Just the other day I watched the 2nd Thor movie, Thor: The Dark World, in 3D. I have to say, it's quite a testament to the skill of movie makers these days, that they can take a big, hulking guy, in a red cape, that flies around with a giant hammer, and make it not look totally ridiculous. That's quite impressive. But that's not what I'm here to blog about.
What I noticed as I was watching a sweeping view of the massive vaulted ceilings and stone columns and ornate décor of the interior of their opulent Asgardian palace, was what you rather don't notice while watching the movie, or really in fact almost all movies, which is – where are all the slaves?
Now, what do I mean by that? I mean – who built these massive columns and chambers and ornate decorations? It certainly wasn't the main characters of the movie. And who makes their clothes? Their fancy ornate costumes that flutter and shine so perfectly like the utter symbol of regality? Certainly not them. Who cooks their food, does their laundry, cleans their bathrooms?
I never used to consider these points in movies and shows. I used to just watch and try to 'sink into it' in a way and 'just watch the show', but this would often just seem so empty. And that's because movies usually are quite empty as in not having anything of real substance within them. Like they are usually just trying to evoke some feeling or emotion like 'hope' or 'excitement' or 'romance' and in the end you're left with nothing but a momentary feeling. There is usually very little that actually has any relevance to life, but is usually meant to be a momentary distraction from it, to distract from the general disappointment with the status quo or with how our lives are going by for a moment taking us into some fictional reality which becomes a sort of coping mechanism, so that we can tolerate our reality for a bit longer, without ever actually getting so bad that we would actually want to change it.
So I had eventually lost much interest in movies, until I found that it is actually a cool tool to test yourself and your awareness of reality. How you do this is to simply watch the movie and as you watch, don't just 'sink into it' like a zombie where it is really then just your mind watching it while you are in like a trance state not really here, and see what you notice as you go what is out-of-sync with reality. This becomes quite a fun game, suddenly the movie experience is not so empty, and you are testing, exercising and building your awareness as you go. Suddenly watching movies and shows has become a self expansive and rewarding thing to do.
It's also quite fascinating and quite humorous at times to see just how far departed from reality movies and shows can be.
It's also interesting to see in what ways a movie does actually mirror reality, like for example with the Thor movie, and many others, where in reality we tend to take for granted all the 'behind the scenes' stuff like who makes our clothes, and we have a whole slave labor thing going with people working in sweat shops to make our clothes, which we then wear as we're trying to be the characters in our own personal 'movie' of our life, where our clothes are just costumes that we wear to 'express' our 'individuality', while disregarding the truth behind them, and the fact that we're all wearing the product of slavery, essentially.
Just like as we watch these movies, we don't even for a moment consider how were the fancy buildings built and where are the people who built them, and did they build them because they were slaves to labor, or because they actually wanted to build them? And the people who made their armor and their clothes, and cook their meals, and clean their rooms, why aren't they in the movies? Who mines the rocks, the metals, filters the drinking water, grows the food they eat? And this goes for the 'alien' races as well. If we saw that stuff, those inner workings of the system that we tend to ignore, would it change our perspective on those people? Like when we look at how all that exists in actual reality and is a result of largely forced, abusive and/or poorly compensated labor – it's not so cool is it? So no wonder we don't show that in the movies, and we only see the 'pretty parts', the parts that we've given a 'positive' value – the heroes, the action, the suspense, all the emotional and dramatic moments.
But what I realized is that no matter how awesome that 1.5-2 hours in the theater was, the same reality was waiting for me when I walked outside. Actually, reality has been steadily getting worse, while we tend to hide away in distractions instead of face what's here. Imagine, if we sorted this reality out, then we wouldn't care so much about having a moment's distraction, which only lasts for a moment anyway, and never changes anything. No matter how much of a positive experience I had, nothing positive had actually happened, in reality.
I'd like to see what movies would be like if they weren't just here to distract us from reality for a little while longer. Or if they weren't made just to make a few bucks off of our desire to be distracted for a moment more. We would certainly see a lot less horrible movies that were made purely just for the money!
So here, sharing how I've transformed movies and tv shows into tools for self expansion and made them something actually worthwhile and truly entertaining, instead of just distracting. If you too have noticed how just blindly watching movies has become empty, try it out and see what you see.
This is also a cool point for those who may have come across all the info that is out there about how movies are used to 'brainwash' the masses, perhaps by the 'Illuminati' or the 'powers that be' and such, because if you are sticking to reality and developing your awareness of reality and crosschecking with what you see in the movies, then you are certainly not going to be brainwashed by it. So, this is also the solution for those that would fear that point. The solution being to make sure you develop effective self awareness and awareness of reality so that you can't be fooled, and movies and tv shows which are essentially total fiction, are thus a great way to test and assist in developing that. So you take the tool that's been used to 'placate' and 'brainwash' the masses, and actually turn it around and use it as a tool for the development of your own self awareness! And, you can still find the movies entertaining, which I did find of Thor: The Dark World.
There are also other dimensions to how you can use movies to increase your self awareness, which I will likely blog about in a future post to come, so stay tuned for that.