I’m starting to become more than annoyed
now.
I mentioned to a family member that I was
going to watch Battleship Potemkin, Serigei Eisenstein’s masterpiece; I knew we
had a copy at home but I just couldn’t find it. The family member looked at me
and said ‘oh, but that’s an old film’. I said yes, I know that. I’ve seen it
before but not for years. They looked at me again and raised their eyebrows and
then said, in a condescending way, ‘I’m surprised you’re watching that.’ I then pointed out, again, I saw it years
ago when I was 17. I reminded them that I had studied film for years. They just
pretended I wasn’t there and when I tried to get a reply they moaned that I was
yelling.
I’m not sure if this happens to anyone
else, but I seem to be judged continuously, usually by certain family members,
for love of film and my knowledge. They seem to conveniently forget that I love
genres of films (apart from horror) and that I studied it at A Levels and for
my degree. But I am met with eye rolling and raised eyebrows and arrogant looks
when I mention I am going to see a foreign film or an old film. I am not
condescendingly about a film and what its about if it was made before the 80s,
as if I didn’t know. I haven’t see all the film ever made and I definitely don’t
know about all the films ever made, but if I’m not interested in seeing a film,
it doesn’t automatically mean my brain fell out and I’m a moron, which is how
I’m treated.
I can’t be the only one who has experienced
this?
What used to happen (and still does) was
that if I mentioned I studied film and TV or that I have a blog where I write
about film and TV, people around me act like they know more than me, like it’s
a competition. I never felt this way around my friends, ever. It was usually
around those I didn’t know well or people I wasn’t going to/didn’t get along
with. I don’t know it is that makes people act this way. I know some of friends
who also studied/work in creative subjects had the same thing happen to them.
One of my friends who studied animation and fashion used to have people she
barely knew talk down to her as if she didn’t what she was talking about.
Suddenly everyone was an expert in fashion. Again, I don’t know what makes
people act this way, unprovoked.
I tried to explain my views about a film (I
think I’ve mentioned this one before) and I was shot down, talked to like a
child and told that I wouldn’t know as I was around in the 70s. The film was
set in the 70s but it was not a period drama. The point was irrelevant. It
boiled down to the fact they didn’t get it and didn’t want to. There was more
to the conversation but it was mainly me trying to keep my cool while I was
told that others can have opinions but I wasn’t allowed to have one.
Telling someone that they can’t have a say
or undermining them about a subject that they are passionate about, let alone
studied and not just at college or University but actively studies it, is NOT
cool with me.
Thank goodness for friends who just ‘get
it’. My little rant is over, just needed
to get that out of my system.