• Day 83/90 – I Love Documentaries

    Day 83 of the 90 Days of Awesome is in the bank! What made today awesome? I watched two awesome documentaries!

    Movie Night! by ginnerobot from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    Movie Night! by ginnerobot from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    I love movies that are based on real events and documentaries. In the last year, I have spent a lot of time checking out movies from the library, and more recently I’ve been checking out mainly documentaries. I’ve learned that when it comes to fictional books and movies, I rarely remember what I read and see because my brain knows they’re not real, so it is difficult to convince it to retain any of the information as useful. So I can read or watch a work of fiction and enjoyed it, but I will barely remember it.

    I find real life and stories about real people much more engaging. This weekend was no different. I watched to documentaries in between doing chores around the house:

    • Dark Girls (2011): An investigation into people’s views about dark-skinned women in America – in Caucasian and non-Caucasian communities. I had no idea that being a lighter skinned was such a preferred characteristic, or that there was such a thing as the “paper bag test.” It was shocking to learn that this issue is not limited to the U.S.; skin lightening products are popular throughout the world, including third world countries.
    • Out in the Silence (2009): After Joe Wilson legally married his partner in Washington, D.C., he ran a marriage announcement in his hometown paper in Oil City, PA. This led to a documentary featuring the lives of several LGBT people in this small city and the views of heterosexual Christians who opposed homosexuality same-sex marriage.

    Documentaries show real people, in their real lives, sharing their real feelings and experiences. It’s raw. They provide a glimpse into someone else’s world. I also like that documentaries tend to be shorter than feature films. I can often get through two-four documentaries in a lazy weekend, which is great because there are so many documentary films that I want to see.

    In case you missed it: Day 82 of the 90 Days of Awesome – A moment of grace in the sea of sadness following the announcement of Atticus’ passing.