You all may already know that i don’t watch TV ~ i don’t even have a working TV in my house.
i might watch something at someone else’s house. Or – if i’m in a bar with TV’s, i get fascinated and can’t quit watching it. But i haven’t watched TV at home in going on 15 years.
This is not necessarily a virtue, and i’m not trying to be a TV snob. i’m sure there are lots of great shows on and there’s the History channel and Discovery and so on. i just don’t watch them.
Often, after i’ve disclosed that, people will say “What about movies? Don’t you watch movies?”
And i’ll say, “Yeah, i watch movies, just not a whole lot.”
That’s pretty much a lie.
i don’t ever watch movies unless someone else specifically says, “Hey, here’s a movie, we’re going to watch it.” Then i do.
Sir X likes movies. He likes watching them at home, and He likes going to the movies.
So i’ve been to one movie already with Him. The Three Musketeers. It was ok.
We went to another one last night.
i didn’t know we were going to the movies til late. i knew we were doing something at 7, but He texts me about 5:00 and says, “How about a movie and then dinner?’
i’m fine with that ~ delighted, in fact ~ and tell him so.
Then He says He’s thinking we could see The Imposters, and i should go look at the trailers for it.
So i do.
O. My. Goddess.
It’s all war. It’s a war movie.
And really, Ms. Constance had already warned me that a monk gets set on fire in the very beginning.
YIKES!!!!
This is NOT going to be my kind of movie. That much is clear. So i look at the movie listings ~ and really, there isn’t anything else at the theaters we’re going to that i want to see instead.
So ~ i can do this, i think. It’s not that big a deal, i’ll just close my eyes at the bad parts.
Sir picks me up, and it’s not til we’re almost there that He says, “So did you look at the trailers? Think you’re gonna like it?”
And i say, gently, “Omg, NO, i think it’s going to be awful.”
He looks a little stunned. “How come?”
i say, “Um, do i seem like the kind of person who’s going to enjoy a lot of gratuitous violence? It’s a WAR movie!”
And He laughs, and says, “No, I guess you don’t seem like the kind of person who enjoys ‘gratuitous violence.'” It’s clear that He enjoys that phrase a lot though, and it amuses me too.
But it’s ok, and really, i’m ok with going.
Then it starts.
Omg, omg, omg.
Ms. Constance was sooooo right. It was awful. Awful. People just kept getting tortured and killed and tortured and killed. Nice people. Good people. People who should have been safe.
It was awful.
And what i’d kind of forgotten, and what Sir couldn’t have known, is that i get real caught up in movies. It’s a lot like it’s actually happening, right there in front of me.
So i spend most of the movie with my face buried in Sir’s shoulder.
About 15 minutes into it, He suggests we leave. But i say, no, i can hang.
And i did. {laughing…} i just didn’t see much of it.
He held my hand, and patted me, and i knew if i’d asked to go, we’d have been out of there, so that was good. But omg.
i’d forgotten that movies could do that to me. And it seems silly to me that they do affect me so strongly. So i’m glad we didn’t leave early.
Sir said He didn’t think it was silly, and that He’d pick a different kind of movie in the future, which is ok with me too. He said He was surprised it was so hard for me because i deal with real life bad stuff all the time, and He thought i’d be more de-sensitized, but clearly i’m not.
i think ~ sometimes it seems like ~ when that happens in a movie, it’s like i’m reacting to everything i’ve heard and felt, not just what’s in the movie. Although, in this case, what’s in the movie was totally awful and traumatic enough all by itself.
But it’s kind of like ~ if there’s a scene that makes me feel ‘life is really unfair, and really bad things happen to good people, and it’s so sad and painful’ ~ if there’s a scene like that, it seems like i feel all the unfair, painful sad stories i’ve ever heard.
And i’ve heard some sad, painful, ‘life is unfair’ stories.
The weight of that seems almost unbearable.
The truth is, i’ve avoided movies for years because i don’t want to feel that in a movie theater. What i say to myself is that i feel it often enough in real life, i don’t need to go to the movies for it.
But ~
~ and this has just come to me ~
is there some value in feeling it in the movie theater? Is there some cathartic release that would actually be helpful?
i don’t know.
Sir was apologetic about last night, although really, there was no reason for Him to be. He had no way of knowing. And i’d forgotten just how bad it could be.
i’ll still never be a fan of “gratuitous violence.” But maybe i need to rethink my beliefs about movies, expand my movie horizons…
