In my every day and during most of my free time I watch YouTube videos like many of us do. I can across a channel which was discussing a movie I recently watched. This person pointed out several plot holes in the story. They backed this up with clips of the movie and pointed out some of the dialogue and how the characters interacted.
In my first viewing of the movie, I had completely missed these. Despite that or rather because of it, the movie was enjoyable. However, after watching this video it shifted my perspective. This got me to think about how I consume content, more specifically what I miss.
Following this event, I started paying more attention to how I consume things. This led me to be more critical of everything and seeing when things do or don't make sense. I found my self disliking most things because they were not well enough constructed whereas on the other hand, I found a well put together movie, video or argument became more enjoyable.
I became aware of how I used to view certain things and how I view them now. Previously I was able to shut up the voice in my head and emerge my self in whatever I was consuming. You can call it the ego or the self. My thoughts were not running simultaneously with what I was watching or listening to but rather, I would completely follow the thought train and not realize the wholes and the gaps where unfilled. Things such as "What that character did not is how a normal person would react" or "That character is contradicting them selfs from the start of the movie without being developed to do so."
I think this became more obvious when I realized that I also liked some movies which others did not. I always thought it was simply a difference in taste and the certainly could be the case sometimes. However, now I realize that these people were annoyed because it did not make sense to them due to the fact that it lacked proper structure.
This left me with the question of critical viewing. Is it better to immerse yourself fully and allow to for it to make you forget everything or is it better to view something, deconstruct it and analyze it, finding all those cracks and wondering how to fill them. If it is meant to be enjoyed do you do need to do any mental gymnastics or are some people just unable to do this in the first place?
I have some more thought on the matter which I am still developing. Let me know what you think below.
