Societal pressure
Sep. 11th, 2005 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatNetflix has a fun little mechanism where you can rate the movies you've seen - basically state you loved, really liked, liked, didn't like or hated. My ratings are based on whether I'd want to see the movie again and again (loved), wouldn't mind seeing again (really liked), enjoyed it, but once is enough (liked), did not enjoy but watchable (didn't like), barely made it through it or found unwatchable (hated) - with fluctuations based on mood. Not that you care or anything.
At any rate as I was doing it, I realized something, some movies I found myself rating higher not because I liked them but because I felt an odd societal pressure to like them. Personally if I were completely honest with myself, I found the movie dull and uninvolving. While I could appreciate the cinematic tricks and lighting that made it brilliant in someone else's eyes, it did not resonate for me. Same thing is true about books or even tv shows - this sense of societal pressure. Also discovering it in day to day actions, decisions, foods, clothing, everything in ordinary life. To the extent that there are times like today for instance in which I desperately want to turn off the opinions of society, like turning off the TV set. Feeling much like a child starring up at my parents stating, damn it, I don't care if peas are good for me, they are gross or I don't care if all the other kids adore french fries, I can't abide them. (Interesting tid-bit, Kidbro and I hated french fries when we were little, it became an acquired taste for both of us - ie, we learned to like them as adults, but as kids we didn't. I can't help but wonder if that acquired taste was somehow influenced by the people around us? Maybe not, I still despise ketchup on most things. Only thing I'll put it on is hamburgers and hotdogs. Prefer mustard.
As an aside, I miss hamburgers and hotdogs on buns...going gluten-free is not as easy as it looks, you do miss things. And restaurants are killer - went to a mexican one the other day with Wales, we ordered nachos with quacamola. Should be safe, right? Corn chips, right? Even asked the bloody waitress. But guess what, they've made a lighter low-fat chip with wheat flour, it's fluffier. Hard to find by looking. Wales figured it out eating one, so I spent about fifteen minutes sorting through the chips hunting for the heavier ones which must be corn and disregarding the fluffy ones. Annoying to say the least.)
At any rate, societal pressure...
Was reading a chapter from Elliot Aronson's "The Social Animal" for class today and he discussed how in one instance, a university student watching a political debate preferred one candidate to another. He found that particular candidate sincere and interesting. Until he discussed it with his friends, who all preferred the other candidate. Their opinion swayed him. Seen the same thing happen online while discussing the TV show Angel, a poster who disagreed with my opinion regarding a specific episode, stated, but "so and so agrees with me", knowing so and so was a close friend of mine. Popular opinion states you're wrong. The episode was The Girl in Question, an episode of the series which the vast majority of viewers despised, while I adored it. And I got slaughtered for my opinion. The majority was against me, so I was clearly wrong. Same thing happened with another episode of a tv series, this round Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and in reverse, I despised "Storyteller", found it close to unwatchable, still do, can't quite explain why, just didn't work for me. But the majority opinion was the opposite. In both cases I felt alone, isolated from the group, an outsider, and part of me considered changing my opinion in the group's favor or lying.
This happens with movies too. For intstance, Citizen Kane is considered a classic. The best movie ever. And I think I've given it four stars on every site that's ever asked me to rank it. Yet, I have no clue why. I found it incredibly slow when I first watched it. A tad melodramatic in places and the camera work gimmicky. The story is a simple one but like most bio-pics, I felt distanced from the subject. At times watching the movie, I feel more like I am looking at a series of beautifully shot photographs, all of which I remember vividly, but none provide emotional resonance. I'm supposed to like Citizan Kane. If I don't, I might as well give up my membership in the film aficionado's club, assuming there is such a thing. Or film intellectuals club. But, if I am completely honest with myself - no I did not enjoy this movie all that much and consider the director, Orson Wells, to be a tad overrated. Felt the same exact way about Lost in Translation - not enjoyable. I went to sleep during it. Woke up, rewound and almost fell asleep again. The movie did not work for me, personally. The cinematography, while beautiful in places wasn't new - of course I'd just seen Death in Venice, so perhaps I wasn't being fair. Also preferred the director/writer's earlier work, The Virgin Suicides which for me, resonated more. But without exception everyone I knew amongst my peers adored the movie.
How do we deal with societal pressure? While it may sound empowering to say - I step to a different drummer, it's a lonely path and not one many of us want to trode upon. Much easier to lie. To conform to the group's opinion or pretend. If everyone else likes it, does it, believes it - then so should we. Otherwise you feel a bit like an outcast, a troll going up against them and the larger the group, the harder it is. If the group loves someone, you can't abide, you are out of luck. OR in contrast hates someone, you love, you have a similar dilemma.
But that's not the only instance of it - it can be a force for good - such as the societal pressure right now to give to the hurricane relief fund. You can't walk a street in NYC or Brooklyn at the moment without running into people asking for money for the survivors and victims of this disaster. You can't go anywhere in lj without running across a link or a journal entry providing information on how you can help - and more to the point, how you should help. Makes me feel sorry for the folks out there who want to help but can't. Not all of us have the financial means or ability to provide aid. Not everyone can sign up for two hours of red cross training, take three weeks off work and go down to Mississippi to help people. My mother was feeling guilty the other day for not doing this - she has two bad knees and has been in rehab for the last three months and may have to get a knee replacement. I told her, Mom, not everyone can go to Mississippi and help. Contributing money does help you know.
It can also be negative - such as the societal pressure to tease someone in high school that the group doesn't like. Or to lose 100 pounds and look skinny, even if that could hurt you. Not everyone needs to lose a 100 pounds. Not everyone can look like Kate Moss or the skinny models on the runways, nor should they. This week is fashion week in NYC and the pressure to look a certain way, wear certain clothes is heightened.
I feel it at times when I want to do things for myself. Something as simple as taking a pottery class, which I'm regretting telling people about. Should have kept it to myself. Why? Because the automatic response is - so what are you going to make? Make me something...and the pressure is on. My parents, my friends, my family..."oh she's taking a pottery class, this means she'll make me something I can use." Truth is I'm not fantastic at pottery - like all my art, what I plan never works out. I'm at my best when I just let the clay and my subconsicous mind work in tandeum. But societal pressure is you make utilitarian items or make art. If what you create is not something that is considered "good" by utilitarian or art standards, it was a waste of money and/or time. If you tell people that you've written a novel or are writing one - their initial response is "when will it be published" - what is the financial gain. Or if you create something artistic - so is being sold? Have you put it in a gallery? Can you give it to a friend? Is it any good? (Takes the fun out of art in a way...why can't it just be an expression of you or me, just fun, just for you?)
I feel incredibly guilty and angry about this pressure at the same time. It's even hard to explain, I can feel you judging me, harshly as you read this. So I keep deleting and rewriting paragraphs, trying to find the words to make sense of these feelings.
The pressure to make things for others, things that they will love, consider "art", and not besmirk, may be one of the many reasons why I haven't taken pottery in over 20 years or done knitting or any art for quite a while, and is why I got a writer's block - the pressure to create something someone else would love and want, I felt their eyes on me, heard their voices criticising, and well, the muse ran away for safer climes. Society says if you're spending money or time - show something for it. Be productive. It can't just be for "fun". Movies and theater, watching tv, sure, but not creating pottery, not writing stories. I want to share them, I want to share myself with others, but I don't want to deal with the demand, the pressure. Yet, both go hand in hand.
I haven't even taken it yet and I already feel pressure. My parents keep asking how it went and I keep saying I haven't taken it yet. A friend already asked me to make them something. I haven't even bought the supplies, I'm not even sure I can do the wheel. It's like if you decide to take a cooking class, someone says - hey, when are you going to cook me a meal? Ugh. Pressure. What people don't understand about me and art - is I don't do it to make things for people, I do it to relieve stress, to play. To play with clay. I don't plan what I'm going to make when I sit down at the wheel or behind an easel to draw. I see what happens. Do the same thing with my writing. I let it pour forth, without planning, without structure, without forethought. Just a chapter at time, bit by bit, building my story, surprised by the result. A release. My creativity works best that way, as play.
I love the surprise. When I plan it out, have expectations, I get disappointed. I've been planning too much in my life lately, I'm trying right now not to. I've decided to do pottery this year because I desperately want to make things with my hands, to play. With no expectations and no pressure.
It's hard living in a world with people sometimes. I need them. I love them. I want to do things for them, with them. But at the same time I desperately want to do things for myself too, alone. Like I'm two people caged in one body at war. The one side telling me I should put everyone else first and the other saying screw them, take care of yourself a bit. If you don't, no one else will. Truth is I need the balance, finding it is a tight-wire act often without a net.
A poem:
i thank you God for this most amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a true blue dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings, and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
e. e. cummings
On september 11, 2005 that's how I feel. A beautiful two days. One spent on the grass in the park with Wales chatting. One spent lounging in my apartment today. Reading, writing, watching, listening to kids playing outside and seeing the broad expanse of blue in the sky. September 11 weather Wales called it yesterday, for it is the same weather we had on that day, weather we felt mocked us. I have more in some ways than I did then.
And less in others. Since the thing about life is you gain and lose a bit with every passing day, the trick I think is knowing what is gained and lost and taking some role and/or responsibility in the choosing.
At any rate as I was doing it, I realized something, some movies I found myself rating higher not because I liked them but because I felt an odd societal pressure to like them. Personally if I were completely honest with myself, I found the movie dull and uninvolving. While I could appreciate the cinematic tricks and lighting that made it brilliant in someone else's eyes, it did not resonate for me. Same thing is true about books or even tv shows - this sense of societal pressure. Also discovering it in day to day actions, decisions, foods, clothing, everything in ordinary life. To the extent that there are times like today for instance in which I desperately want to turn off the opinions of society, like turning off the TV set. Feeling much like a child starring up at my parents stating, damn it, I don't care if peas are good for me, they are gross or I don't care if all the other kids adore french fries, I can't abide them. (Interesting tid-bit, Kidbro and I hated french fries when we were little, it became an acquired taste for both of us - ie, we learned to like them as adults, but as kids we didn't. I can't help but wonder if that acquired taste was somehow influenced by the people around us? Maybe not, I still despise ketchup on most things. Only thing I'll put it on is hamburgers and hotdogs. Prefer mustard.
As an aside, I miss hamburgers and hotdogs on buns...going gluten-free is not as easy as it looks, you do miss things. And restaurants are killer - went to a mexican one the other day with Wales, we ordered nachos with quacamola. Should be safe, right? Corn chips, right? Even asked the bloody waitress. But guess what, they've made a lighter low-fat chip with wheat flour, it's fluffier. Hard to find by looking. Wales figured it out eating one, so I spent about fifteen minutes sorting through the chips hunting for the heavier ones which must be corn and disregarding the fluffy ones. Annoying to say the least.)
At any rate, societal pressure...
Was reading a chapter from Elliot Aronson's "The Social Animal" for class today and he discussed how in one instance, a university student watching a political debate preferred one candidate to another. He found that particular candidate sincere and interesting. Until he discussed it with his friends, who all preferred the other candidate. Their opinion swayed him. Seen the same thing happen online while discussing the TV show Angel, a poster who disagreed with my opinion regarding a specific episode, stated, but "so and so agrees with me", knowing so and so was a close friend of mine. Popular opinion states you're wrong. The episode was The Girl in Question, an episode of the series which the vast majority of viewers despised, while I adored it. And I got slaughtered for my opinion. The majority was against me, so I was clearly wrong. Same thing happened with another episode of a tv series, this round Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and in reverse, I despised "Storyteller", found it close to unwatchable, still do, can't quite explain why, just didn't work for me. But the majority opinion was the opposite. In both cases I felt alone, isolated from the group, an outsider, and part of me considered changing my opinion in the group's favor or lying.
This happens with movies too. For intstance, Citizen Kane is considered a classic. The best movie ever. And I think I've given it four stars on every site that's ever asked me to rank it. Yet, I have no clue why. I found it incredibly slow when I first watched it. A tad melodramatic in places and the camera work gimmicky. The story is a simple one but like most bio-pics, I felt distanced from the subject. At times watching the movie, I feel more like I am looking at a series of beautifully shot photographs, all of which I remember vividly, but none provide emotional resonance. I'm supposed to like Citizan Kane. If I don't, I might as well give up my membership in the film aficionado's club, assuming there is such a thing. Or film intellectuals club. But, if I am completely honest with myself - no I did not enjoy this movie all that much and consider the director, Orson Wells, to be a tad overrated. Felt the same exact way about Lost in Translation - not enjoyable. I went to sleep during it. Woke up, rewound and almost fell asleep again. The movie did not work for me, personally. The cinematography, while beautiful in places wasn't new - of course I'd just seen Death in Venice, so perhaps I wasn't being fair. Also preferred the director/writer's earlier work, The Virgin Suicides which for me, resonated more. But without exception everyone I knew amongst my peers adored the movie.
How do we deal with societal pressure? While it may sound empowering to say - I step to a different drummer, it's a lonely path and not one many of us want to trode upon. Much easier to lie. To conform to the group's opinion or pretend. If everyone else likes it, does it, believes it - then so should we. Otherwise you feel a bit like an outcast, a troll going up against them and the larger the group, the harder it is. If the group loves someone, you can't abide, you are out of luck. OR in contrast hates someone, you love, you have a similar dilemma.
But that's not the only instance of it - it can be a force for good - such as the societal pressure right now to give to the hurricane relief fund. You can't walk a street in NYC or Brooklyn at the moment without running into people asking for money for the survivors and victims of this disaster. You can't go anywhere in lj without running across a link or a journal entry providing information on how you can help - and more to the point, how you should help. Makes me feel sorry for the folks out there who want to help but can't. Not all of us have the financial means or ability to provide aid. Not everyone can sign up for two hours of red cross training, take three weeks off work and go down to Mississippi to help people. My mother was feeling guilty the other day for not doing this - she has two bad knees and has been in rehab for the last three months and may have to get a knee replacement. I told her, Mom, not everyone can go to Mississippi and help. Contributing money does help you know.
It can also be negative - such as the societal pressure to tease someone in high school that the group doesn't like. Or to lose 100 pounds and look skinny, even if that could hurt you. Not everyone needs to lose a 100 pounds. Not everyone can look like Kate Moss or the skinny models on the runways, nor should they. This week is fashion week in NYC and the pressure to look a certain way, wear certain clothes is heightened.
I feel it at times when I want to do things for myself. Something as simple as taking a pottery class, which I'm regretting telling people about. Should have kept it to myself. Why? Because the automatic response is - so what are you going to make? Make me something...and the pressure is on. My parents, my friends, my family..."oh she's taking a pottery class, this means she'll make me something I can use." Truth is I'm not fantastic at pottery - like all my art, what I plan never works out. I'm at my best when I just let the clay and my subconsicous mind work in tandeum. But societal pressure is you make utilitarian items or make art. If what you create is not something that is considered "good" by utilitarian or art standards, it was a waste of money and/or time. If you tell people that you've written a novel or are writing one - their initial response is "when will it be published" - what is the financial gain. Or if you create something artistic - so is being sold? Have you put it in a gallery? Can you give it to a friend? Is it any good? (Takes the fun out of art in a way...why can't it just be an expression of you or me, just fun, just for you?)
I feel incredibly guilty and angry about this pressure at the same time. It's even hard to explain, I can feel you judging me, harshly as you read this. So I keep deleting and rewriting paragraphs, trying to find the words to make sense of these feelings.
The pressure to make things for others, things that they will love, consider "art", and not besmirk, may be one of the many reasons why I haven't taken pottery in over 20 years or done knitting or any art for quite a while, and is why I got a writer's block - the pressure to create something someone else would love and want, I felt their eyes on me, heard their voices criticising, and well, the muse ran away for safer climes. Society says if you're spending money or time - show something for it. Be productive. It can't just be for "fun". Movies and theater, watching tv, sure, but not creating pottery, not writing stories. I want to share them, I want to share myself with others, but I don't want to deal with the demand, the pressure. Yet, both go hand in hand.
I haven't even taken it yet and I already feel pressure. My parents keep asking how it went and I keep saying I haven't taken it yet. A friend already asked me to make them something. I haven't even bought the supplies, I'm not even sure I can do the wheel. It's like if you decide to take a cooking class, someone says - hey, when are you going to cook me a meal? Ugh. Pressure. What people don't understand about me and art - is I don't do it to make things for people, I do it to relieve stress, to play. To play with clay. I don't plan what I'm going to make when I sit down at the wheel or behind an easel to draw. I see what happens. Do the same thing with my writing. I let it pour forth, without planning, without structure, without forethought. Just a chapter at time, bit by bit, building my story, surprised by the result. A release. My creativity works best that way, as play.
I love the surprise. When I plan it out, have expectations, I get disappointed. I've been planning too much in my life lately, I'm trying right now not to. I've decided to do pottery this year because I desperately want to make things with my hands, to play. With no expectations and no pressure.
It's hard living in a world with people sometimes. I need them. I love them. I want to do things for them, with them. But at the same time I desperately want to do things for myself too, alone. Like I'm two people caged in one body at war. The one side telling me I should put everyone else first and the other saying screw them, take care of yourself a bit. If you don't, no one else will. Truth is I need the balance, finding it is a tight-wire act often without a net.
A poem:
i thank you God for this most amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a true blue dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings, and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
e. e. cummings
On september 11, 2005 that's how I feel. A beautiful two days. One spent on the grass in the park with Wales chatting. One spent lounging in my apartment today. Reading, writing, watching, listening to kids playing outside and seeing the broad expanse of blue in the sky. September 11 weather Wales called it yesterday, for it is the same weather we had on that day, weather we felt mocked us. I have more in some ways than I did then.
And less in others. Since the thing about life is you gain and lose a bit with every passing day, the trick I think is knowing what is gained and lost and taking some role and/or responsibility in the choosing.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 02:28 am (UTC)Not about to speak for others, but I'm not judging you. Write on. I'll read. You're being too hard on yourself.
*** Personally if I were completely honest with myself, I found the movie dull and uninvolving. ***
You're right about social pressure being a factor in shaping one's opinions. The only thing I can say is that it has gotten much easier for me to resist social pressure as I've gotten older. Is it that I feel I have less to lose? I dunno, but I find that I just don't care as much anymore what other people think.
The one way I do allow this kind of pressure to influence me is that if someone whose opinion I have great respect for disagrees with me strongly, then I will generally re-evaluate to see if I missed anything. This is especially true for art related things, such as music or movies. In most cases, I find that I hold on to my opinion, but other times I do see something new that I didn't before, or consider something in an alternate fashion that changes my mind.
An example of this is a film called Au hausard Balthazar, which the vast majority of film critics and historians consider to be a masterpiece. It became available on DVD this last summer, in a Criterion Collection edition, no less. I bought it, and eagerly set to viewing. Afterward, I kept thinking, "what am I missing here?" Yes, I get the point-- life sucks and then you die. We are all like donkeys, just helpless beasts of burden, but God loves us because we suffer, so it's all cool.
There are a number of other things about the film that I find annoying, that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say it was underwhelming for me. I will watch it again in future, after a little distance, because of the high opinion it's held in by others, but if it's still annoying, then it is what it is, yo.
*** It's hard living in a world with people sometimes. I need them. I love them. I want to do things for them, with them. But at the same time I desperately want to do things for myself too, alone. Like I'm two people caged in one body at war. ***
You are right-- it is a balancing act, and it's very hard. But it doesn't need to be a war. It's OK to make time for yourself, and it isn't your job to save everyone. Perhaps it's just me being profoundly cynical, but those people who are feeling bad because they can't afford to contribute to the Katrina relief effort should be reminded that the Feds are already doing it for them-- where do people think those billions of dollars are going to come from?
And does anyone think that Bush will go to Congress and suggest repealing his tax cuts for the wealthy so that the money can go to Katrina victims instead?
Not holding my breath, that's for sure.
Glad to hear you like Dead Like Me-- the second season is even better. I'm going to be very interested in reading what you think about George's mother and sister after some events of S2.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 09:36 am (UTC)Concerning BTVS I came to like some episodes that I didn't really enjoy the first time I saw them, like " Chosen" or "Why We Fight" because discussing them made my brain work and find things to like about them! I even managed to defend "Chosen" a few times on the C&S while I was pretty disappointed when it was shown in 2003. So yes our interactions with the others can change our views on things.
Maybe it's just that some work are more immediately likeable, easier to like, and if we turn off the opinions of society we might miss good stuff...pr not. Same with movies and music. I wasn't that impressed by Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" when I saw it, but I learnt to like it (even though I prefer "Gerry" or "Last days"). I don't think it's because it won an award. I usually don't like Cannes Palme d'Or much. I've never undertsood what people liked about "Dancer in the Dark" for instance.
I am not saying that social pressure doesn't exist, and there might be a little of it in my examples, but it isn't always the reason, and when it is actually the reason of a change, it isn't necessarily bad.
BTW I liked "Lost In Translation" (yet I saw it belatedly because I got annoyed by all the praises it had gotten) but I don't adore "The Virgin Suicides" ! Oh and I'm French and I know that French viewers are supposed to adore Woody Allen, especially in Paris and in intellectual circles, but I've always thought that his films were overrated, and I can't stand many of them. Of course I don't have a car nor a cell phone so my resistance towards social pressure may be high.
So don't feel guilty for not thinking against the majority, but don't feel guilty for changing your opinion either.
I think that what you said about conforming to the group/standing alone mostly depends on our cultural background. This makes me think of Japanese culture actually and the notion of "ushi", of belonging to a group.
I also noticed through movies and tv shows that in American highschools groups are very important: the nerd group, the popular group etc...which doesn't exist here in France. For what I saw it's important for a young person to belong to one of those groups.
In France we don't have those strong feelings of communauty. We even fear what we call "communautarisme". We belong to one Nation and we expect the State to take care of us. The country is built around the notion of State. I think that the idea of State takes the place of the idea of community here so the norm often came from the laws rather than from social pressure, hence the law on religious signs in school. But it's changing.
Sorry for hijacking your entry but your thoughts made me think. :- )