Point of view

What's the deal with point of view? Why is it that I can see something,  but someone else sees it in a completely different light? It's all in our heads. Maybe we're reading too much into it. Or maybe, just maybe, there is actually something to this.

In my Race, Gender and the Media class the other night, we were going over this article where they painted two professional women in completely different ways. One was in a sultry, red dress and the other in a white, powerful women's suit. I saw the contrast and I jumped to conclusions, too. But in the long run, it probably wouldn't have bothered me had classmates gotten so vocal over it. But after class discussion, it did bother me.

Which leads me to the reason I am talking about this:

I wasn't thinking about this until my girlfriend and I had an argument over what the best Disney movies were when we were kids. I voted Space Jam (which she says isn't Disney...and technically she's right) and she voted something that I don't remember because I was entirely too busy defending my beloved Space Jam (I think she might have picked Beauty and the Beast).

Okay, yes I know that Space Jam isn't a Disney movie, it's Warner Brothers.  But my argument was that anything in those huge, plastic VHS containers that was aimed at kids should be classified as a Disney movie. We had several of these around the house. My mom would say, "Okay, kids. Pick a Disney movie and watch it." I always ran for Space Jam before my sisters could pick something terrible like Mulan or Lady and the Tramp.

But we had tons of movies we all considered "Disney" because of that case it was in. Charlie Brown's Christmas special, a few Scooby-Doo movies and any of the Nickelodeon movies in those sweet orange boxes.

So beyond my movie disagreement, what else do people see that others don't? Is that why advertisers have to retract so many ads? I don't find most of them offensive at all, but obviously someone did or they'd never take them off air.

Or maybe that's why people have to be so careful to be politically correct these days. You'll offend someone, and we wouldn't want that.

Maybe that explains why my mom thinks playing with matches is dangerous? Okay, you're right. I am dangerous with matches.

I think our nation's skin has collectively grown thinner in the last few decades, but maybe that's a good thing. Shouldn't you always take other people into consideration? That's for you to decide.

Oh, and don't be a Disney purist.