunctional trope. We all understand that an author needs to introduce conflict, be it external or internal, but these tropes are repeated so often that most of us can pick out the good guys and bad guys in an ensemble narrative before the actors have read one word of the script. Through sales, we’ve encouraged storytellers to evolve to nothing but hardcore, unapologetic cynicism to appeals to our worldview. 

Why so dark, angry, and hopeless? To paraphrase a line from Cool Hand Luke, “That’s the way he wants it,” and we want it dark, cynical, negative, hateful, and violent. Most of us have no violent tendencies. We never have, and we never will. Yet, we won’t read a book, watch a movie, TV show, or play a video game that doesn’t involve at least some hint of violence? What does that say about us? If we are of a stable mind that isn’t easily influenced, I don’t think it says much, but is it human nature to think that the ultimate, or final, truth about human nature is that it’s awful, nasty, and we’re all headed for dark, gritty truth?

Why no happy endings? It wasn’t too long ago that the market demanded a happy ending, no manner how dark and gritty a fictional piece was. We enjoyed watching awful people doing awful things to each other, but we all knew that some over-the-top, big, sloppy happy ending was coming. We knew the movie would end with someone drinking an exotic, adult beverage with a tiny umbrella in it, in front of an impossibly white, sandy beach? Everyone knew that somehow, someway, it would all end happy for the players involved. It became a long-running joke. Those who concern themselves with such things say that there wasn’t one particular movie that brought an end to this, but a series of thematically complex narratives of the late 60’s early 70’s that challenged the whole idea of the necessity of happy endings in movies. If this is true, it was a long, insidious arc that led us to demand that our stories end in despair for the purpose of being true, while illuminating us about the despair around the world. When we watch happy endings now, they seem so anticlimactic that movie makers have responded by leaving one last hint that the bad guy/monster might might still be alive somewhere.  

“If you want a happy ending go Disney or some other manufacturer of dreams, cause you ain’t gonna find it here.”

I come at this from an advantageous position, because I led a sheltered life until I was about fifteen. I received a lot of grief for believing that most of humanity was good, and I still do, but when I was young and impressionable, my worldview encountered a special brand of the-world-is-junk, and a dose of everyone is a piece of junk. “You shouldn’t trust anyone outside your home,” they instructed me, “and you should probably be skeptical of them.” The contrast to everything I knew and believed couldn’t have been more shocking if it was delivered with defibrillator paddles. I initially considered their skeptical cynicism a romantic notion, and I was angry that my authority figures shielded me from the truth for so long. The more I learned this outlook, the more I embraced it, acclimated to it, and I accepted it as truth. The repetition was such that I knew if I didn’t adjust and assimilate, I would be nothing more than a naïveté who would eventually meet my demise as a result of some proverbial pack of wolves who would take advantage of it. As with all constant and repetitive messaging, it eventually reached a tipping point for me. Looking back, I probably needed that dose of cynicism to round out my wide-eyed optimism, but when the “theys” in my inner-circle continued pouring gasoline on this fire, I realized that, like uplifting positivism, there’s a point of diminishing returns of too much cynicism too. “Just because it’s awful, negative, and cynical doesn’t always mean it’s true,” I began telling my “theys” after I hit that tipping point. I don’t know if that revelation proved as shocking to them as their revelations did me, but they couldn’t come up with anything to counter it. 

When we seek the truth, we often get bounced around a bit, until we eventually find it nestled somewhere in the in-between. Are we more cynical or optimistic, or are we somewhere in-between, and what’s in the in-between? 

As the new saying goes, “If you ever want to know where you stand are as a culture, look to the major marketing firms.” They pour millions into researching human nature and the zeitgeist for the purpose of appealing to us in their marketing campaigns? When they create advertisements for their clients do they seek a truth, or something we generally perceive to be true? Marketing departments don’t necessarily seek to tell us the truth, but their extensive studies find a truth that we consider true enough to move products, and they have obviously reached the conclusion that our outlook is pretty bleak. They understand that times are tough, but their client is here to help. If we just purchase their new and improved product, we’ll find our days and nights bigger, brighter, and more productive, because we’ll have more time to do what we always wanted to do. They pay attention to our intricacies, and they’re saying that we have a negative, cynical and all hope is lost mentality. It’s The Beatles, “It’s getting better all the time. It couldn’t get much worse.” It’s Dickens’ “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” It’s the in-between.

I haven’t poured tons of money into extensive research on humanity, but I think we could all use a healthy dose of something else, and it doesn’t have to be uplifting. It can’t be, because uplifting is cringe, but it could be something different. It could be something dotted with refreshing honesty without being overly cynical. It can also be something other than the college thesis paper, or dissertations, writers insert into every song we hear, and every TV show and movie we watch. When I watch these over-the-top insertions, I can’t help but think, “Hows about we just go for entertainment, so we can forget the serious, deep, and the meaningful for just a moment?”