So let's talk about emotions, shall we?
This is Timmy. As I mentioned on Tuesday, Timmy was my souvenir from Disneyland in 2008- we had gone in October, so the park was Halloween-themed. And being a fan of both The Haunted Mansion and at the time The Nightmare Before Christmas, I decided to pick him up (along with a couple other assorted bits and bobs).
Let's focus on that name for a bit...Timmy. I think I may have 3-4 different toys in the room all named "Timmy" because it's the default name I attach to something whose character I perceive as being innocent or naive. We'll get to the precise reason of why that is when we get to the most important Timmy, but I find it interesting that a particular name can stir up connections and emotions in you.
Well, to be honest, that's not really that interesting nor unusual, but I wanted a good segue into the fact that I get emotionally attached to things very easily and I'm not quite sure why. Four posts into this blog and I think we reach the basic answer to why I have so many toys in the first place- 'cause I'm too emotionally attached to them to get rid of them. And there are multitudes of reasons for that- intense childhood nostalgia, actual interest and fascination with some of these toys, Toy Story- and I'm sure I'll find instances to elaborate more on these as we progress through my room. But I think for now I want to focus just on the emotional investments- to start with, why I'm apparently a sucker for anything that has eyes.
That's not a joke. It's almost dangerous for me to linger past a stuffed animal shelf at a thrift store because I will inevitably get emotionally attached to one and absolutely have to buy it (a quick look through my room discovered 4 stuffed animals picked up that way). And I often maintain- the simple reason for this is they have eyes. And somehow that renders me unable to maintain control over my finances and I must have it. Lord help me when I move out onto my own and can start buying pets for myself.
I mean, the reasoning for this seems rather simple- eyes are the window to the soul and all that, and having eyes almost seems to indicate a certain sense of life and soul in something- that there's depth and substance and, well, emotion in what you're looking at. And that allows me to get invested, and inevitably, when I get invested, I start creating a story. That toys' thoughts, emotions, some sort of history. It all starts forming and it becomes impossible for me to ignore it.
I mean, you want to know something crazy about me- and I mean legitimately crazy? I build LEGOs a lot and for the past few years have sorted them out by piece & color for easy searching during the building. Well, whenever I happen to stumble across the odd mis-sorted piece here and there, I find myself unable to put it back, because immediately my mind starts forming a history about how it feels at home here and I can't take it away from its new-found friends and family, and it finally feels accepted and loved and-
It's a freaking LEGO brick.
Let's be honest, that's a little chronic. I mean, I guess I just have this persistent need to create stories and histories, and then my emotional side gets really easily attached to those stories and then it becomes hard for me to ignore them. I honestly don't know why those two things happen the way they do, but I guess that's part of why I started this blog...maybe by exploring some of these stories I can figure out why I am the way I am.
Because another thing that characterized myself as a kid (and to some extent now) is getting super emotionally invested in stories- but often in really weird ways. Like watching Snoopy, Come Home and getting totally sad for Lila because she doesn't get Snoopy in the end. Or nowadays getting invested in a really dumb movie like The Dream Team enough that I watch it to the end despite having figured out fairly early on that this is pretty bad. I always got super wrapped up and invested in films...and in a lot of ways I think that's what led to my interest in stories and pursuing a career in, well, now it's scriptwriting.
So you know what, I'm gonna be a little unorthodox and skip ahead a couple toys. 'Cause the past couple have been a lot of introspection and reflection, and while that's all fine and well, I think it's about time for a break. So come Tuesday I'm gonna look at a toy with some actual stories attached to it, and start to tell a little bit about the past and histories of my toys. A little bit about the saga of Toy World.
If you can get emotionally invested, then the film is neither dumb or bad.
ReplyDeleteRemember before when you said you hate being wrong? I think that's why we disagree so much, because you've been taught by so many people that there is always a right way and a wrong way to make films etc. across the board, when the truth is different things work at different times for different art. It's all contextual, and even if something might have a number of technical flaws, if it resonates with you on an emotional level then it still counts as at least a good movie. That's really the point of art, whether it's film, canvas, ink, data, or sculpture (toys), to bring out some emotional connection, even it it's just enjoyment at a few hours well-wasted.
I should add, in case it's unclear, that I'm really loving these posts. Please keep it up.
There's an element to which I agree with you, but also an element to which emotional investment is almost irrelevant to the issue of quality in fiction because the fact is for many people (like myself) it's extremely easy to invest themselves in stories regardless of whether or not the given story has earned it (I mean, in addition to that consider that we might often be in different moods that affect our appreciation of the same piece of art...I used to love "Love, Actually" but after breaking up with my girlfriend found it absolutely insufferable. And there are tons of films I enjoy when watching it with friends that I later watch and go "well, this is crap"...objectively it's the same movie but subjectively I've approached it in different ways that affect my subjective enjoyment of the film).
DeleteI mean, in the end I think it comes down to whether or not we believe in an objectivity to art...I obviously do, and I think you do as well based on some of the things you've said before. But I think the important thing here is that a piece of art being objectively bad doesn't make it worthless. All art of any quality has worth of some kind, and that's the sort of thing that's best judged on the individual, subjective level.
And thank you...I'm doing my best to try and keep writing these but goodness gracious it's hard to maintain a consistence schedule. I might be shifting to every-other-week since it might work better for me.
Schedule slippage is a mighty foe, my young padawan.
DeleteAs I've said before, my belief is that objective criteria for criticism of art is very limited and extremely dependant on context. But this isn't the place for this - I'm sorry I brought it up, really. This blog runs on happy faces.