03 October 2002 - 11:58 a.m.

"Do you work in television?"

"No, but I watch a lot of it."

"I can tell. You're creative."

-Wayne's World

I always think of this exchange when someone breaks the cardinal rule of film studies/screenwriting and claims to know "all about movies" because they "watch'em all the time."

Um, no. This is like saying you know all about biology because you breathe all day. This is like saying that you have mastered physics because your house is full of matter. Granted, a lot of textual interpretation is intuitive. And the rest is like fucking algebra. It's supposed to be hard.

People who claim to have an entire medium "down" simply due to their life experiences are the worst kinds of scholars I can think of. Why should anyone respect cultural studies when it produces angsty 20-year-olds who fancy themselves geniuses because they like to park their asses in front of a VCR?

Why am I so bitter right now? I can't really go into it, because that would involve lots of passive-aggressive digs which I try to avoid in my diary. But I will say that: 1. I don't respect anybody who says they know movies just because they watch them. Even if it's true. 2. I find myself having a very violent and angry reaction to someone who did say this, and a lot of other inexcusably pretentious things. At first I though the arrogance was getting to me, but as I write this, I realize that the reason I'm really angry is because this arrogance was being used to cheapen something I care about.

And 3: I'm nice, but I'm not easily impressed. Sorry. Try again.

What I'm wearing:

What I'm reading:

What I'm doing after this: