I watched a movie last week, one that had a rating of 2.5 for my roommate and I before I saw it. I felt it deserved more than that, and as I rated the movie, I happened to glance down at some of the reviews. The first one I read talked about how they were puzzled at this movie having such low ratings when they found it to be delightful. It seems I wasn't the only person who felt this way.
I've talked about this on the blog before. We live in a culture of opinion addiction. Because we have forums and comment sections and the ability to Like things on Facebook, not to mention the countless other avenues for opinion sharing, we all feel like we have the right, hell, almost the DUTY to give out our opinions all the time to everyone. We also feel we have the to give these opinions about things even if we have absolutely no idea what we're talking about.
And yes, I realize I'm giving my opinion right now, but consider the difference. This is a blog framed and shaped around my opinions. It is online and accessible, but for the most part, people have to seek it out. Honestly, you have to actually give a crap about my opinion before you would even bother reading the blog.
This opinion thing caused me some problems where the book I am reading is concerned. This book is the fifth in a series and I started looking at forums about it before I got to this book. People were very critical of this book and of the characters in it. They more or less acted like the characters did nothing in these books except horrible and immoral things. . . . and not in a fun or entertaining way. I stupidly allowed these opinions to sour me on the idea of the book. I felt heartsick about some of these people becoming what it was said they became.
I'm reading the book now and I actually find that I disagree with so many of the opinions concerning it. I've found the book to be very good and don't think the actions of the characters were as horrible as everyone claimed. I don't even think a lot of the decisions they made were bad. Had I been in their positions and possessed of their worldview, I would have made many of these same decisions myself.
In a way, I want to be annoyed with the people on the forums. However, I realize that if I should be annoyed at anyone, it's me. I allowed their opinions to taint my feelings about the book, in ways that I find to be completely baseless now that I've read it. I also should have kept in mind some of the basic rules of other people's opinions.
For instance, people's opinions are usually very filtered through their own world view. I think most of us try to NOT be this way, but quite often we fail. We look at the world through our own lens and being impartial is quite difficult. Most of us don't even function in the same reality.
For example, in this book, there are many occasions where the queen is announced before coming to court and all of her titles are called out. There are a lot of titles. When I read this, and noticed how the repetition of the titles happened quite frequently, I felt that the character took notice of this because she felt burdened by all of the titles. She wore each one of them like a 200 lb weight on her back. She was being crushed by the titles. I see it this way because my world view is one where too much being expected of you is deeply burdensome and tiring.
However, I have read other people say that they hated this character because she kept insisting they say her titles all the time. This person felt like she was bragging. I'm not sure why. Maybe they don't like women with a lot of responsibilities. Maybe they hate it when pretty girls are given too many gifts and crowns.
Note the difference though. Same character. Same books. I see her as someone being crushed by her duties. This other person sees her as a vain braggart. It is our perception of the character that creates our own reality of her.
Look, I'm not saying that the reviews, analysis, and discussions one finds on the internet are all bad. In many ways, they are positive and helpful. When I was thinking about buying something a while back, I read the reviews of it and realized it had a whole list of problems I hadn't even considered. In this case, the reviews saved me a lot of money.
I think it's a good idea that when we are reading the opinions of others, we take make sure to consider what may be framing and shaping these opinions. We all see the world as we see it. One person's 2.5 Stars on a movie may be your 4 Star movie. Sometimes we just need to take the plunge and find out for ourselves.
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