Can you Relate?

 

My friend Leonard likes to keep an eye on the stupidity on the internet, which does occasionally make me ask when he has time to do the organizing stuff that he does, but, to be fair, he usually stays out of things involving celebrities and cats.Some of the snark is not obvious to me either, as it involves things from his city, to which I’ve never been more than a tourist(remember being a tourist? Hard as it is for me, I miss the option) or finer points about socialism I don’t understand yet. This week, though, he found a guy that insisted that he only watched things where he could  absolutely relate to the struggle of the protagonist.Even for a white abled man, this still seems like a narrow view, even if , on the other hand, many of the current big movies make even live-action feel like animation. I do think more stories about people trying to save *their* world should be more available than big splasy spectacles….who knows what will surive the pandemic. Maybe being less of a superpower will affect art. Past a certain point, though I like a strong hero, I think we are depriving ourselves if we look to art to teach us morals...art can provide the chance to explore hidden sides of ourselves.

I tried to leave aside the fact that that would leave me little in mainstream culture but trying to “read” disability into being fat, or crooked teeth, or whatever tiny flaws are still permitted in the media-consolidated environment(there is a reason I’ve seen most of the “ Criminal Minds’ with the hacker in it, right?) I could always see “The Other Side of The Mountain” again, or one of the many fine FDR documentaries or docudramas,but of course, they don’t reflect my experience, either, just maybe coming a bit closer than some thing with a lovely protagonist, who’s really just such a klutz.

I have to get outside my experience or end up watching “Crip Camp” on a loop—it’s good, you should watch it once, though.