Why Movies Are Less Appealing

Without going into a discussion about Avatar, Howard Tayler just helped me to realize something.

I expect to enjoy it, but also to recall at least one or two better tellings of the same general tale, the same morality play. For most audience members, however, this will feel brand new and wonderful.

I’ve been considering why I don’t seem to go to nearly as many movies as I once did.  I fully realize that most stores can fall into a handful of general categories, but that doesn’t bother me as long as they try to tell the story in a new way.

Unfortunately, I think my expectations of movies has shifted.  I don’t think they’re trying hard enough to add something to the genre, especially when the director/writer uses the film as a soapbox for his personal views without acknowledging that there might be another perspective.

Here’s where I bake your noodle.  I like South Park precisely because it does that.  It can look at the use of a word and attack it from all sides, and defend as well.  In a recent episode they managed to examine, in a half hour, how the use of the term “fag” is inappropriate, historically negative towards many different groups, why it’s not a crisis of culture that the term is used, and why it’s only applied to certain types of groups.

That’s some complex shit.  Oh, and it was funny.

So if you can’t put a new twist on it, at least give it an uplifting ending.  Then, again, I may not be the target market any more.