As you might have noticed I like watching films while sewing. It helps to keep my otherwise very easily distracted mind focused on what I'm doing, so I look for things that will keep me in the right place. And it works. Sort of.. There is one problem with that though: Fiction often tends to have very limited and shallow female characters. Even the films centred around women (no actually, especially films centred around women!) usually doesn't extend further than the male gaze, so when sewing for a long time..watching for a long time..has the very undesired effect of making me feel misunderstood. I'm always left with the feeling that however much I could identify (because that's what we inevitably do, even if the choice of options isn't great) it's all left a little half way..they don't react as real women would, there is no trace of the real experience of the scenarios that are so familiar..only the reinforcement of how one should be. And that, I suppose, is the real identification in all of this. I am reminded that that's as far as anyone cares to see.
It's hard enough fighting to get to define my self or even seeing my self from an inside point of view in this world..I don't need fiction to make the boxes even smaller and the labels even stricter..
Being casually misunderstood and unseen is not an exciting novelty.
So maybe in films, much like in books, that's why I prefer factual things. (I'm youtube-ing Victorian farm as we speak. If they made a town version of that I would seriously faint out of happiness!) Because when no one is the subject then anyone can be. The space is wide open and seen trough no ones eyes.. I like that. It let's me breath.
In a way I do feel like I'm the lucky one. If I can put down a book or turn off a film and instantly it all seems easier and life more exciting..how lucky is that..
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