Movie Quote of the Week

You know, in my world, Casey, there were limitless oceans as far as the eye could see. A beautiful home until it started to dry up. So I escaped, came here and met you. All of you. All of you were different from the others. You were lost and lonely, just like me. And I thought that maybe I could give you a taste of my world: a world without anger, without fear, without attitude. Where the underachiever goes home to parents who care. The jock can be smart, the ugly duckling beautiful, and the class wuss doesn't have to live in terror. And the new girl -- Well, she can just fit right in with people who are just like her. You see, Casey, even Marybeth's feelings can be hurt... by a bunch of pathetic, lost, little outcasts... who truly believe that their disaffected lonely life... is the only way they can survive. I can make you a part of something so special, Casey, so perfect, so fearless. Don't you want that, Casey?
--Laura Harris, The Faculty (1998)

Quote of the Week

Seldom do people see themselves in the words of others.
--Tom Miller, The Panama Hat Trail: A Journey from South America

TV Quote of the Week

Being different might not be as rewarding as you think it is.
--Kristanna Loken, Painkiller Jane, "Toy Soldiers"

TV Quote of the Week

I’m not strange. I’m just different. There’s a difference.
--Tommy Knight, The Sarah Jane Adventures, “The Day of the Clown: Part 1”

America, C'est les Autres

You know what the biggest problem in America is right now? Other people.

Apparently, if the Internet is to believed, it's other people who are responsible for racism, it's other people who are responsible for the mortgage crisis, it's other people who are responsible for global warming and it's other people who are responsible for the drug problem.

Of course, no one ever admits to being one of those other people. And even if they did, there's no guarantee that they would change. Plus it's very hard to control the actions of other people or at least to control them as well as we can control our own actions.

Yet it sure is nice that we are all agreed on the root cause of all our problems. Especially since it spares us the trouble of having to examine any responsibility we might have for such problems.

Of course, there's always the chance that someday we might actually get around to solving all those problems I just mentioned. But undoubtedly, those other people would just mess things up again...

A Modern Mantra

Persistence is futile.

Question authority. Except for those authorities who ask you to question authorities.

Give up your religion. Your sacred cows. Your quaint traditions. Your minor tongue.

And adopt ours.

Your way is superstition.

Our way is progress.

Your way is hopelessly flawless.

Our way is always perfect even when it’s wrong.

Think for yourself.

But if you don’t come to the same conclusions that we do, then prepare to be dismissed as an idiot.

If you think like we do, you’re obviously nothing more than a wannabe.

But if you dare to think independently, then there must be something wrong with you.

If you succeed in life despite dismissing our advice, then you’re lucky.

But when we succeed, it’s obviously the result of our own effort -- and nothing more.

An insult against us must be repaid instantly.

But an insult against you can wait forever to be avenged.

It’s not like you’re important.

It’s not like you’re intelligent.

It’s not like you’re deserving of the same good things we take for granted as our due.

And why you don’t want to be more like us, we’ll never understand.

Le Matérialisme, C’est les Autres

Ho-hum. It’s that time of year again. The time when all the good folks on the Net who have been bragging all year about all their nice stuff start sermonizing about the evils of materialism.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m unsympathetic to such sermons. The older I get, the more obvious it becomes that there should be a lot more to one’s life than just having nice stuff. After all, the last time I was in the hospital, I wasn’t comforted all that much by all the books I owned or my VCR or even my PC. But a simple visit from a friend or relative would mean a lot to me. And despite the fact that I often like to fancy myself a loner, there’s a part of me that deeply craves the comfort of human company. Thus a simple home-made breakfast with my former bride-to-be meant more to me than any dinner I could order on my own at the fanciest restaurant in town. And I had more respect for the single mom I knew who had no desire to spend her money on a DVD player when her old VCR would entertain her kids just as well than I did for all those people who owned the latest techno-gadget.

So why am I so cynical about the anti-materialism crowd? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that most anti-materialism sermons don’t really concern materialism per se. They only concern other people’s materialism. To paraphrase French writer Jean-Paul Sartre, le matérialisme, c’est les autres (materialism is other people). Thus we get endless lectures about how awful it is that so many people own big houses and big cars -- from the same people who brag about their new Blu-ray recorder or their new high-definition TV or their new iPod and so on and so forth. Not once do such people rarely acknowledge the fact that not everyone can afford the items they possess. Nor do they show any respect for the traditional notion that it’s in bad taste to brag about all the nice stuff you got. Indeed, it seems as if it’s become more and more popular to brag about being what is called an early adopter (a person who buys an item before it is generally popular). The idea apparently being that the ability to afford the latest such gadget is akin to godliness, and that any acknowledgment of the economic factors that might keep others from purchasing such items -- and that might make bragging about the ownership of such items seem gauche -- should be ignored at all costs.

I don’t pretend that there was ever a Golden Age in which such hypocrisy did not exist. Contrary to popular belief, twentieth-century Americans did not invent materialism nor do we have a monopoly on it. But when you grow up around people who used to be poor and grow up hearing constant lectures on the need to save one’s money and to not buy the latest item, one can’t help but be amused by those anti-materialists who seem to want to have it both ways: to brag about all the nice stuff they have and to attack those other people who have the bad taste to own more nice stuff than they do.

Perhaps that is the reason why I wasn’t so quick to join the crowds of Internet posters who have praised the heck out of anti-materialist movies like American Beauty and Fight Club. Because deep down, I sensed that the makers of those movies -- and all too many of the people who praised them -- weren’t really that sincere about their anti-materialism messages. I wish they were. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for them to prove that they are.