Okay, I'll admit I do remember my parents feeling the need to have "no TV weeks" when I was a kid and being really upset when I had to miss my favorite TV shows (like Full House and Pinky & the Brain.) But I think the combination of my parents' efforts to keep me from being a couch potato and spending a lot of time with friends who enjoyed going out and actually doing things made me eventually prefer to fill the majority of my life with things other than TV.
Brian, however, loves to watch TV and movies. So much so that he is subscribed to basic HD cable, HBO, Showtime, On Demand and NetFlix. I also swear I have seen more movies this year than I have ever seen in my life. And honestly watching TV and movies isn't as bad as I always made it out to be. Because, despite the increase in the amount of television I watch now that I'm dating Brian, I'm productive, I exercise, I read, and I have a social life. All the things I feared I would not do if I became more of a couch potato. Maybe it's because I still make an effort to not become "that person." And I know I always will. But I didn't realize I could still not be that person and also watch TV.
And not all television and movies are garbage. In fact, film is very much an art form. And, while we have seen some "garbage", we've also spent a lot of time watching artistic, beautiful, educational films and TV shows. We have watched some classics (like White Christmas), musicals, Oscar Nominees (like The Artist and Midnight in Paris), and autobiographies. We have also watched documentaries-- since we have access to them now, I really wanted to incorporate them in to our "TV time." And I'm glad we did. I always feel like I learn so much from them.
Last night I decided I wanted to watch the last two documentaries I needed in order to check it off my bucket list for the year. It was a stormy night and Brian had decided not to work late, so we made low carb tortilla pizzas, drank wine and spent some time inside. It was a perfect night for it.
This time I let HIM choose them-- I'm pretty sure I've picked all of them out up until now. And it was a total hit and miss. The first one was one of the best documentaries I've seen yet... and the second was one of the worst. :)
The documentary consisted of several small stories, which I think are also in the book. The one that I recognized from the podcast was about how, statistically, the way you raise your children does not determine how they will turn out. Taking them to different sports and educational activities does not actually affect whether they succeed or not. What does impact them, however, is how nice you treat other people-- for example, your waitress. The documentary went further than the podcast did on the topic, however, and discussed the impact their name has on their future. Statistically, people with more common names tend to be more successful than people with unique names. They told a story about a girl whose mother intended to name her "Tempestt" after her favorite actress on the Cosby Show, but was actually named "Temptress" because her mother didn't know how to spell. When the girl grew up, she did poorly in school, became sexually promiscuous and got in to a lot of trouble with the law. While people, including the court, suggested that it was because of her unfortunate name, economists concluded that it wasn't the name that caused her to live a life of crime, it was the socio-economic class she was born in to. Names are very closely tied to culture, and unique names like LaRhonda and Precious are more often used in lower class cultures, while higher class cultures tend to use names like Ashley and Jennifer. So while stastically these names may be associated with crime, it is actually the culture they grow up in that makes a difference.
There were many other similar stories in the documentary, including how crime rates may have decreased because of the legalization of abortion (which is a terrible) and how the probability of winning a match helped prove that sumo wrestling in Japan was rigged-- which began to cripple a huge part of their culture. The whole thing was entertaining. I definitely recommend watching it.
The second movie Brian picked was "What the Bleep Do We Know." Brian has been fascinated with Quantum Physics since well before I met him, and I have definitely heard him go on and on and on about it before. He believed this documentary was the one he had watched a long time ago that made him become interested in it. After we watched it, though, he decided it was definitely not the same one he watched.
I'll briefly try to describe what Brian thinks about Quantum Physics (although I don't fully understand it): it's a scientific theory about how we have some control over what will happen to us. If you fully believe something will happen, then it can happen. Brian ties it a lot to faith and says he thinks that's why God says "if you have enough faith, you can move mountains" and explains why people in the Bible were able to walk on water. He said that doesn't make them less miraculous, it just shows that Jesus understood the world and how it works far better than we did. I could buy that. Maybe. I can't really say I know enough about science to really fully believe it or not, so I remain neutral on the topic.
But this documentary was weird. It was a little about science and a lot about spirituality. They spent some time explaining how our cells can retain the emotions we feel, which can determine what our bodies subconsciously do (like causing a sad situation, since the body is used to responding to sad situations)... and then they would say something totally off topic like "so that's why there is no God and we are actually gods" and not really explain how they came to that conclusion in any way-- scientifically OR philosophically. No explanation. Just a bunch of random spiritual statements mixed with the scientific theory.
On top of that, they tried to make the whole thing parallel a story about a deaf girl "finding herself." There was hardly a plot to the story and a lot of it didn't make sense. The weirdest part, by far, was when she was photographing a wedding, got really drunk and began dancing with all these green cell monsters. The next morning she woke up and someone had slipped pictures of her under the door that made her thighs look fat. So then she went in to the bathroom, screamed at the mirror and shattered it. Then squeezed her toothpaste until it exploded all over the walls. Her weird cell things told her that she actually was beautiful, however, and then all of a sudden she began to draw hearts all over her body. Her roommate came in and asked for toothpaste and she used her hand to take some off of the wall and put it on to her roommate's hand. It was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. If you want to learn more about Quantum Physics, don't watch this documentary.
Documentaries, even bad ones, are interesting to me. While I don't always agree with the message that is being delivered, I feel like it's always good to expose yourself to different ideas. After watching 6 documentaries this year for my bucket list, I now know a lot more about the quantum physics "religion", the affect your name has on your children, the street art culture, the lost boys of Sudan, and the American food industry. Some of this information greatly impacted my life and what I believe. But more than anything, it helped me understand other people and what their lives are like. Which is just as important.
Watching TV and films in itself is not a bad thing. It really depends on how much you watch and what you watch. And while I used to believe watching TV would cause me to be the kind of person I never wanted to be, this year I've found the opposite to be true.
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