Why I Review Stuff Again
Honesty isn’t just the best policy, it’s equality.
Men are allowed to have opinions about anything. News. Art. Studio power player moves. Marketing for that new video game. Which Swiss is the best cheese. They can dissect films, dismiss albums, argue about taste and what’s low brow or high brow, and nothing happens to them. In fact, it often, no almost ALWAYS, elevates them online or in real life situations because to speak about anything signals authority. Add in a rapid pace like a fast Eminem rap, he’s golden.
Oh that guy, he’s sooooo plugged in to trends, extra current, sharp eyed on fads like the best of them. People assume these fellows have their fingertips on the latest of the latest of all that matters in their respective fields.
When girls and women say, “I don’t like this,” the reaction is different. Suddenly, it’s a problem. To everyone, and it hurts me most when it’s from women telling me to back down for saying I disliked the VFX in one particular scene, or I hated some part of a lecture but loved everything else.
I wish I were joking when I say in reality, I have been insulted for expressing the same views on good or bad VFX that established male directors do, but yeah, for things like saying I had a preference for one edible condiment over another on sandwiches. It’s all that is in this world.
I’m not allowed to state my views on anything. Because to know about anything makes me dangerous to someone’s ego. Control. Forcing me into the box of being a teenager forever because, I remember this so well, the year adults quit thinking I was capable of my own views was the summer I turned 18.
And for someone like me, whose ambitions live squarely inside film and music, that pressure isn’t small. My opinions aren’t a hobby. They’re part of the grand scheme of things. Men who want to be the top of the game in film and/or music get asked about it. They’re awesome. A “he’s so intellectual” think piece gets written up about them in The Atlantic. I used to try online. Silenced and told to provide apologies.
To silence that isn’t done to quiet my voice. It’s to strip away the very thing that builds it. Me. My ambition. A mannequin placed in the dressing room instead of a person designing the garment. I’m going to be 39 in about three months and dealing with the same nonsense I experienced from my teenage years. No, scratch that. Childhood. I was told by teachers and whoever else of the adult universe “not to say that.” As boys got away with rudeness or disrupting the class. The kid who hit me with a piece of wood once at recess was innocent. I got in trouble and not believed for hitting her back with the big wooden plank, and a very uncalled for insulting my elementary self could’ve won a lawsuit over if I had more legal knowledge. Here’s a hint: it infringed on some first amendment basic rights.
Because the expectation becomes clear: if you want to exist comfortably, say nothing at all remotely human. I don’t mean intelligent. Human. Say nothing negative or positive. Say nothing that might mean your brain is active.
I remember being in school, asking if a topic would be on the exam. Something specific about the constitution. I was told to “stop asking stupid questions.” A boy asked how long the test would be, and the teacher smiled, answered warmly, gave him lots of time. Joked around. Me, I was stupid.
Having agency over your own basic views one might think you should have about your chosen field is you picking out today’s breakfast. It’s foundational for the rest of your day. Your life. Your work.
I’m done feeling I look stupid so I can please people operating on 19th century sexism. And for whoever doesn’t relate to this, may you be born again a girl and have a chat by the time you’re my age in your next life.
If I can’t say what I think about a film, a piece of music, a reptile’s beauty, or something small like how my sandwich was today, I’m not in control of anything. That’s what many want from me. Maybe from you. And that’s not a position I’m willing to be in anymore.
xoxo,
Nic
