montage #37: Please don't think badly of me

Why is loving something so embarrassing? The other day at work, I told a co-worker (already you can tell this was my fault) that I loved movies, that they're what I spend most of my time thinking about, and immediately, no surprise, he asked, “What’s your favorite movie? Ok, maybe not favorite, but you know. What kinds of movies are you into? Like what should I be watching?” Does that also sound exhausting to you, or am I unwell? Obviously (hopefully obviously) my co-worker is not to blame here—obviously, asking someone what movies they like is a totally normal thing to do, especially if they brought it up (did I mention this was all my fault). But being in a position where you’re asked to speak on a strictly polite surface level about something you feel a deep passion for and unfortunately know a lot about makes my skin crawl. Why is it so deeply embarrassing? Wouldn’t it be easier just to enjoy a thing the same way everyone else does?

Let me give you a purely hypothetical example. It’s a burden a.) having heard of Kinds of Kindness, b.) knowing it’s a triptych of three stories running almost three hours long, c.) knowing it’s directed by the same guy who made Poor Things and The Favourite and The Lobster, d.) having heard of those movies, e.) having seen those movies, f.) knowing which of those movies were nominated for what Oscars and why, g.) feeling the need to correct someone else if they get any of the above information incorrect, and on and on. I know that a lot of people actually land in the middle between “I watch three movies a year” and “I watch 300 movies a year,” but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a conversation where I said something that I assumed was common knowledge about a movie, a director, an actor, you name it, and someone said, “Wow, how do you know so much about all this?” with a deeply haunting tone to their voice. For most people, the words “Yorgos Lanthimos” have never been uttered aloud in their general vicinity. And again—just to be clear—good for them. I mean it!! I would never expect or want anyone to know anything about entertainment or pop culture that they don’t know about, I promise. None of this is essential. Especially Yorgos (sorry).

Anyway, in this particular scenario, the real one at the start of all this, I told my co-worker the truth, which is that my favorite movie is Speed Racer. Why did I do that? I guess because my other favorite movies are Certain Women (even more obscure (“obscure”)), My Neighbor Totoro (would he think I only watch kids movies?), Stop Making Sense (then I’d have to explain why a concert movie is my favorite movie? and most people wouldn’t even consider that, like, a movie, you know?), and Texas Chain Saw Massacre (terrible way to make a first impression with a new co-worker obviously lol). For people who like movies, these are not obscure or even particularly interesting choices (I don’t think? Who fucking knows), but now I’ve said Speed Racer and I already know what’s coming next even as the final -er sound leaves my mouth. “I don’t think I know that one,” my co-worker said. “What’s it about?” And now I need to explain the much maligned mid-2000s anticapitalist anime adaptation Speed Racer to someone I barely know, and then explain what I like about it (I guess…??), and I literally start itching I feel so uncomfortable.

For the record, this is what I like about Speed Racer. Look at it!

It’s not an inviting answer! Being deeply invested in something is exclusionary by nature, which I guess is why I typically keep my stupid thoughts about movies to myself (and to you lovely people who signed up to read them for some reason, bless you). Start talking about something in detail with someone who doesn’t have the same level of interest as you and immediately you can feel them feeling trapped in the conversation. “Oh god,” they’re thinking. “What have I done? I didn’t know this person was…dare I say…pretentious.” To be honest, I’m much more interested in knowing what they’re into, because it’s usually something communal like “sports” or “going out with friends”—tell me about these activities, please. Please don’t make me tell you about some movie I know too many details about, details that are interesting to literally nobody but the foul denizens of Letterboxd (🫶🏼).

I know I’m exaggerating for ironic effect, but I’m also not wrong. I’ve lived long enough with normie day jobs to have made it through the scenario above more times than I can remember. “I guess I’m basic,” my co-worker replied, by the way, in what has to be the kindest way to call someone else annoying. “My favorite movie is Forrest Gump.” (“Big movie!” I said…I promise you this is what I said. I don’t know why I’m admitting this…it could have died in total obscurity. Forrest Gump: “Big movie.”) And you know what’s great about that answer? Everyone has seen Forrest Gump. You don’t have to explain shit to me or anyone else. Thank you for inviting me in to this conversation, instead of building a brick wall between us with a lot of talk of something called “the Wachowskis.”

Indigo Girls

A few days ago I realized I still have my Kanopy account through the Berkeley Public Library (I’ve heard NYPL doesn’t have Kanopy…too scary to think about), so I watched the new Indigo Girls documentary, It’s Only Life After All. I’m sure I’ve written about my relationship with Indigo Girls before—at this point I would call them one of the artists that have had the biggest impact on my life, which is funny considering I grew up despising their music. My mom and her wife are the two biggest Indigo Girls fans I’ve ever met, so I was raised by a six-CD changer that every weekend was packed with six of their albums and put on shuffle. To me, as a child, it was angsty folk music that all sounded the same; a lot of yelling and earnest strumming. Little did I know that all of these songs were seeping into my brain through sheer exposure osmosis, though, and that by the time I was in my late twenties I would hold them almost embarrassingly near and dear to my heart. They came to represent not only the exact kind of honest, heart-forward art I’ve grown to love and actively seek out, but they represented my parents, too—and in representing my parents, they represented me.

It’s Only Life After All is the exact kind of documentary you want for a band like Indigo Girls. It’s long and personal, chocked full of archival footage dating all the way back to when Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, the titular Girls, started playing and writing songs together in high school. In their present-day talking heads, I wasn’t expecting them to speak so comfortably and discursively about how it felt to be openly gay artists in a very specific music landscape in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but they do, of course, and it’s a little devastating to hear of all the opportunities for further success they were denied because of it (one of the more brutal moments comes in watching them watch a Poehler/Dratch SNL skit making fun of them, then hearing them break down how they weren’t cool enough to be invited anywhere, but were well-known enough to be the butt of jokes). The best move the film makes—or, I should say, Alexandria Bombach makes in directing it—is to separate Ray and Saliers for their interviews, allowing them each to gush about one another in private and admit that they both have been intimidated by the other for their whole shared career. By the end of the movie you get the sense that working that closely with another artist for 40 years really does create a bond beyond friendship, collaboration, or family; it’s something closer to fusion.

None of you really needed to know all of that about It’s Only Life After All, a movie about a very specific one-hit wonder with a small and rabidly dedicated fanbase. But I mention it because at a certain point the movie surprised me by existing at all. Indigo Girls have become so personal to me, so secret in a way, that I was struck by there being a market for a look back on their story like this in the first place. And of course that’s my own lack of awareness, or to put it more generously, my own self-imposed bubble created by my unwillingness to get nerdy and share my passions. I think a part of me oftentimes doesn’t want to play or show the things that mean the world to me to other people—there’s too much pressure in the situation, too much expectation for them to have “an opinion” on it rather than just experience it as a bleeding piece of me. Is that a fear of vulnerability? Or a need to keep these pieces of me untarnished? I want to say “both,” but there’s a definite hesitation about coming across the wrong way mixed in there as well. How many times have you told someone that you love Carly Rae Jepsen only to have them laugh openly in your face and say, “Like…Call My Maybe…?” And then, of course, you need to try to explain that actually she’s more than that, and actually you would really like it, and here comes the flop sweat.

If I’m the only one who’s mortified by conversations like this, then please disregard. You can actually just print this one out and throw it away, that’s totally fine. The unspoken other side of this dumb heavy coin, obviously, is being able to have deeply specific and silly conversations about this bullshit with friends or strangers who like it just as much as you. And maybe that’s you. And if so: thank you!!

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Movies I watched this week: The Bikeriders (right down the middle) | Sorcerer (great rope bridge cinema) | Indigo Girls: It’s Only Life After All (another interesting bit about this movie is how it allows Amy Ray to talk about her own more recent questions about her gender and understanding of who she is and always has been; at one point she says she feels “50% male and 50% female,” but identifies as a woman because it’s what she’s always known. Genuinely interesting to hear someone so public facing and open-hearted in the old guard like this!) | Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978 (so fucking rad)

In case you missed it, there’s a new issue of wig-wag out now — our 32nd volume, if you can believe it. As always, I feel so humbled to be able to platform anyone else’s writing, and this issue, as always, was a real joy to put together. Dig in for essays on Past Lives, It Follows, Urban Cowboy, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and The Iron Claw.