'A Classic is a book everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to read.' - Mark Twain
Many 'western' Classics are like being made to eat your vegetables.
Eat your vegetables. Read Hamlet, watch Schindler's List. It'll be good for you.
You'll want to roll under your bed and cry; but it'll be good for you.
Except that it isn't. It isn't good for us to want to roll under our bed and cry.
Which leads to the other kind of 'western' Classic: the 'gritty reality' Classic.
This is the world. Isn't it awful?
Watch Goodfellas. Enjoy shallow fun, appreciate the fine craftsmanship.
Dream of shooting people.
This is the world. Isn't it awful?
These are the Oscar Bait 'Classics' of a young, ignorant Civilization still struggling to recover psychologically from the Black Plague, let alone two World Wars.
The older civilizations gave us Classics.
The Ramayana. Journey to the West.
Radiant, beautiful Classics, full of Love and Life.
We have Classics like that.
E.T. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The original Star Wars trilogy. Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. Sgt. Pepper's. A Love Supreme.
Why don't we appreciate these Classics?
Why does Schindler's List get the Oscars, which makes us want to roll under our bed and cry, and not E.T.?
Doesn't E.T. make us appreciate life even more than Schindler's List does?
Because we appreciate life much more when it is warm and beautiful!
Let's appreciate our real Classics!
Warm, uplifting works like E.T.!
Let's put these warm, uplifting Classics above the 'eat your vegetables, it'll be good for you!' Classics!
Just a thought! Think for yourself, for I won't be there for you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson