[hinkley]

There's a bit of a trap here that I find myself standing in.

Parts of our culture are participatory. You get social benefits from going through the same things as your peers. When you stop getting sucked into things by your insecurities, you become non-participatory. You miss out on chances to connect with other people. There is no bonding experience for you, but there is for everybody else. It can be kind of alienating.

Imagine you are watching a new movie with people. 15 minutes in your think, "Hey, this is a retelling of a story by [Shakespeare,Brontë]", or "Oh geeze, the nerdy guy is the killer and everyone has dismissed him despite the foreshadowing." You now know the story arc, and so the roller coaster ends for you (unless the director is exceptional - Ron Howard, Apollo 13). Everyone else is having a great time. You're still having a good time, but you're paying more attention to the production values or the emotional range of one of the actors. You aren't part of the same experience, and you are gonna have a tough time participating in the conversation. Whatever you do, don't tell them you knew what was going to happen all along, Mr Buzzkill.

There are plenty of idealogs who would insist this isn't a problem. Your need to belong is just another hang-up you need to deal with. That you should let go of that too. But I don't think many of those idealogs ended their lives forgotten and alone because they never built a connection (or inter-generational connection in particular) with other people.

[vorpalhex]

You don't form connections by bludgeoning yourself into a different mold, but by finding a way to connect while being yourself. I see things very differently than most of my friends, and I'm still good friends with them and they with me.

[edgarvaldes]

>You aren't part of the same experience

I think that you(we) never are.

[sukilot]

What's the problem? You can enjoy the movie and talk about the connections to Bronte and the little clues the movie showed.

The problem seems to be less that literature is derivative, and more that the viewer is looking for reasons to dismiss things instead of reasons to enjoy them.

[hinkley]

If you have a simple, relatable problem, then you can illustrate it with something that gets to the heart of the matter.

If you're trying to illustrate something esoteric, like black hole physics, immunology, or Zen, you're going to have to come at it sideways, via analogy, and possibly layered. Which may be part of our current, greater problem with anti-intellectualism. People understand the analogy and think this has prepared them to participate rather than appreciate.

So the problem with movies is that movies are the least of the problem.

[burntoutfire]

> You're still having a good time, but you're paying more attention to the production values or the emotional range of one of the actors. You aren't part of the same experience, and you are gonna have a tough time participating in the conversation. Whatever you do, don't tell them you knew what was going to happen all along, Mr Buzzkill.

You need smarter friends... Hanging out for extended periods of time with people below your level does not work well.