sunnyskywalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sunnyskywalker) wrote2013-08-18 06:32 pm
sunnyskywalker) wrote2013-08-18 06:32 pm
The Paradox of Low Expectations
Inevitably, whenever someone expresses discontent about how a movie/book/TV show had plot holes you could drive a semi truck through, or characters so shallow they evaporated before your eyes, or big ugly smears of sexism/racism/homophobia/the rest of the vile package, someone will pop up and say, “But it’s just a fluffy movie/book/TV show and isn’t meant to be serious! You’re expecting too much!”
Yeah, about that. I have tried lowering my expectations to enjoy things. This is difficult, because I do not actually go into a movie, love it, and then spend three hours afterward thinking of reasons I should actually hate it; my brain automatically notices lots of those problems while I am watching it, without my prompting. (“But wait, head injuries don’t work like that! What happened to Character X, who could have solved this problem in two seconds? Is she taking a nap? Why didn’t they just…?”) But sometimes I manage it, mainly by means of assuming a movie will be absolute shit and then being presently surprised when it has redeeming qualities after all, and it seemed to help… at first.
For instance, take Star Trek XI. I expected it to be terrible. Like, I expected them to have Uhura show up for that scene from the trailer where she’s in her underwear, feel conflicted about Kirk being kind of hot but a "bad boy" (oh how I hate that term, used to excuse so much reckless and downright vicious behavior), and maybe shriek a bit and mope about her inevitable love triangle. Imagine my surprise when she outright refused to be drawn into a love triangle! Like, never expressed the slightest romantic interest in Kirk ever! And if you squinted, she almost got to show some expertise at something and have concerns outside of romance! Also, there were moments where the movie kind of made sense, and some funny bits, and it was pretty to look at and good at punching emotional buttons. (Movie, I know what you are doing with that bit where George Kirk is about to die and knows it and wants to talk to his family for one last moment of togetherness and happiness. It is incredibly manipulative. And I know it and it still works on me. So unfair...)
That’s where the problem started. My expectations were so low that I ended up liking the movie despite hating about 65% of it, because it was so much better than the turd I had been expecting. So when I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness, my expectations – despite my efforts to convince myself that really, this movie would be far worse than the last, terminal sequelitis so don’t even hope – had been raised to “slightly better than not completely shit, because having established a bunch of stuff they can now improve on their efforts by a barely-visible margin.” Alas, STiD was at that very same level of “not completely shit, from a certain point of view,” and there I was, disappointed again. Perversely, my initial low expectations caused my expectations to be too high because I was so desperately latching on to the bits that were actually decent. Just trying to shut my brain on and enjoy it made me get more invested and more disappointed than if I’d simply gone in with high expectations to begin with and written the movie off as a disappointing travesty which I never needed to think about again after I ranted about it on the internet.
This has happened with just about every series, every YA anything, that I have encountered in the last few years. Fringe? Hey, Olivia is kind of interesting, and they let her be a lead without even dressing her in skintight outfits! Astrid could be cool if she ever got to do anything! They got to be an awesome detective/secretary duo in that drug-induced musical episode! Nina is an awesomely ambiguous and powerful middle-aged woman who doesn’t get killed off right away, humiliated to “bring her down a notch,” or forced into an all-good or all-evil box! And oh by the way there are like a bazillion other plot-important men and basically no other important women (except the occasional cameos various moms and sisters and nieces, who are awesome and all, but… cameos), so the women hardly ever get to talk to each other or work together. And now there is a baby plot, and blah blah blah motherhood is destiny universes depend on marrying the right version of a person zzzz. The Last Apprentice Hey, the text is acknowledging that the Spook is kind of jackass, and his treatment of Alice is wrong and actually more likely to drive her to the dark than anything! And part of Tom’s hero-ness is slowly recognizing that his mentor is wrong! And what do you mean the Spook keeps his girlfriend drugged and locked in the basement and there is NO FOLLOW THROUGH ON THIS EVEN BOOKS LATER THIS IS SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP. No really, keeping someone drugged and locked up “for her own safety honest” ought to be the kind of thing that prompts a serious re-evaluation of just how good and on the side of light your mentor is. I can understand if it doesn’t happen immediately, but when two or three books later it barely rates a mention in the “the plot till now” recap pages? No. Just no. And it looks like now Alice is going dark(ish) after all so the Spook can be right, and don’t even get me started on the teen witch leader whose on-screen actions are largely motivated by romantic obsession over Tom, or the ruthless witch assassin who becomes their helpful not-quite-friend because of her tragic backstory involving her precious bay-beeeee.
Perhaps fortunately, a couple of my last book club books have been truly horrendous, so I can get my critical mind back into fighting shape and stop clinging to any scraps of non-shittiness a story deigns to throw my way.
Am I unusual in this reaction?
And more importantly, does anyone have recommendations of actually good things to read and watch?
Yeah, about that. I have tried lowering my expectations to enjoy things. This is difficult, because I do not actually go into a movie, love it, and then spend three hours afterward thinking of reasons I should actually hate it; my brain automatically notices lots of those problems while I am watching it, without my prompting. (“But wait, head injuries don’t work like that! What happened to Character X, who could have solved this problem in two seconds? Is she taking a nap? Why didn’t they just…?”) But sometimes I manage it, mainly by means of assuming a movie will be absolute shit and then being presently surprised when it has redeeming qualities after all, and it seemed to help… at first.
For instance, take Star Trek XI. I expected it to be terrible. Like, I expected them to have Uhura show up for that scene from the trailer where she’s in her underwear, feel conflicted about Kirk being kind of hot but a "bad boy" (oh how I hate that term, used to excuse so much reckless and downright vicious behavior), and maybe shriek a bit and mope about her inevitable love triangle. Imagine my surprise when she outright refused to be drawn into a love triangle! Like, never expressed the slightest romantic interest in Kirk ever! And if you squinted, she almost got to show some expertise at something and have concerns outside of romance! Also, there were moments where the movie kind of made sense, and some funny bits, and it was pretty to look at and good at punching emotional buttons. (Movie, I know what you are doing with that bit where George Kirk is about to die and knows it and wants to talk to his family for one last moment of togetherness and happiness. It is incredibly manipulative. And I know it and it still works on me. So unfair...)
That’s where the problem started. My expectations were so low that I ended up liking the movie despite hating about 65% of it, because it was so much better than the turd I had been expecting. So when I went to see Star Trek: Into Darkness, my expectations – despite my efforts to convince myself that really, this movie would be far worse than the last, terminal sequelitis so don’t even hope – had been raised to “slightly better than not completely shit, because having established a bunch of stuff they can now improve on their efforts by a barely-visible margin.” Alas, STiD was at that very same level of “not completely shit, from a certain point of view,” and there I was, disappointed again. Perversely, my initial low expectations caused my expectations to be too high because I was so desperately latching on to the bits that were actually decent. Just trying to shut my brain on and enjoy it made me get more invested and more disappointed than if I’d simply gone in with high expectations to begin with and written the movie off as a disappointing travesty which I never needed to think about again after I ranted about it on the internet.
This has happened with just about every series, every YA anything, that I have encountered in the last few years. Fringe? Hey, Olivia is kind of interesting, and they let her be a lead without even dressing her in skintight outfits! Astrid could be cool if she ever got to do anything! They got to be an awesome detective/secretary duo in that drug-induced musical episode! Nina is an awesomely ambiguous and powerful middle-aged woman who doesn’t get killed off right away, humiliated to “bring her down a notch,” or forced into an all-good or all-evil box! And oh by the way there are like a bazillion other plot-important men and basically no other important women (except the occasional cameos various moms and sisters and nieces, who are awesome and all, but… cameos), so the women hardly ever get to talk to each other or work together. And now there is a baby plot, and blah blah blah motherhood is destiny universes depend on marrying the right version of a person zzzz. The Last Apprentice Hey, the text is acknowledging that the Spook is kind of jackass, and his treatment of Alice is wrong and actually more likely to drive her to the dark than anything! And part of Tom’s hero-ness is slowly recognizing that his mentor is wrong! And what do you mean the Spook keeps his girlfriend drugged and locked in the basement and there is NO FOLLOW THROUGH ON THIS EVEN BOOKS LATER THIS IS SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP. No really, keeping someone drugged and locked up “for her own safety honest” ought to be the kind of thing that prompts a serious re-evaluation of just how good and on the side of light your mentor is. I can understand if it doesn’t happen immediately, but when two or three books later it barely rates a mention in the “the plot till now” recap pages? No. Just no. And it looks like now Alice is going dark(ish) after all so the Spook can be right, and don’t even get me started on the teen witch leader whose on-screen actions are largely motivated by romantic obsession over Tom, or the ruthless witch assassin who becomes their helpful not-quite-friend because of her tragic backstory involving her precious bay-beeeee.
Perhaps fortunately, a couple of my last book club books have been truly horrendous, so I can get my critical mind back into fighting shape and stop clinging to any scraps of non-shittiness a story deigns to throw my way.
Am I unusual in this reaction?
And more importantly, does anyone have recommendations of actually good things to read and watch?