When I read books, I'm a stickler for detail. When I read Fifty Shades of Grey, I rolled my eyes during the part where Ana visits Tybee Island (close to Savannah, Ga) because the book talks about riding on the Savannah Parkway. Um...there's no such thing as the Savannah Parkway. How hard would it have been to look at a map and give the name of a real road?
I'm not only this discerning with books. My critical eye extends to movies and television shows as well. My husband and I binge-watched ER a few years ago (before binge-watching was even a thing--we watched it on DVDs we got from the library) and in one season there is a character who is supposed to be from Savannah. At some point he mentions the hospital where he used to work. Savannah General. Um...again...there's no such thing. My husband and I exchanged a glance and mutually rolled our eyes. Yes, I know when ER was on information wasn't as readily available as it is now, but phone books existed. It would have been possible to find out what hospitals actually existed in Savannah.
Okay, okay, okay! I'm aware that the hospital in which ER takes place is a fictional hospital, so why can't other fictional hospitals be mentioned as well. I didn't say I feel I'm justified in having these opinions. Only that I have them. Inattention to these kinds of details is a major pet peeve of mine.
And then we have my favorite movie. Ah...my favorite movie. Do you remember what my favorite movie is? I've blogged about it in the past but if you don't want to read all that, I'll tell you. Tommy.
And, just in case you're not familiar with Tommy, it's a rock opera based on The Who's most famous album. It tells the story of a young boy who loses his sight and hearing after witnessing his father's murder, and who then goes on to become a pinball prodigy.
Where, you may be asking, is my fondness for detail in regard to that movie? After all, what is it even supposed to be about? Is it about a young man struggling to deal with the fact that he is deaf and blind? Is it about psychosomatic symptoms caused by PTSD? Can PTSD cause a person to go deaf and blind? And what about the whole pinball thing? Are there really pinball prodigies in the world? Does that game actually come naturally to anyone? And if Tommy is such a prodigy, doesn't that make his character look more like an autistic savant than anything else? What the heck is going on with this character?
The truth is, when you watch Tommy, you can't analyze those details too thoroughly. The movie is based on a story written by a rock star. Not a psychologist. Not an educator. Not the parent of a special needs child. A rock star. Do you think Pete Townshend hit the books and studied the ins and outs of psychosomatic illness before penning Tommy? Of course not. He just had a cool idea for a story and he ran with it.
And you know what? When I watch that movie, I don't care. I really don't. The experience of watching Tommy is not supposed to be about realism. It's supposed to be about the music. And you might just notice that Roger Daltrey and Ann Margret are pretty darn easy on the eyes. And if you're like me and you're obsessed with the cinematography of the seventies, then Tommy is all about set design and camera angles. But it's not about psychology and you can't try to make it about that. You can't squeeze Tommy's character into any known parameters of mental illness. It just won't work.
The moral of the story? I'm not sure that I have one. I only want to say that even someone like me, who loves realism and wants all the details to be right, can occasionally suspend my disbelief and just enjoy a good movie.
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