Confession time: when you accidentally become the stereotype you hate

[Eamar]

'Sup Escapists. For various reasons I've been away from the forums for a few weeks [small](seriously guys, I look away for five minutes and you go and create a 300+ page monster thread of doom and despair... geez)[/small]. To celebrate my glorious return I figured I'd make a thread, so here's what's been floating round my brain recently:

Have you ever found yourself embodying a stereotype you actively dislike?

Context for this - I recently came out as a lesbian. No issue there, except for the fact that prior to this I'd proudly identified as bisexual since my mid-teens. Now believe me, bisexuals get a LOT of shit from both ends of the sexual orientation spectrum, so I'd always angrily refute the various stereotypes that get thrown around, like, say, "bisexuals are just confused/in denial, they'll pick a side eventually"

... Yeeeah.

Just to be clear, I still totally hate that stereotype, and in fact I've never actually denied that this was possible for some people, but still. I just feel a bit sheepish that I didn't end up doing much to help the image, you know? I kind of had to go up to my bisexual friends and be all "well shit. My bad, guys."

So folks, fess up. In case my tone hasn't carried well over the interwebs, despite the potentially serious subject matter I'm aiming for a lighthearted kinda deal here, though obviously feel free to post serious business if you really want.

 

[DOOM GUY]

I'm almost positive I have at one point or another, but there's no specific instances I can really recall at the moment.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I feel like the biggest douche in the world whenever I use the phrase "my personal trainer told me..."

I hate douche jersey shore type people, but every once in a while I'll use that phrase and just feel the douchiness wash over me for the next 10 minutes or so. My friends make fun of me constantly for it.

 

[shootthebandit]

Welcome back and congrats on coming out. I dont really think theres much of an issue. You can still defend bisexuals and just because you made a personal choice doesnt mean it should apply to everyone

I think its inevitable that we show traits of stereotypes we dont like. It doesnt enforce the stereotype but it just so happens your choice happens to be in line with the stereotype

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

So folks, fess up. In case my tone hasn't carried well over the interwebs, despite the potentially serious subject matter I'm aiming for a lighthearted kinda deal here, though obviously feel free to post serious business if you really want.

Screw the light of heart! Everybody gather their slingshots and follow me to the serious side of the fence!

(Welcome back)

OP: 5 years of film school and prolonged contact with the film school element have screwed up my taste buds. I find myself on the edge of pedantic snobbery, quickly dismissing anything that reminds me of a better, older movie, and then alternatively at the far end of the spectrum, hating on the artsy and the indie in favor of the Hollywood entertainment machine. I fear I've become unpleasable.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Congrats on coming out, it definitely can't have been easy, especially since it involved some swallowing of your pride.

Anyway, OT:

For a little while I'd turned into one of those stereotypical internet metalheads who decries all the new modern, mainstream kinds of metal as shit or "not metal." Ranting about the shittiness of metalcore and all that stupid crap.

For the record, metalcore (alongside stuff like Iron Maiden) is what got me into metal in the first place and, though I'm not really that much of a metal fan anymore I still like one or two bands. I was pretty much in denial about my own tastes during that time, basically.

Sometimes I still lapse into general music snobbery, fulfilling the stereotype of the musician who acts like just because he knows what a cadence is, his taste is automatically better somehow. I do actively try and fight against that, though, because I know I'm just being a twat.

 

[Frezzato]

I don't know any other way to say this (without sounding horrible perhaps), but please don't cut that awesome hair.

That's all

 

[TakerFoxx]

Eamar, you're back! I was wondering where you had disappeared to.

As for the OT, I have a bad habit of worrying that people are going to be mean and/or prejudiced against me for various reasons, and then end up imagining the whole scenario in my head and getting upset about it, only for them to be perfectly nice and even complimentary, with me realizing that I had been the prejudiced one, even if it was only in my thoughts.

 

[Vault101]

Have you ever found yourself embodying a stereotype you actively dislike?

Context for this - I recently came out as a lesbian. No issue there, except for the fact that prior to this I'd proudly identified as bisexual since my mid-teens. Now believe me, bisexuals get a LOT of shit from both ends of the sexual orientation spectrum, so I'd always angrily refute the various stereotypes that get thrown around, like, say, "bisexuals are just confused/in denial, they'll pick a side eventually"
.

I discovered Feminism and "huh...you know I might actually be into girls" at very similar times....so I might be a man-hating lesbian

[sub/]that and I have a very strong desire to wear plaid[/sub]

anyway thats not the worst thing, and really people choose what labels suit them when they figure themselves out...I recently started calling myself Bi because straight didn't fit

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Screw the light of heart! Everybody gather their slingshots and follow me to the serious side of the fence!

(Welcome back)

OP: 5 years of film school and prolonged contact with the film school element have screwed up my taste buds. I find myself on the edge of pedantic snobbery, quickly dismissing anything that reminds me of a better, older movie, and then alternatively at the far end of the spectrum, hating on the artsy and the indie in favor of the Hollywood entertainment machine. I fear I've become unpleasable.

Oh, so that's what that is.
Sorry, Johnny, but almost every time I see you lollygagging around on the threads (and I'm sure this isn't *all the time* just most of the times *I've* seen you) you're always such a downer. I've been writing it off as "jeez, does anything please this guy?" and moving on but I didn't know what it is.
Quick question, I've been a film student for two years and while I'm pretty good at simply deactivating the critic and just enjoying things, I'm starting to see the creep, does film study really kill it that hard?

Anyhow.

You know, I came in here with no answer but I have one now.
I just painted this whole picture in my head of Johnny here without really knowing him.
I know people do that all the time on the internet but I'm not hot for judging at first sight, sorry.

 

[viscomica]

Quick question, I've been a film student for two years and while I'm pretty good at simply deactivating the critic and just enjoying things, I'm starting to see the creep, does film study really kill it that hard?

I don't think that applies only to film study. For instance, I'm studying law and whenever some horrific crime or even when I'm watching films I'm always thinking "but that situation would be X by X law" and so on and so on. I think of everything in legal terms and sometimes I feel like that makes me a cynical person but the truth of the matter is every in depth study desensitizes people in a way. It can also happen in sciences like say, biochemistry, for instance. My mom is a biochemist and with the ebola outbreak going on in Africa she's always thinking about it not in terms of human beings but about the disease itself.

In short, it's perfectly normal to get desensitized when you're constantly studying a certain science / subject. It makes you think in its own terms and logic.

 

[Erttheking]

I have jumped to conclusions and made generalizations based on sterotypes of political views. I am not proud of it.

 

[Vault101]

I have jumped to conclusions and made generalizations based on sterotypes of political views. I am not proud of it.

I've done this too....its very easy to get into the liberal vs conservative mindset

its just hard when some of them are such wankers

 

[Erttheking]

You know the "bulldyke lesbian" stereotype?

Yeah, basically most of that. Not tall though. Wish I were though.

6'5 person here, and let me tell you it's not all its cracked up to me. It loses its appeal after you get asked how tall you are for the fifth time that day and then asked if you play basket ball.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Screw the light of heart! Everybody gather their slingshots and follow me to the serious side of the fence!

(Welcome back)

OP: 5 years of film school and prolonged contact with the film school element have screwed up my taste buds. I find myself on the edge of pedantic snobbery, quickly dismissing anything that reminds me of a better, older movie, and then alternatively at the far end of the spectrum, hating on the artsy and the indie in favor of the Hollywood entertainment machine. I fear I've become unpleasable.

Oh, so that's what that is.
Sorry, Johnny, but almost every time I see you lollygagging around on the threads (and I'm sure this isn't *all the time* just most of the times *I've* seen you) you're always such a downer. I've been writing it off as "jeez, does anything please this guy?" and moving on but I didn't know what it is.

Some background: I've worked as a movie critic for the past 5 years now, more or less parallel to my film school trajectory. Since film school is constantly reshaping your appreciation of film, so has my criteria for analysis evolved over time. But one thing I've always believed in is being honest about what I saw and how I felt. I liked Guardians of the Galaxy, but if I thought, you know, that the beginning was eerily dissonant with the rest of the movie, or that the ending didn't live up to the build-up, why not say it as well? If I just "like" a movie, then I forget about it. If I give a movie any critical thought, pros and cons, then it earns a place in my memory. I have to. I review 60-70 movies every year, watch 200 movies overall and so far I've seen something like 3000 movies in my life.

This year so far I've seen some great movies: A Most Wanted Man, Edge of Tomorrow, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jersey Boys, Noah and Wild Tales. I've seen some movies I disliked, i.e. Need For Speed and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And just one bad movie - Deliver Us from Evil.

Quick question, I've been a film student for two years and while I'm pretty good at simply deactivating the critic and just enjoying things, I'm starting to see the creep, does film study really kill it that hard?

I think your experiences are going to greatly differ from mine. I went to film school in Argentina, you're in the US. My school has a pretty Marxist approach to teaching. You spend a large part of your academic life reading about the Frankfurt School of dialect materialism, texts spawned from the French revolt of May 1968, the works of the Cahiers writers, semiotic studies by Deleuze and Zizek and god knows what other pedantic crackpot... and I majored in scriptwriting, so I didn't have a lot of hands-on experience past years one and two. And teachers scoff at the notion of "screenplay gurus" like Linda Seger, Syd Field and McKee because "they peddle formula over creative approach". I'm a little resented by this. I met McKee and went to his seminar in 2009, and those 4 days were by far more useful than anything I learnt about screenplay that year.

Anyway, bottom line - your personal thoughts and predilections will ping-pong a lot during film school. Some years you'll be into this one school of thought, others you'll think Die Hard is the best movie ever made (which it is by the way). The important thing is: enjoy the ride, and don't worry about being right or wrong, you'll never get a better perspective than the one you get at the end.

 

[Erttheking]

You know the "bulldyke lesbian" stereotype?

Yeah, basically most of that. Not tall though. Wish I were though.

6'5 person here, and let me tell you it's not all its cracked up to me. It loses its appeal after you get asked how tall you are for the fifth time that day and then asked if you play basket ball.

Can't be much different from being asked things like:

"Are you a circus contortionist?"

"Did your parents starve you when you were young" (yes seriously, I've been asked this, a lot)

*insert anything about real-life dwarfism here*

*insert anything about Tolkein and other fantasy dwarfism here*

And then there's people men[footnote]I did the strikethrough because while typing that, I realized that I couldn't think of a single time, ever, that a woman has done that to me.[/footnote] using my head as an armrest, people grabbing my hat and glasses, men giving me noogies, men trying to pick me up by my shirt collar or hood like I'm a kitten and ruining my shirts and hoodies, etc. Not much I can do about any of that except be a douchebag to people. I usually "accidentally" kick them square in the crotch when they do that last one.

If I were a 6'5" boxxer (like I wish I were) I don't think many people would be doing those things. Calling me a dyke, sure, but when somebody makes a remark like that it just means that I'm getting laid far more often than they are.

...Well shit. Yeah, I have the benefit of people not putting their hands on me, if only because they're afraid of me wailing on them. I wouldn't (...probably) but they don't know that.

Heh. True that. To be honest my 6'5 would probably be better off with someone like you who cares about how fit their are, rather than my lazy ass.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

In short, it's perfectly normal to get desensitized when you're constantly studying a certain science / subject. It makes you think in its own terms and logic.

Come to my arms, my beamish boy panda! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!