For the middle class, white collar employee these might be words to live by. Providing you had a job that was 9 to 5. And there must be plenty of people that do or at least the movie industry thinks so since they made a movie with that as a title.
The only thing is that while it might be a good title and the movie was decent I can honestly say I know that many people who work 9 to 5. All the office employees that I know work 8 to 5 with an hour lunch. And that includes the ones that work for my city.
I think in part it reflects the attitude of those who create fiction that is supposed to be a view of real life. They essentially paint life with their own hues of values and make each stroke conform to what they want us to accept as reality.
Even if it isn’t close to the true, it doesn’t seem to matter. Because you know what? Most of us are such chumps for their movies that we keep going back for more.
And what is really amazing is how eventually it seems like we end up slowly mutating in our own idea of what is true till we actually buy into their version of reality. Oh maybe if they create some story that is about our own type of life we will divorce ourselves from regarding it as real.
But be honest, the image they mold in terms or some characters is something we totally embrace as if it were accurate. And tell me that your own anchor of understanding on a given job or type of person that you see in the movies who you don’t know personally doesn’t often conform to their fantasy.
Take the image of people who live in New York city. Have you ever noticed that regardless of how poor the person is they always have some truly great apartment. I don’t know where you live, but it takes money where I live to afford any place to stay. And if you want to afford the type so apartments they show ordinary people renting in New York I can guarantee you that you are not going to be living in those places and working at a minimum wage job. It just doesn’t happen folks.
And I think most people are smart enough to know that is true. But despite that we still allow ourselves to often use the movie industry’s cinematic offering as true far too often.
Does that really hurt you might ask? It can, especially if you for some reason end up making a decision using that fantasy as reality. And that can be an extra problem if you have shaped your opinion about someone based on what people of that appearance act like in the movies. Come on folks admit it, we’ve all done it from time to time.
Okay, well I suppose I have pretty much stated the obvious. But let’s be honest folks, if most of us weren’t prone to being brain dead couch potatoes, myself included, maybe we would keep our mind in gear more and not let it become the product of borrowing somebody else’s fantasy for our reality. And at the heart is the fact we will most likely keep doing it. So let’s just smile and celebrate being the lazy creeps we are. Pass the beer and potato chips and hope the next sitcom has less commercials. While you are at it, pass the remote too. I don’t mind watching television, but I prefer choosing my own version of fantasy denial. Cheers!