Tonight I watched Singin' in the Rain (1952), a movie I've seen over and over again since I was young. As with many of the classic musical films I've been rewatching this past year, I feel I have a proper grasp on the plot now. How interesting to see a film I've always taken for granted while newly aware of how people feel about it! On Twitter, which I have yet to escape, I find myself surrounded by the discourse of real movie fans - about storytelling, about acting, about visuals (a lot about visuals). Through my relatively brief career as Person on the Internet I have flitted from circle to circle and platform to platform and discovered what people who care about art actually think. For example, it was only a few years ago that I truly grasped that people care about pop music. The little It's a Wonderful Life (1946) craze this holiday season clued me in to the fact that people care about old films. Isn't it crazy? I feel like up till recently we were all about critiquing the stories of the past and building a better future - but then, I also didn't know we cared about the music that was currently on the radio - I suppose I don't know what I thought.
I'm picking this apart too much. I don't know to what extent I should assume I am an outsider. Do you feel this too? I guess this is just called "discovering new interests". But this kind of stuff comes with big adjustments. It changes who you are. And the internet circles one trips into aren't always so insular. Sometimes they're temporal stages of how the internet on average thinks - like what behavior is considered acceptable at a party, or what's funny and not funny, or if we should like Ice Spice.
It's like this. It is very difficult to be naive. When you don't know how things work, you have to depend on others to teach you about them. I do not have the privilege of filtering out a piece of knowledge or advice. I hardly ever have the authority to judge what person's opinion is worth my time. Every opinion is a very big deal. An opinion can be a grand and satisfying affirmation, or it can be a cruel rejection. The rejections hurt bad. Scully from The X Files said, in the season 1 episode "Beyond the Sea", in which her father dies, that "there are other fathers". There are fathers on the internet, opinion leaders, upon whose word I hang, even if I have never interacted with them once in my life, on- or offline.
I feel myself overflowing with beliefs that are not mine. In the case of morality, I want to be influenced: I almost always leave myself at the whim of someone else's idea of what is right, which causes me much confusion and fear. But I'm distressed by what I thought about the color grading of Singin' in the Rain. On film Twitter, the vibrant Technicolor look of old movies is commonly compared to the muddy color grading of modern shows. To some extent I had probably just learned some new way to express my love for the movie, but I also felt inauthentic. I could not tell if I really in my heart of hearts cared about color grading. I never would have before!
I'm not exactly sure how I should feel about Singin' in the Rain, or It's a Wonderful Life, or any movie I've seen lately. I mean, I know how I feel about them, especially since the latter made me cry. But I feel my own opinion to be tainted by the opinions of others.
So do I give a fuck about Charli XCX? - perhaps there's a remnant of arbitrary elitism there. I used to listen to Mendelssohn 24/7 and now I care about Charli XCX? But also... do I give a fuck about Charli XCX? And do you understand my meaning here?
My journey these past few years has been to discover my own opinion, to discover how to feel strongly about things. I think I've felt strongly about things in the past, but not often so strongly as to ever seriously think those feelings mattered. Nowadays I fixate on opinions and the process of forming them. I form them loudly and carefully. I want to be honest and I don't want to be misrepresented. Please don't be mad at me.
What's your favorite old movie?
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Be kind plz