RE: it's not that deep, blue curtains, and the school trauma that causes this mindset

Hey everyone, pokematic here with another installment of "why I hate lit analysis class." This time it's after I watched "it's not that deep, blue curtains, and the death of critical thinking." Well, half of it because it just got too frustrating and it basically kept going back to the same points of "but looking for deeper meaning is a good thing, you're a pleb if you can only enjoy media at a surface level." I'll summarize the points, you can find them if you want.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the meme, here is one variant.

Basically it's a criticism of over analyzing the meaning of a detail of a written work and your teacher telling you "this is what the author truly means by the curtains being blue," when it doesn't seem all that deep. The first time I saw this meme it resonated with me so much because I absolutely hated "what did the author mean in this symbol" and I never saw any deeper meaning, which meant that I didn't get a good grade "because I wasn't paying attention enough," and every time I had it explained I'm like "are we reading the same book?"

The first criticism this video levy's against the blue curtains meme is "this isn't even based on a real example, I looked hard and couldn't find one, if this is such a problem with lit analysis you should be able to give a real example, how can I tell what this is actually about if I don't know what the context is." Well now, isn't this ironic, the lit analysis guy who is all about "what does the author mean" can't interpret what the author of this meme means. The author of the meme uses blue curtains to represent ANY seemingly mundane detail that lit teachers fixate on and write entire lessons around. It's a symbol that anyone familiar with lit analysis classes would be able to pick up on. But you want a real example, Holden's red hunting hat. I'm from a region where hunting is pretty common so I'm familiar with the clothing, and hunting hats basically come in either red, orange, or yellow because hunters need to make themselves visible to other hunters; sometimes a more earthy tone for camouflage, but normally it's one of those bright colors I listed. Sure, one could argue that there is a reason Salinger specifies "RED hunting hat" instead of just "hunting hat," but given how the hat is just kind of the only time red is ever brought up (it's not like "red is my favorite color" or "I like this other red article of clothing," or "he was also wearing red," or anything like that to where red would seem to have a real significance to Holden), someone not as invested in the work is going to say "I dunno, hunting hats tend to be red" and then say "how in the world did you get that from 'the hunting hat is red.'" Taking a step back, one might even say "but why was it a hunting hat as opposed to something else." Again, because I'm from an area that has a winter climate similar to New York, where everyone wears clothes like that in the winter, my first thought was "New York is stupid cold in the winter and a hunting hat keeps you warm," and when asked "but what are the times he wears it and when he doesn't," yes one can point out that he wears it when he's alone and it's a security blanket, but Occam's Razor says "he's wearing it when he's outside in the New York winter, he's trying not to freeze to death, just like me when I or anyone around me wears their hunting hat in the winter." This is what "blue curtains" means and what people think about with "so true, upvote."

The next big thing is "what's the context of the blue curtains, that explains the reason for it's importance." In my experience there are 2 ways this can generally play out, first is "missing the forest for the trees." Allow me to write you an example passage for "blue curtains." The reading is as follows.

Jack stormed in from the long day of being berated at work. His boss is a total twit who just couldn't help himself from micromanaging and criticizing everything Jack did. Just looking for some peace and rest, he went to the kitchen for a beer. Just then, Margaret [his wife] came in on one of her usual nag sessions. "Jack the sink is still leaking, I told you to call the plumber or fix it a million times already, why is it still leaking. We also got a call from the telephone company, we're late on the bill and they're going to shut off service in 2 days. You know my mother wouldn't let my father get away with how much of a lazy bum you are. You just go off to your little so called job every day where I bet you don't do anything at all...." Jack tried to drown it out with a sip from his beer, but Margaret wasn't having that. She swatted the beer out of Jacks hand and it spilled on the blue curtains. At that point, Jack snapped. He looked dead eye at Margaret as she nagged "oh look what you made me do, you'd better clean that up mister before-" CRACK! Jack couldn't take any more abuse, and punched Margaret in the head as hard as he could. Margaret then went limp and fell to the ground. Once Jack had realized what he had done, he got down and tried to get Margaret to wake up. "Marge, Margie, honey bun, wake up, come on wake up darling." It was no use, that punch of pent up rage had shattered Margaret's skull and sent bone fragments into her spinal cord, she was dead. In a panic Jack started trying to figure out what to do. "I could confess and plead insanity, no they'll never believe me, I just have to hide the body, yeah that's it, drive her far away and burry it, no that's not enough someone will find it, maybe take it to bear country and try to make it look like an animal attack, yeah that'll work." So Jack grabbed the bed sheet from their bedroom, wrapped Margaret up in it, and headed off to bear country."

Pretty intense stuff, a lot is happening there. You have an otherwise good man pushed too far where he commits murder, and now he tries to cover it up. Oh man, what will the assignment about the reading be in class the next day; how when someone is denied their last coping mechanism that's the last straw, how even good people have their limits, how Jack is probably self medicating with alcohol instead of facing his problems. None of the above, the assignment the next day is "what is the significance of the curtains being blue," to which I and others like me who enjoy the meme would say "there were blue curtains!?" Like, sure on reread after knowing what happens one could say "the staining of the calm color that is blue is symbolic of Jack no longer being calm," but when you have 3 hours of other homework assignments on top of everything else you have to do after school, it's perfectly reasonable to say "are we just going to gloss over the fact that Jack killed his wife, because that's all I got from this?"

"Are you saying that kind of thing happens" yes I am, 100%. In 10th grade we were given a choice between like 8 quotes from Julius Caesar to write a paper on and how they're significant to the overall story, and from my perspective none of them had much of anything to do with conspiracy for political assassination, loyalty and betrayal, and the confusion between justice and revenge (you know, the main themes in Julius Caesar). I ended up picking the one about Julius saying "give my wife the fertility touch" because I thought I could somehow link that back to "he was right to be suspicious of danger," but it ended up being a pretty terrible paper. Why not "et tu brute," or one of the lines about Portia stabbing her thigh as a sign of devotion, or "hang him for his poems" or anything else that is actually really significant to the overall story? That line is mostly there to set-up Caesar as a little bit of a jerk ("hey everyone, my wife can't do the one thing women are good at" sort of a thing), but it's not exactly make or break in terms of the overall story. In 11th grade every "reading comprehension" assignment to make sure you read the assigned section from the last class was "here's a seemingly insignificant line, explain the meaning" and I'm like "I don't even remember reading that, I don't know the context of it." It got so bad that I was conditioned to read everything with the paranoia of "is this going to be the line, or is this going to be the line" to where I was missing the actual point of the chapters because I was so worried about not remembering a specific line that seemed not super important. It was so bad that when I read Tom Sawyer for my summer reading assignment between 11th and 12th grade, and during the climax when Tom's kite string broke my brain said "seemingly mundane detail, this is the important thing, lock it in memory" to the point where I don't even remember the climax of Tom Sawyer all that well and what was going on, because I spent a year where all it was was "it's the brush strokes not the big picture."

Slight tangent, the assignment for the 12th grade summer reading was "and how did the book you read make you want to be more like the characters in the book," because I guess the main theme from all the options was "coming of age." I was like "it...didn't, it was an entertaining story about a turn of the century southern boy getting into mischief and not ruining his life through sheer dumb luck, and if I as an almost legal adult model my life around him in any way I have serious problems." I then wrote my report on why Tom is an idiot not to be emulated, and did as well as one can do when basically saying "this prompt is stupid, here's why I'm not answering it."

The second way this plays out is "I don't care about the stupid symbols because I don't care about the book." A lot of the books we read were dull as a bowling ball and dry as a new kitchen sponge to where reading them was an absolute slog, and the symbolism came off as a desperate attempt to make a stupid book more interesting. Here's the blue curtains in this contest.

It's 6 AM, the buzzing of the alarm pulls me from my slumber. I'm greeted by my blue curtains like I am every morning. I pull myself out of bed and shower. The water starts out cold but gradually gets warm enough to tolerate. Once I'm clean I dry myself off with my navy towel before going out to the kitchen to have my poptarts. I watch an episode of home renovators on the DIY channel like I do every morning. It's one I've seen a million times but it's a good one. I put on my Burger Hut uniform and drive to Burger Hut. I clock in on time, no one notices my punctuality. "Man the grill" I tell myself, it makes it sound more interesting. I get a fresh set of 20 patties going, no orders yet but they'll be coming soon and we need to be ready in the warming tray. "Sizzle sizzle sputter" as they sing their song of cooking. Time to flip, and flip I do; nothing fancy, just a simple "up and down." We got some orders, 6 double cheese burgers and 6 single burgers. It's a good thing I made 20 because that used up 18 of them. After my shift at Burger Hut I come home and shower a day's worth of grease off, this time drying off with my brown towel. For dinner I have spaghetti as I watch some more of the DIY channel. It's now time to go to bed. I brush my teeth and before I drift away to dream land I say goodnight to my blue curtains.

Additional context, this except is from a book written in the 1970s when interior design was becoming a career option. The blue curtains symbolize the author's depression and desire to be an interior designer as showcased by always watching the DIY channel, and how color is only ever mentioned for interior decorating. Sure, it's full of symbolism and not just the blue curtains (the navy towel like the blue curtains is also depression, whereas the brown towel is the grease of the Burger Hut). But here's the problem, nothing of substance is happening. "I work a boring job and subtly dream of doing more," who cares? "This was a new concept in the 1970s," well it's not the 1970s anymore, interior design is a well known industry with no real barrier to entry, do more than just hang some curtains, go thrifting or to IKEA or go on pintrest to see how people do creative things with garbage. I don't want to hear about someone's boring life because if I wanted that I could just look in the mirror.

"Did that really happen though," again yes, 100%. I didn't like The Great Gatsby. At first I thought I was "just missing the forest for the trees, because all we do is talk about that stupid green light," and got kind of excited to watch the 2013 adaptation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby Maguire earlier this year "because maybe now I can see what the big deal is." All it was was rich people tabloid nonsense. Gatsby is a newly rich person who wants the love of a gold digging woman who married old money, and the "love triangle" and "prejudice of rich people with other rich people," and nothing that I care about. Yes, I now see the importance of the green light (it's Gatsby's longing and inability to have Daisy), but it's in a story that I have absolutely no interest in; if I don't care about actual rich people and their drama, why would I care about fictional rich people with the same drama? Same thing with Catcher in the Rye; sure there's a lot of symbolism and such in it, but it's a story about a spoiled rich kid who flunked out of a prep school bumming around New York for a couple days completely oblivious to the fact that HE is the problem. Like, if I don't care that Gatsby is lusting over Daisy but Daisy is a married woman, why then would I be interested in the deeper meaning of Gatsby reaching for the green light and not being able to grab it representing that unobtainable lust? Or if I don't care about the self inflicted problems Holden causes for himself, why would I care about the meaning of the ducks? Click here to learn more about my Catcher in the Rye thoughts, and here for my Great Gatsby thoughts.

Here's where the frustration REALLY comes in, rarely if ever was it "it's an interesting story and the symbols amplify it." Symbolism is a spice, like garlic powder, and it was always "a bad dish where the cook tries to cover it up with garlic powder" or "there's a hint of garlic, but why are we not talking about the seer or cut?" I'm going to blend the stories to basically what would be a good use of symbols in the classroom setting.

Jack sulked in from another soul crushing day at Burger Hut. His boss didn't appreciate the extra effort he put into crafting the burgers, saying it took too long and if he does it again he's fired. As much as Jack would love to quit that job and do something with his life, he just can't do that because he's already struggling as is; the phone bill is overdue, the rent is late, dinner is always spaghetti because that's all he can afford, and overall he just can't get past his life. At least for now the day is over and he can watch the DIY channel next to the blue curtains he installed 4 years ago. Unfortunately, Margaret had other plans. Just as Jack was about to settle in for a night of DIY shows with a beer, Margaret got between him and his chair to berate him. "Jack the sink is still leaking, I told you to call the plumber or fix it a million times already, why is it still leaking. We also got a call from the telephone company, we're late on the bill and they're going to shut off service in 2 days. You know my mother wouldn't let my father get away with how much of a lazy bum you are. You just go off to your little so called job every day where I bet you don't do anything at all...." In an effort to drown it out, Jack began to take a sip of his beer. Margaret wasn't having any of that, she knocked the beer out of his hands and put a big brown stain on his blue curtains. "Oh look what you made me do, you'd better clean that up mister before-" CRACK! Jack punched Margaret in the head just as hard as he could. He could take the lack of appreciation at his dead end job, he could take the nagging from his wife, but he couldn't bear anyone hurting his blue curtains. Once Jack had realized what he had done, he got down and tried to get Margaret to wake up. "Marge, Margie, honey bun, wake up, come on wake up darling." It was no use, that punch of pent up rage had shattered Margaret's skull and sent bone fragments into her spinal cord, she was dead. In a panic Jack started trying to figure out what to do. "I could confess and plead insanity, no they'll never believe me, I just have to hide the body, yeah that's it, drive her far away and burry it, no that's not enough someone will find it, maybe take it to bear country and try to make it look like an animal attack, yeah that'll work." So Jack grabbed the bed sheet from their bedroom, wrapped Margaret up in it, and headed off to bear country."

Why do I say that this works when the others don't? Because there's actually stuff happening and it's pretty clear that this is important. In the first example the blue curtains are a blink and you miss it detail, where in this one it's a recurring theme, one that is pretty clearly centered on Jack wanting to be an interior designer as seen by his love of the DIY channel and his prized blue curtains, which them being blue emphasizes his dislike for his role in life, and the spilling of the beer in changing the color of the curtains shows how his entire perspective changed just enough to cause him to do a terrible thing. Then there's the fact that something of substance happens, a heat of the moment murder, and like his curtains now being changed forever thanks to the beer stain, Jack's life is changed forever thanks to his hot blooded killing. This isn't boring like the wanna-be interior designer describing her dull day at the burger restaurant and nightly routine. Even if someone isn't super media literate, it's obvious that the blue curtains are pretty important.

"So what are some real world examples of this," I'm going to do the unthinkable and give you examples from "simple media." When watching The Big Bang Theory, have you ever paid attention to Sheldon's shirt color? Have you ever noticed that in episodes where Sheldon is angry he's wearing red, and when he's scared he's wearing yellow, and when he's determined he's wearing green, and other colors depending on what his story is? That's not by accident, the costume department picks Sheldon's shirt color to line up with the meaning from the Green Lantern color variations. As a fan of The Big Bang Theory, I find that detail pretty neat and look for it when watching episodes. There's also the episode of We Bear Bears where Griz becomes over protective of a foil wrapped burrito, where the burrito is his friend that he hugs and wants to be close to, to the detriment of everyone else as the burrito goes bad after being "left out" for days. All the while we as the viewer are wondering "why is Griz so attached to this burrito, I gotta know why," and it's revealed at the end of the episode that when he was a cub he got stuck in a tree, and a firefighter with a foil like material on his fire coat came and rescued him. The burrito is a symbol of security, and when that security is threatened he gets defensive, and as a fan of We Bear Bears I find that back story interesting. You might be saying "but I don't like The Big Bang Theory or We Bear Bears, I find it boring and low brow," congratulations, you now know how I and others like me feel about The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye among other books. The difference is I'm not forcing you to watch these shows while telling you "this is some of the greatest works ever made."

Another criticism of symbolism and the books from English class is how dated they are and the level of external knowledge one must have to "truly appreciate the writing." A good example here is Animal Farm and The Crucible, 2 books that are all about communism, the communist revolution, and the climate of the time. Animal Farm in particular REALLY needed one to be knowledgeable about the Russian communist revolution for it to make sense. Old Major is Marx, Napoleon is Lenin, the animals are the citizens, the pigs are the party leaders, and the slow decent of "the people's party" becoming just as bad as the corrupt leaders they overthrew. This isn't to say Animal Farm is a bad story, but it doesn't really "stand on it's own 4 legs" if you catch my drift. Without knowing about Russian communism, it's just a weird fantasy book about talking farm animals, and you don't really know why the animals put up with the hypocrisy except for the fact that they're dumb animals. Then, as much as it pains me to say something positive about the pinko rag that makes you sympathize with a sex offender who if he just kept it in his pants none of this would have happened, at least The Crucible can stand on it's own as an interpretation of the Salem Witch Trials and hysteria of mob rule, and one doesn't NEED to know about the red scare to be able to understand it. It's the difference between the Mel Brooks style of spoof writing and the Friedberg-Seltzer style of spoof writing. Mel Brooks writes his references so that if you aren't familiar with the source it still works but is much better if you know the source; when Lone Star and crew meet Yogurt for the first time and it's this big imposing talking statue that then is revealed to be a little man with a golden face, on a surface level it's funny because of the absurdity and contrast, but if you know the wizard of oz you'll recognize that it's a nod to when Dorothy and crew meet the wizard and the reveal of the man behind the curtain. Friedberg-Seltzer on the other hand write their references so that you must be familiar with the source or else it won't make sense; there is nothing inherently funny about young women physically fighting each other to the death over if Edward or Jacob is better, but if you're very familiar with the Twilight fandom and know how rabid the rivalry between Team Edward and Team Jacob is, you'll find that hilarious. A lot of books that we read seemed to require a large amount of seemingly unrelated background knowledge to understand the Friedberg-Seltzer level symbolism, maybe not a lot of the time in reality but a lot of the time we had to do a bunch of background learning about "this is the culture of the time, this is what the book is referencing, pay attention because you're expected to talk about it like you know all of this."

Now for the kicker, the part where the pro-deeper meaning people always admit the problem without recognizing the problem. Every single time they always say something to the effect of "if you had a good English Lit teacher like I had, you'd know the value of finding the symbolism and the joy that thinking critically about a work can bring." Say that first part again, "if you had a good English Lit teacher," what if I didn't? What if my English teachers found a way to suck all the fun out of reading and story telling? What if all we ever did was talk about symbols and the current events of the time the book was written, and never about character arcs and seen setting among other basic elements of a story? What if we had teachers that said "this author is a genius because he breaks all the writing rules, now here are the rules for your paper and if you deviate from them you're going to get a bad grade?" What if I didn't know how to articulate why something seemed bad in media until I started watching the Nostalgia Critic in college where he said "here's a poorly written action, at no point until now was there any hint that the character had these feelings, and now they're coming out of nowhere like it was always there to begin with?" You question why we can't articulate our displeasure for finding deeper meaning, has it ever occurred to you that we were never TAUGHT how to articulate our displeasures because all we were ever told was "you're wrong, this book is good because I say it's good, now repeat after me or else you fail the class?" Because guess what, a lot of us had lit teachers like that. If someone was regularly attacked by their aunt's dog when they were young and that's the only dog they've ever really known, then as an adult when they say "I don't like dogs, they just want to attack me" are you going to condescendingly say "if you had a good dog like mine you would recognize that dogs are great animals" while implying that there's something wrong with them? Because that's how you come off when you dismiss our dislike for finding deeper meaning in a work of fiction. "It's not that deep, the curtains are just blue, stop trying to ruin my enjoyment with your school stuff" is the best way they can articulate their dislike with media analysis because they were never taught how to explain their feelings due to basically an abusive feedback loop. You keep asking "why won't Johnny read," but did you ever stop to ask if Johnny can read or what caused Johnny to hate reading?

Once again, I've made the 16 year old kid who started a youtube channel in his parent's dining room happy as I've said the things he wishes he could say. I have been making online content where I speak my mind for 16 years now, you can go through my archive and find cringy videos of me trying to explain my frustrations but not really being able to because I didn't know how to explain myself since I never saw anyone explain themselves like how I wanted to. The original english class rant I made back when I was still in high school got lost when dailymotion deleted my account, but it was the whole "the curtains are blue, I don't get why it has to mean more" without explaining it like I have here, because I didn't know why I was so frustrated since I didn't have the comparisons to pull from. It also deeply inspired my own writing. When I was a junior I wrote a spoof of the crucible, and it was the Friedberg-Seltzer style of reference comedy of "it's funny because of this other thing" because all I knew was "because of this other thing." It wasn't until I was 29 and had learned "what is good writing" from the likes of Nostalgia Critic did I revisit the story and say "the idea is good, but the execution is terrible, the so called jokes only make sense if you know the thing I'm referencing, how about I make this more subtle, make this more exaggerated, change this so it makes enough sense on its own but is better if you know the reference," and thus The Forge as it is published today came to be. I also recently made a video on the Great Gatsby and why I think it's boring, a video I wish I could have made when I was in high school but didn't know the words for it. So please, have a little compassion for the people who say "the curtains were just blue" and don't want to look further into it. Chances are, they were never allowed to enjoy media just for surface entertainment. I know they can be a bit brash in saying "it's not that deep," but chances are it's because they were forced to drown back in school and as such they have a strong aversion to depth. And if you'd like to know more about why I hated lit analysis class, you can always check out my Mona Lisa Smile Review, AKA Why I Hate Lit Analysis Class. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

What makes Gatsby Great?

Related Mona Lisa Smile.

Oh, and here's the notes that I wrote before I made the video. I figured I'd leave them here as a little behind the scenes with some alternative thoughts.

What makes Gatsby great? I read the book in highschool and remember hating it, but that could just be that my teacher was bad and I struggle with reading comprehension (I get more interested by the fibers in the paper). We watched the movie adaptation and I still didn't like it, but maybe that's just because I watched it just after reading the book and had a sour taste (and maybe the movie just wasn't that good). Well I'm like 15 years separated from the class and I just watched the Leonardo DiCaprio version with Toby Maguire and modern editing and cinematography, so if anything should speak to me it's this. And it doesn't.

Why is this story so important? Why is this studied in high school and held up as a great American novel? Why are there 3 different movie adaptations of it? Why is there an 8 hour play where someone just reads The Great Gatsby out loud while things happen in the background?

What is the story? It's the roaring 20s, and prohibition had just ended. There's a stock broker named Nick Carroway who recently moved to the "new money" part of long island. His neighbor is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby who got his money in mysterious ways. He's also related to a woman named Daisy who married into "old money" and lives across the lake where "old money" lives. The first part of the story is Nick getting to know Gatsby, the next part is Nick introducing Daisy to Gatsby. The last part is a love triangle with Gatsby, Daisy, and Daisy's husband since Daisy and Gatsby were an item before the war, with what I think is some sort of commentary on wealth segregation and the "legitimacy of how one makes their money" and how elites think themselves better than others even if they have the same wealth. And maybe there's some sort of lesson about how even with all the money in the world you can't buy love, or something like that.

But why is this "so important." The conflict is "celebrity drama," rich people cheating on each other and trying to out do each other. That's tabloid nonsense. I thought TMZ and Us Weekly were "low class dribble." What separates the story of Jay Gatsby and Daisy from Brad Pitt and Angelena Joelie or Kim Kardation and Kanyay West? As far as I can tell, NOTHING! It's not like this was a P Diddy or Amber Heard situation where there was major criminal activity, it's gossip nonsense. "Oh but it's set in the 1920s," and it was written in the 1920s, which means that it would be like if someone wrote a book about a fictional Kim Kardation type person.

Then it's like, what's the big deal about Gatsby. Am I supposed to feel bad that Daisy doesn't return his affection, or that she does but they can't? Daisy's a married woman, that's kind of how "unavailable" works. "She was supposed to wait but she didn't, and now he wants a second chance," bullet dodged. If she was worth it she would have waited for you, instead of marrying the first rich guy who asked. "She didn't know if Gatsby was coming home," was she told he died? I don't remember, if they said that it was once "because that wasn't important." If she did think he died, well she moved on and so should he. "But it's a loveless marriage," too bad, she's married. Am I supposed to dislike Gatsby because he's a scumbag who literally covets his neighbor's wife? OK, but the books sure does a lot to make him likable.

"But it's a commentary on celebrity worship and elitism." OK sure, but why does that matter to me? I have no interest in celebrity gossip. Like, none at all. I don't need a book to tell me it's nonsense. I also grew up in a middle middle class neighborhood where no one was trying to outdo each other, my grandparents lived in low income housing and my other grandparents lived in a farm community, and I live in a rural suburb surrounded by farm land and industrial parks. No one is elitist by me, I have zero frame of reference for this. Rich people are just rich people as far as I'm concerned, and I have no interest in them.

"But the symbolism." What symbols? Gatsby likes the green light because it's a sign of Daisy. It's decent foreshadowing, I guess, but it's not like it's some major thing that needs to be debated and studied. He calls everyone "old sport" to make himself sound fancy in the 1920s. It's just slang of the time. Why did my grandma call everyone sweetheart? It wasn't because she had some kind of cannibal tendencies, it's just something someone that grew up in the 30s and 40s says. "The All Seeing billboard that foreshadows them getting caught," or whatever it was supposed to mean, fine but why do I care? "But all the things Gatsby does to fake it until he makes it," once again, it's just tabloid nonsense.

If I'm being truly honest as a critic, it's a very mid story. It's not exactly terrible, but it's also not great. I watched it while doing busy work, it "filled the silence" like Super Fast, Earnest Goes to Camp, Demoted, and other "good enough" movies. I don't hate it like Catcher in the Rye, but that's because there's not really anything to hate. Which also means that there's not really anything to love. Why oh why is this considered "high art." Is it because there just wasn't anything like it at the time? Well, we have real life examples now with the 24 hour celebrity news cycle. Is it because prohibition and ill gotten money? Surely there are stories that tell that more and have more focus than "hey, I wonder how this Gatsby got his money."

A Catholic's Analysis of Dear Santa (A Blasphemous Christmas Movie?)

*Sigh* well this is a movie I have thoughts on. Hello catholiccontriversy here and while scrolling through paramount plus I came across a movie called "Dear Santa," "a movie about a kid who writes a letter to Santa and a spelling error causes a crazy mix-up" according to the description. I've heard the joke about "dyslexic kid writes a letter to Satan on accident," I knew what this was going to be from the set-up, and I had some kind of calling to analyze this. If you're new here, don't think I'm one of those "Harry Potter is the work of the devil" people (I've actually defended it on multiple occasions), nor am I one of those "to show evil is evil" kind of people (to know what to be on guard against one first must know what to even look for), but "strait up Satan" is not something to be taken lightly since one of his tricks is he makes you think he's nothing to be worried about, and "a dark comedy about a boy and Satan from religion mocking Hollywood for a platform that also has Satan submitting to the President of the United States" does not exactly instill confidence of "this will treat the subject of eternal damnation with the seriousness it deserves." First I'll get the "technical stuff" out of the way, as a movie it's very mid; it's a direct to streaming movie and it shows, not a lot of special effects but as a "reality based movie" it doesn't need much, the acting is serviceable but there isn't really much that needs emotion, Jack Black is kind-of playing Jack Black but it is different from his other roles, if it wasn't for the themes of the movie neither I nor Pokematic would be talking about it because it's just so nothing. If you just want an entertaining movie, don't bother with this. The movie is also PG-13 and earns it; there's an above average amount of swearing so even if you think the themes are "just fantasy" it's still "not for little kids." With that out of the way, time for the reason I'm talking about it. Oh, and spoilers ahead.

As I said, the plot of this movie is an 11 year old boy writes a letter to Santa, he doesn't fully believe in Santa but he's kind of doing a Pascal's Wager of "if he's not real, I wasted 10 minutes writing a letter to no one, but if he is real then I'm getting my wish." He also has dyslexia, so when he addresses the letter it goes to Satan (played by Jack Black, who I'll refer to as going forward to differentiate him from actual religious analysis) and not Santa. Jack Black then materializes in the boy's room one night saying "I got your letter, I don't get a lot of kids writing me" and the boy thinks he's Santa, but is confused by how he doesn't have a white beard or a red suit and how he has antlers instead of the reindeer. Jack Black picks up on this and tells the kid "I just dresses like this to not get noticed, here I'll show you" and then turns into a classic icon of Santa. Jack Black then tells the boy "tell you what, instead of giving you presents on Christmas I'll just give you 3 wishes right now, they can be anything, do we have a deal" (for which the rest of the deal is after the 3 wishes he gets the boy's soul, that he didn't tell him about) and the boy doesn't really know what he wants, but he would like the girl he has a crush on to give him a chance, and Jack Black says "done, you'll see tomorrow." So this first thing was pretty good; Satan does deceive, he makes himself look like someone to be trusted and that's how he gets you. While generally not quite as literal, he does present himself as "trustworthy leaders" and "good looking temptresses" and such, and to the eyes of a child Santa Clause would be fall under that category. Additionally, Satan doesn't directly tell you about the true consequences of your sins; in the Garden of Eden Satan through the serpent made a promise to Eve about what the fruit would do but didn't tell her the consequences of that action (God did, he warned them "if you eat this fruit you will die," but not Satan), so Jack Black not telling the boy the consequences of the wish is not far off. Allegorically, this is a decent depiction of Satan's temptation and deception.

The next day the girl the boy has a crush on says she likes him too, and Jack Black shows up in a hamster cage to tell the boy to go ask her out. Jack Black also gets the boy tickets to a Post Malone concert "as freebies" because "give me a chance" wasn't enough of a wish, and shortly after this the boy's best friend points out that he's not talking to Santa, he's talking to Satan, which after that realization the boy doesn't want anything to do with him but can't get away because he already made a wish. This is when things get a little complicated. First, good on the boy for immediately rejecting Satan, once one realizes he's sinning he should do all that he can to stop. I know there is debate between denominations about "is sin the act or the intent, and is ignorance of the sin or accident not a sin," but once an act is understood to be a sin then it is definitely a sin, and once the boy knew what he was doing he wanted to stop. He also argues that he didn't know, but Jack Black tells him "too bad, you already set this train in motion," and the boy does all that he can to not make another wish. Again, a decent depiction of "the spiral of sin." Once a sin is done it can't be undone (you can receive forgiveness, but you can't rewind time), and with many sins once you get that first hit it's really hard to not do it again. He got his wish and it felt great (more than great because Jack Black over delivered), but at a really high cost, and it was really hard to then deny himself that pleasure so as to not incur the cost. Again, not exactly "a bad allegory." Jack Black also over delivers, because the wish was "just to get a chance" but Jack Black give him "an amazing date." I am of 2 minds here, because this is presented as "Jack Black is just a nice guy who wants to do you a favor." On the one hand, sin has a way of over delivering on the rush; you think "it's not that bad" and then get a flood of pleasure to where you want to do it again, and the movie could be showing that in a more literal sense. On the other hand, this could be the movie saying to the viewer "Satan isn't that bad of a guy, he wants to make you happy," and is Satan working through the movie to make you lower your guard to him. It's not really clear which way it goes, either in the moment or in hindsight (which I will cover later). The same can be said with all the times Jack Black helps the boy to lie to or otherwise antagonize troubling adults in the movie (like when Jack Black makes a guy that's harassing the boy get violent diarrhea) which the boy doesn't necessarily want (he likes it but doesn't want it); it could be "Satan lures you into a false sense of security" or "Satan is friendly," and since it's not exactly shown to be "in the wrong" aside from the fact that "a clearly evil being is doing it" it's hard to really say.

After much temptation and rejection, the boy makes a second wish to fix his best friend's teeth so he can have the confidence to ask a girl out, after rationalizing "I'll still have 1 wish left, and I'm doing it for someone else." This is a decent depiction of the kind of mental gymnastics we humans do when we choose to sin. There are many situations where we say "well I've already done a bad thing, so long as I don't cross this line I'll be fine to continue, plus it's for a good cause;" an example of such would be stealing a loaf of bread and giving it to a homeless person, and then stealing a pack of lunch meat to also give to the homeless person "because it's just a loaf of bread and a pack of lunch meat, it's not like I'm holding the cashier up at gun point, and I'm feeding the hungry so it's a good thing." And to the movie's credit it does seem to treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Soon after the wish, the boy also ends up in the hospital and Jack Black shows him his best friend "hitting it off with the girl he likes" to hurt him and tempt him to make his third wish. This is not a bad depiction of the negative results of "sinning for good," the boy thought he was doing a good thing but then he feels bad about it afterwards. It's not guilt, but it is a negative emotion, and it is hard for him to not give into temptation again, and does have an element of "Satan is NOT your friend" to it.

There is even more temptation and rejection, and seeing the trouble this has caused the boy fully rejects Jack Black and says he's never going to make that 3rd wish. That is until his parents fighting comes to a head and he makes his third wish that his parents wouldn't get a divorce, to which Jack Black tells him to "bump it up since there are a lot of unhappy people who are still married," and he makes is pack with Jack Black that for the price of his soul he wants his parents to be happy. Now this is where the movie starts to go in the bad direction. The boy using his 3rd wish to make his parents happy is treated as a good act, a selfless deed. No, don't do that. That is not something to be shown as a good thing, that is bad. It's not "the tragic corruption of a good kid who gives into temptation and evil," it's "I can do good while doing bad," and that is the "don't take Satan seriously" messaging I was worried about going in. Also, the way Jack Black talks up "don't you want to make your parents happy," doesn't come off as "Satan over delivering to lure you into a false sense of security and get you addicted to the rush," it's very much framed as "Satan is looking out for you" since the boy is "already defeated and accepted his fait of eternal damnation;" at that point Satan is just going to take you and this movie is trying to get you to like Jack Black Satan.

What happens next is not good, Jack Black tells the boy he's not going to immediately die and go to Hell, "that's going to happen when his time comes in 70 to 80 years, but in the mean time, just be bad since you're already damned," and then there's a little montage of the boy being bad to the people who wronged him in the past (the crossing guard, a bully, and his teacher), which ultimately backfires as a car nearly hits him as he's ignoring the crossing guard, the bully punches him in the face and doesn't respect him, and the girl he likes says she no longer wants to be with him after what happened in class because he's a jerk now. He does receive some consequences for his bad actions, and seems like he takes a philosophy of "just because I'm screwed for eternity doesn't mean I have to be bad in the here and now," but it is missing the whole "repent for your actions" part which is bad.

Here's where the movie really loses it. It's revealed that Jack Black isn't Satan, he's a lesser demon that's trying to work up to full demon, and he gets reprimanded by Satan because he lied about being Satan and binding the boy to a contract without disclosing the terms, and that all the wishes were selfless which demonstrates that he's not corruptible, which makes the deal null and void. I'll admit that I'm not super knowledgeable about how deals with the devil work and what demons can and can't do in service of Satan, but from what I do know that's not how it works. As I said earlier, Satan deceives, so I'm not buying "you didn't tell him the rules and pretended to be someone you're not" as a "legitimate loophole," that just seems like something Satan would do. Also, "the boy is pure, I can't corrupt him" is also not valid; we are all sinners and as RedeemedZoomer says "we all deserve Hell, and it is only by the love of Jesus are we saved from eternal damnation." There's no way the boy is perfect and through his acts alone he escapes the fires of Hell, and to imply that he is is blasphemous. Also, even if his intentions were pure, he still sold his soul for 3 wishes and 2 of the times did that with full knowledge of what he was doing. That's not "a technicality," that's the mental gymnastics to justify sin, which Satan really likes since it draws you away from God. Also, Jack Black is fired after this, and it's framed as "we should feel bad for him." Even though Jack Black is revealed to not be "the ultimate evil of Satan" and instead is "one of Satan's lesser evil minions," he's still an agent of evil who tried to corrupt a good boy. Like, no, we don't feel bad for demons.

The movie ends with Jack Black going to the boy and telling him the truth about how he's "not Satan and just a demon, a fired one at that who now has nowhere to go," and that the deal is null and void, and that he still had one wish left since his parents were already making up before he made the wish, so he gave him a wish from his letter, and that he's going to miss him because he started to like him. Again, this is bad. This is meant to make you sympathize with a literal demon. This is also the "in hindsight" thing I was talking about in the beginning. For the first wish Jack Black gives the boy super tickets to a big concert "because 'giving you a chance' wasn't big enough." Since this was "before Jack Black got to know the boy" there is an argument that the over delivering was "part of the scheme to corrupt the boy," but with the added context of "I just liked the boy" it's really hard to not see it as also being "I'm a nice demon." The boy also asks Jack Black what he's going to do now, and it's directed in an emotional way of "I'm worried about your safety, don't say goodbye friend, will I ever see you again." Again, that's bad, demons are not your friends and should not be depicted as such, and the only response one should have is "I hope to never see you again," and this is trying to make you feel bad for a literal demon. Then the third wish, Jack Black had no reason to grant that since "the deal was no good," meaning he did that "because he's a nice guy," which again is bad, it's making evil look good. And the wish is that he would have his dead brother back (because the trauma of that was like what caused his parents to fight, and the reconciliation was them realizing they couldn't blame themselves or each other for the accident), and when the boy goes to the Christmas tree his brother is alive and healthy, which is meant to be a touching moment, but again it was done with dark powers by a being of evil. This happy ending is meant to make you not fear Satan and his minions, it's meant to make you think "Satan is powerful too, and he'll also look out for you," which is Satanic. And then it ends with Jack Black being the angel at the top of the Christmas tree, where the mom just before said something about "I like the angel tree topper, it's like a guardian angel looking over us." No, just no, Hell spawns are NOT guardian angels and to make them appear so is blasphemous, and there's no question that this is saying "evil beings are not that bad." 

So that was Dear Santa. It wasn't all bad, there were some things that were "a good depiction of how we can be tempted by evil and fall to sin," but it really misses the mark with "the realities of evil" in the end. It also uses God's name pretty flippantly (a lot of people say "oh my G-d" as an exclamation pretty regularly, including Jack Black who is a demon who said "it's just an expression" which it certainly isn't and is wrong). The good doesn't outweigh the bad, and based on where the movie ends the good could be argued as just being a deception to get you to lower your guard for when the bad comes. I recommend against it; on top of the blasphemies and potentially pro-Satanic message, it's also just not very good. It's not the worst use of Satan in fiction (adult animation tends to make Satan "completely harmless," this at least had some "he's dangerous" elements), but "not the worst" does not mean "good" and this was pretty bad. Well, this has been Catholiccontriversy, signing off, and may God bless you.

Agent Cody Banks R-rated Edition Experience

Disclaimer, this is a joke based on an error on Amazon's listed rating.

Hey everyone, I was searching through Amazon to find some movies to watch while I do my busy work on Monday and I came across this little oddity. Back in the early 2000s it was not uncommon for would be children's movies to be extra edgy; Josie and the Pussycats was originally PG-13, and Scooby Doo was originally going to be R, Inspector Gadget has scenes that had to be cut, and similar. Well little did we know, Agent Cody Banks was also originally rated R but was edited down to get a PG rating. It was unknown in fact until it quietly surfaced on Amazon Prime Video. When I saw that they had the R-rated version, I knew I had to see it and compare it to the original. I wouldn't say that I was "a major Cody Banks" fan, but I rented it a number of times and would say that I know it pretty well. OK, so let's dive into what this movie has to offer for an edgy R-rated spy comedy. When looking at the content description that pops up, it says so for sensuality and flashing lights, so let's see what kind of sensual content this bad boy has.

So in the first 5 or so minutes the younger brother is roasting Cody about how he's had more dates than him. Cody says "playing in the treehouse doesn't count," and the brother says "it does when you're playing doctor." Oh man, that's a highly suggestive joke right there, what kind of "doctor" are they doing?

Second, before Cody's training is activated, his team mates are making fun of him in the locker room. His handler/partner walks in wearing a skin tight jump suit while "hot in here" plays, that's a pretty explicit song that's all about getting naked. Then when a team mate is hitting on her she pulls off his towel exposing him, and then another kid says "if you're pulling towels, how about you pull mine." That's some pretty sexually charged stuff right there.

Then when Cody is getting his gear he gets glasses with low level x-ray vision, that he then uses to look at his partner. That's a sex joke right there. And later in the movie he uses his x-ray glasses to look at his classmate's underwear. Very explicit.

"How to talk to a girl" is where it's really heavy. There's a hologram woman that hits on Cody and he can't talk to her. That's some kind of explicit fantasy. There's also a scientist that's showing off an anatomical manakin of a woman and he's waving around the breast muscles of the manakin talking about how they'll make you go wild. Oh man, that's something right there.

It's not just this though, there's also the driving instructor telling Cody his job is to weed out the drug using teenagers, and then before Cody cuts the instructor break line he says "damn." That's some serious stuff right there. There's also at the end when the villain gets killed by the nanobots eating him from the inside, and we see it happen.

Oh man, this is quite the explicit edition right there. No wonder this was edited down to get a PG rating. The changes are really subtle, almost indistinguishable from the theatrical cut, but it's right there on the listing. I also can't believe that no one on the lost media wiki ever documented this version that has gone unnoticed, or that people like RebelTaxi never talked about this edition. Well, here I am spreading the word that amazon prime video has the unknown R-rated cut of Agent Cody Banks, right there.

My Idea for a Live Action Lilo and Stitch Sequel

So if you don't know, Lilo and Stitch had a remake, and well, here's my review of it if you need additional context.

Short story, it wasn't good, and the ending was just terrible. Even with that though, I think there is some good to get out of it, and that is with a dark PG-13 sequel, one that takes this story in a new direction that if done would be a good apology for all that Bob Iger has subjected us to (not full forgiveness, there is still a lot of work to be done, but an accepted olive branch that is the start of the path to restoring trust). Oh yeah, MAJOR SPOILERS for the Lilo and Stitch Live Action sequel. Oh yeah, I also originally tried posting this to the Lilo and Stitch sub-reddit but because of the spoilers it needed mod approval and the mods seem to be rip van winkle since they wouldn't accept my spoiler post, so I guess my website will get all the potential traffic instead of your sub :P

It opens with an ariel view of the California coast, it's sunny and people are surfing, it looks great. We then transition to Nani in her dorm room, studying frantically as she longfully looks out at the ocean, wishing to be back in Hawaii with Lilo. We glance over at multiple low grade assignments, she's not doing well. She heads down to the cafeteria gets some food, tries to have some small talk with classmates, but it doesn't work because "all she ever does is talk about how great Hawaii is, and that marine biology was so much easier when she back home," and if she misses it so much why did she come to California instead of studying there. As they walk away she says to herself "I ask myself that every night, I can't believe I gave up learning marine biology for free at a Hawaiian state school to learn here." She sits down alone, depressed. As she starts to eat her sad meal everyone starts freaking out and looking at the cafeteria TV. It's an emergency news bulletin about mass chaos happening in Hawaii. It's like something out of a disaster movie; explosions, fires, deadly lasers, and the feed cuts off after something hits the camera.

This scares Nani, because Lilo is back in Hawaii. She runs back to her dorm and starts fidgeting with the teleporter gun. It hasn't been used for months after it broke, and because of that she lost contact with Lilo. She can't fix it, it's alien technology after all. She's now running around the city trying to find someone to take her to the island, but no one is crazy enough to go there. Defeated, Pleakly finds her and says "come with me, I'll take you to Hawaii."

When she gets there, she goes to her old house looking for Lilo. The house is a pile of rubble, completely destroyed. She runs over to the neighbor's house but she can't be found. After some searching Nani finds her under some rubble. Nani asks where Lilo is and if she's safe. The neighbor says "I don't know where she is, but she's probably safe considering she's causing all of this." "WHAT!?" "Yeah, I was trying to take care of her, but the girl was just too wild, especially with that dog. Things were OK for a little while when you were coming around, but it just got harder and harder, so I had to give her back to the state. Well when she heard that all hell broke loose. She and that dog broke out and went on a rampage, and here we are." This is really bad, Nani asks where she might be able to find Lilo, and the neighbor gives her some ideas but no real direction. She tells Pleakly to help her but Pleakly just got word that the galactic federation was going to "contain" the problem. That's good, until he explains that "contain" means completely destroy. Nani says "maybe if I talk to her I can fix this." It's a big start-up scene.

As Nani ventures into the wasteland, she's confronted by other evil experiments. When Lilo and Stitch went evil, Jumba jumped at the opportunity and said "I have 625 other evil experiments, this will make the evil all the easier." It's just a rouges gallery of different experiments, all of which are something that confronts Nani's different insecurities. I'd give more details, but unfortunately I'm not THAT big of a Lilo and Stitch fan to know all the lore and who would be right. I would have this last like a good 20 minutes at least.

After many "sub bosses," Nani finally reaches Lilo, a completely feral child sitting on a throne of destruction surrounded by evil experiments with Stitch at her side. Nani is about to get thrown out by an experiment but Lilo grants her an audience. She talks to Lilo and asks why. "You abandoned me for your California. Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind. You left me behind, so we're no longer Ohana. Stitch is my ohana now, and he showed me how great it is to be bad." The heartbreak is visible, Nani is petrified as she realizes this is all her fault. "Stitch, get rid of her," Stitch laughs manically. Pleakly drags Nani away because Nani can't move.

That's as far as my flushed out idea has gotten. I don't know how I would continue it, and how Nani would redeem herself and Lilo or if this would end on a sad ending of the end of the world. "It's a Disney movie, you gotta end on a happy note," first off, this is an alternate reality where Disney recognizes their mistake and does a scorched earth "retcon" of what they made before and since this idea existing is already a far fetched fantasy I can do what I want, and second, "Ohana means abandon your only family to go to college" is not a happy ending and that actually exists in this reality. I guess I'll make 2 different endings and let the test screenings decide.

Here's the set-up for the final scenes. Pleakly talks to Nani and says we need to get out of here, but Nani is still broken by what happened. She tells Pleakly that she can't go on, how could she live knowing that she was the cause of all of this, her selfishness drove the last person she loved to a life of destruction which is going to end in the death of her last family.

Here's the "happy ending," Pleakly says something about his parents and how on his planet people screw up but don't forget the lessons they taught them, like the importance of parasites in an ecosystem (a subtle reference to his mosquito obsession in the real movie that was dropped in the remake). This is played for laughs but it gives real inspiration to Nani, and Nani finds a photo of them all together at an Elvis impersonator concert. Nani fights her way back into the throne room desperately trying to talk to Lilo, but it's no use and the guards are throwing her out, but then she yells "remember the time we went to see Elvis with mom and dad?" Lilo hears this and tells the guards to stop. Nani shows Lilo the picture and says something like "mom and dad are still here, in our memories and in me, I was the one who suggested we see the Elvis show, I know I'm not mom and dad, but I know them and remember them, and can tell you more about them so you don't forget, and I realize I was a shitty sister [yes she says "shitty," this is a PG-13 movie], but I've learned from my mistake, and I promise to be better, I'll never leave the island again, I hated California, I was failing my classes and nobody liked me, and I never got to surf, and worst of all, I didn't have you." Nani takes out her student ID and throws it over to a fire experiment where it destroys the ID. "I left you behind, and I'm sorry, but now I'm coming back to get you." Stitch gets ready to kill Nani but Lilo tells him to stop, and that all the experiments have to stop. Now they go around commanding all the experiments to stop their destruction and start fixing up the city. We cut to the galactic death ship that is getting ready to blow up the earth, but Pleakly calls the leader woman and tells her to call off the death laser, and shows her how they are repairing. She orders the laser to stop, and then demands to know what made Stitch stop. She is introduced to Nani again and Nani talks about how she learned what's really important in life, and is now going to use that to teach her little sister and dog, and as we see them rebuilding the house the social worker comes over and starts grilling her about if she's a fit guardian for Lilo. Nani then says "bitch [again, PG-13], do you realize that when I gave up guardianship Lilo and her friends almost got the earth destroyed, but now that I'm back the earth not only ISN'T blown up but the war zone that resulted from that bad decision is now being rebuilt, frankly, I'm the only fit guardian to take care of Lilo, now why don't you get off my property before I have muscles here force you to leave." The social worker a bit taken aback and startled then says "very well, I'll be on my way and you'll never hear from me again." The sisters laugh as she stumbles away, with some of the experiments scaring her. Lilo then asks Nani to tell her a story about mom and dad from when she was a baby, and we fade out of the movie as Nani starts talking about the time when Lilo got into mom's purse and changed out the real money for play money, which made for quite an interesting time to pay for the groceries that week. And they all lived happily ever after.

Now for the "sad ending." Pleakly tries to tell Nani to get on the ship to get to safety, and Nani can't decide on if she should or not. Pleakly gives some kind of speech about following the laws and doing what was right for her, and Nani is like "oh REALLY, you're going to tell me to do something that's right for me, well news flash, the last time I 'did the right thing for me' the world got a giant target painted on it for some intergalactic death ray. Everyone was telling me 'you're not fit, you're too young, you have your whole life ahead of you, don't get tied down,' and when I finally listened to them and went to pursue a degree for myself instead of taking care of my little sister she and that dog went and destroyed the island which is now going to end in the destruction of the earth, all because I wasn't there." As Nani finishes this monologue, an experiment picks up the ship and starts shaking it trying to get them to come out. Lilo is outside with an army of evil experiments wanting Nani's head. Just then, an alarm starts going off, the death ray has been fired (it's "slow movie light" so all the things I'm about to talk about have time to happen), and the ship starts taking off automatically with Pleaky and Nani on board. The docking bay door is still open, and Nani sees Lilo on the ground screaming "get back here you coward, we're not finished yet." Nani jumps out of the ship, lands on Lilo tackling her as she hugs her tight, and then the screen fades to white. Boom.

Well, which do you like? Do you like the "classic Disney happy ending" or the "mature deconstruction sad ending?" This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Carlo Acutis is The First Millennial Saint, And My Story of Eucharist Presence

Jaws 50th Anniversary at the Drive In (with Blues Brothers)