Thirith on 23/9/2011 at 08:59
I don't know about you guys, but while I like films, TV series and books to challenge me and my opinions, it's very rare that I feel they've changed my opinions. More often, at least if I'm honest about it, I latch on to what confirms my opinions or I refine them based on what I've seen or read.
You do hear about people who reassess their world view based on books or films, if rarely, so I was wondering: have there been any films, series, books or other media that were so powerful they resulted in you reassessing your opinions?
The closest to this in my case would be Six Feet Under: I'd say that I've thought about death and life a lot due to this series, and it's made me think about questions that I'd avoided before. It wouldn't necessarily be easy to pin down the ways in which it's done this, but it's become a frequent point of reference for my thoughts and feelings concerning death, grief and loss.
Angel Dust on 23/9/2011 at 09:53
There's been quite a few but some notable examples:
A film:
The Woodsman and the way it engendered empathy for a reforming pedophile was illuminating. Obviously the act of child abuse is a monstrous one but if the perpetrator is to reform we have to treat them as human beings. It also made me think about the potential offenders. How are they supposed to control it? Is there anyone they can turn to for support and help? What would I do if a friend confided in me that they were dealing with something like this?
A book:
Infinite Jest pretty much blew me away. It both challenged and confirmed a lot ideas I have about "what it is to be a fucking human being" and all of it elucidated with far more intelligence, wit and insight than I could ever muster. It was like every ten pages I was alternating going "Yes! That's exactly it!" or "Oh, I never thought of it that way". It's not something I can really put my finger on in regards to specific examples but I was definitely looking at the world differently after finishing it.
june gloom on 23/9/2011 at 10:00
I found myself developing a very different view of the insurance industry after I saw Bulworth. It's not a very good film, by itself, Warren Beatty making a fool of himself notwithstanding. But while you may or may not agree with his calls for socialized medicine, his assassination at the hands of an insurance rep is a powerful message.
Painman on 23/9/2011 at 10:51
My political stance is already pretty much lefty/hippy/Murka Hater, so any indie documentary film that comes along tends to reinforce my view rather than change it.
And I'm 43 as of tomorrow (yay?), so I know who the fuck I am and I'm not likely to change my POV on a dime.
henke on 23/9/2011 at 11:00
Life of Pi, which I read thanks to the TTLG BOOK CLUB(remember that?) softened my views on belief a lot. It's a beautiful thing really, and I'm envious of those who have it.
To pick a more recent example, a song: "(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYsmMRHUt_U) Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes. Not a band I'm too familiar with and I may be missinterpreting the lyrics but it's about Communism isn't it? I don't think I've ever heard anyone expressing the desire of being "a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something [greater than himself]" quite this honestly before. It sounds pretty terrible and kinda beautiful at the same time. Didn't change my outlook on life but it did challenge it.
gunsmoke on 23/9/2011 at 11:43
Bukowski helped give me the strength to live life however the fuck I want to. He sort of helped by reassuring me that my off the wall thoughts and ideas were fuel for imagination and expression and needed to be nurtured, not suppressed.
Forever420 on 23/9/2011 at 12:06
I had like the Strawberry Statement. That book really assisted me to realize the hollowness of authority's ostentatious proclamations.
demagogue on 25/9/2011 at 19:53
A lot of the existentialist books maybe.
Camus's The Fall made a deep impression on me. It made me feel you shouldn't have to apologize for being yourself, and you should suspect when people try to be something they're not or try to feign "pure" detached motives, even (especially) when they're trying to be "nice guys".
All the books about arbitrary state authority made an impression, like Kafka's The Trail and Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. I used to have a deep fear some police or somebody would break in and carry me off, or just start some mysterious process somewhere out there, and some bureaucrat I've never seen before calls me irredeemably guilty and I have no idea why or what's going on. (The Fall has that too). It's made me try to be a better lawyer, to understand the fear and helplessness a lot of clients must feel when processes they don't understand are trying to come down & destroy their lives for reasons they don't understand ... Nothing is so powerful it doesn't have to come down to a human level & explain itself with reasons everyone can accept.
The Alchemist on 25/9/2011 at 21:22
A book? Look at my name.
Rug Burn Junky on 25/9/2011 at 21:32
Infinite Jest was post-modern genius, and to me it, itself, is the perfect entertainment. Due to some peculiarities of my own upbringing/education (being that the only sport I played regularly through college was tennis, I was a bit of a math prodigy myself, and to top it off, I studied film with an avant garde film professor who's namechecked in IJ), the coincidences piled up to an almost unhealthy degree. But that didn't really "change" my outlook, it merely confirmed my own solipsism. ;)
The book that wrecked me, and still informs almost my entire outlook on life is (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Genealogy_of_Morality)
On the Genealogy of Morality, by Nietzsche, especially the First Treatise. I first read it 20 years ago, and it's still the touchstone that drives my personal philosophy today.
I don't know that anyone has condensed so much about modern society into so few pages, and really, he pathologized most of the past 2000 years. You can fit so many of the most important events of world history into its paradigm, from the Renaissance, to its perversion in World War II, right up to the ressentiment of the Tea Party and the reactionary anti-wall-street tards today. I don't think that any modern or post-modern philosophy can exist that doesn't owe at least a bit of debt to Nietzsche. Even at the outset of modernity, he was anticipating and responding to thoughts that didn't even occur in post-modern thought until decades later.
It's simply distilled brilliance.
