MetaChat - what's botherin me

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23 December 2008

what's botherin me so I just watched Breakfast at Tiffany's→[More:]
and there's this bit where the protagonist, a wild spirit, or something along those lines, suddenly becomes very interested in South America and our hero finds her poring through thick volumes at a public library (with sunglasses on!)

And I think that's bunk. When she first walks into a library with him she can't shut up and not scribble inside books and now she's Ms. Studious? She doesn't even need to check them out and bring them home to read over drinks or something?

Now there are other ways she gets interested in Brazil that seem more believable (Portuguese media, decorations, the language) but my point is that I find the suggestion that changes in interests drive changes in behavior kinda suspicious.

I noticed this same thing with Iron Man where our hero, who's usually horny as a toad, comes back from this tough life-changing experience and suddenly doesn't want to sleep around anymore. I don't get it. You can have changed priorities and outlooks in life but why would your sex drive change?

I was talking about this with a friend on IM and she's like, well: 'when I saw Jamie Oliver on TV I magically began to cook.'

But I think that's different, because it's more like, she already had the behavioral capacity to cook ingrained in her, he just helped bring it out. Ya know? Whereas there may be people who're just constitutionally incapable of having fun cooking, because even though they're interested in the IDEA of cooking, it's just the actions involved aren't conducive to their sense of fun. Am I making sense?

post by: Firas at: 11:49 | 16 comments

I think Holly Golightly is envisioned as a fairly manipulative (if benign, kind of) character. Immediately seeing the use of a skill that the writer (whose name I'm blanking on) has introduced into her life, and using that to further her own life, seems fairly plausible to me.

Also, if they were reference books, she wouldn't be able to check them out.

As for the larger point about interests and behaviors, I worked as a therapist for a high-school kid who had been diagnosed with ADHD, described himself as having no ability to stay organized or accomplish anything, etc. But he was super interested in engines and scooters, and was actually running a fairly successful business repairing/reselling parts and racing scooters. He had a running tally of his expenses and profits in his head at all times, knew where all his tools were (even in they weren't perfectly organized), and did all the marketing for his work himself. I know that "hyperfocus" is supposed to be a hallmark of ADHD, but it seems like it's rather more of a hallmark of being human -- we can certainly pore a lot of time and energy into projects that *interest* or *benefit* us in some way, even when we wouldn't put the time or effort into the same actions (reading, researching, etc) when they don't immediately benefit us.

(I am trying to type with a dead-weight cat lying on my left arm, so I'm feeling a bit less articulate, and, you know, mobile, than usual. I hope some of that above makes sense?)

posted by occhiblu 23 December | 12:20

Yeah, as someone with ADD, I find my manifestations of what I now consider 'ADD hyperfocus' are about either:

- focussing intensely on things that *aren't* beneficial by any definition, like surfing the Web habitually, sometimes with the awareness that I'm procrastinating about something, but not always

- focussing on things to the exclusion and thereby detriment of other things, like staying up until 3am working on a writing project when I need to get up at 8am for work

posted by loiseau 23 December | 12:30

I think lots of people become interested in something and throw themselves at it full force for a day, or a weekend, or a bit longer, even when it seems out of character. Then they abandon it. Or scale it back to fit in with how they live their lives more generally.

I knew this idiot woman who used to reinvent herself regularly. For a month she'd be the best beautyschool student ever. And then for a week, she'd shop her resume like mad to get hired as a sales rep for something. Then she'd get married, be a housewife for a couple months and spend a year trying to get set for life in the divorce. In every case it was like one of those movie montages: she'd buy all the supplies, spend several full days absorbed in it, then drop it without qualm.

So I think it's not the least believable thing in movies.

posted by crush-onastick 23 December | 12:31

Also, I now have that awful "Breakfast at Tiffany's" pop song stuck in my head, and I know from experience it will be there for several more days. Damn you! /shakes fist/ :-)

posted by occhiblu 23 December | 12:35

...and now I do too, occhi.

posted by gaspode 23 December | 12:39

It lessens my pain to inflict it on others.

posted by occhiblu 23 December | 12:43

I think I remember that film and if I recall I think we both kinda liked it....
OY

posted by rmless2 23 December | 12:54

occhi, tell me all your thoughts on God.

posted by jonmc 23 December | 13:11

What is this, "Use occhiblu as a jukebox" day? Sheesh, you people.

posted by occhiblu 23 December | 13:12

Freebird, occhi!

posted by goo 23 December | 13:23

What is this, "Use occhiblu as a jukebox" day?

*sticks quarter in occhi*

"Blitzkrieg Bop," please.

posted by jonmc 23 December | 14:10

As I watched that movie, I got the impression that a lot of bits of the script got cut.

posted by Ardiril 23 December | 14:38

I haven't read the book, but I remember reading that Truman Capote was heavily disappointed in the film adaptation.

posted by Eideteker 23 December | 15:21

Yes, the book gives you a little more insight into Holly's character -- in fact, the scene where she and Paul go to the library together isn't even in the book, so her going to the library later to study Brazil makes much more sense. In the book she's definitely not the kind of person who would chatter aimlessly in the library. I love both the movie and the book, but think they are two very different things.

posted by JanetLand 23 December | 15:38

Well, that's one thing we got.

posted by drezdn 23 December | 16:06

You know, I just realized that Mickey Rooney is not Japanese.

Just sayin'. There's a certain amount of suspension of disbelief one enters into that characters are there to tell us a story, not to be perfect representations of actual human beings.

Also I have definitely known people who can turn on a dime. My nephew is someone who can just suddenly decide that he's going to start folding his clothing and putting it in a dresser instead of piling it all on the floor like a teenager. Unlike most of us, he will actually accomplish this change rather quickly and without fuss or fallback.

posted by stilicho 24 December | 01:29

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