I Just Have to Say

We have a different kind of beauty out here in flyover country.

I listen to podcasts fairly often these days. There is one that I like, an accomplished woman who interviews other accomplished women. I don't want to tell you her name or the name of her podcast because if you listen to her, I don't want to color your listening pleasure. On the whole, I do enjoy what she and her guests have to say. Otherwise I wouldn't continue to listen.


But I find myself feeling kind of bad after listening to her sometimes especially when she expresses her opinion about various things in popular culture. It turns out she does not like at all.... Very Popular TV Host (VPTH), Very Popular Actress (VPAc), Very Popular Memoir Bestseller (VPMB) and its' accompanying Very Popular Author (VPAu) who has written several other bestsellers, Very Popular Film (VPF) and Very Popular Chain Restaurant (VPCR) [Actually I think Podcast Woman does not like any chain restaurants She talks about her own diet from time to time. They don't serve much that she will eat at chains].

Podcast Woman doesn't like VPTV because in her opinion he is culturally insensitive (although she has never met him in person, she admits, never even came close to meeting him.) She thinks that VPMB is disingenuous because it's not strictly 100% true. (I guess it would be ok if it were labeled as a novel. It reads like a novel because it's well written and edited, I happen to think.) She didn't actually watch VPF because it featured VPAc whom she dislikes ... no reason given, however. And she just turned up her nose at people who went to eat at VPCR; I guess because she thinks they must not know or care about "good food."

Why do I feel bad after hearing her statements?  (And I have to say the statements have all been kind of off the cuff & without thought; nor has she belabored any of these thoughts, just put them out there and kept talking.) Because I happen to really like all of these things and people.

I watch VPTH all the time. I urged our little public library to purchase VPMB when it was new because I enjoyed the read a lot, and it turns out that many other library patrons did too. The library now owns all the books by VPAu, and they circulate well. I enjoyed VPF in the theater and bought myself a DVD of it so I could watch it whenever I want. VPAc has won Oscars, and I think she is beautiful and talented. I'll go see her in anything she does. I eat at VPCR with some regularity.

But I guess it's my cultural low self esteem kicking in, because when I hear her talking down any of the above (and others to come no doubt) my FIRST thought is something like, " Well maybe VPWhatever is not that great after all. Maybe I SHOULDN'T like it so much." I think it's a midwestern thing.

Self assured and very accomplished people can instantly make me feel like a hick from the sticks even if they would say they never intended such a thing. I wasn't raised to ever think that my opinion about things was particularly valuable and should not really influence the opinion of others. I think has made me downgrade my thoughts when confronted with the judgments of others, especially folks who present themselves as "experts" in some way. My FIRST thoughts always run along the lines of, "Well she is very well educated, traveled and accomplished. She must know better than I do about what is worthwhile and what is not." And that's probably why I have not identified any of the particulars under discussion here. (Actually, I don't think the particulars don't matter that much.)

(This kind of reminded me of the little internet controversy several years ago in which a restaurant critic from North Dakota reviewed an Olive Garden restaurant for her hometown paper and was widely mocked by the coastal elites. But then many others came to the defense of the elderly lady restaurant critic, and I think the coastal elites came out of that one the losing end when the whole thing settled down.)

I have eaten in very fine restaurants of many kinds throughout the years, but I also happen to live happily in a part of the country which I sometimes call "The Land Where Chefs Don't Go." We don't have many chefs in this part of the world, but we still enjoy dining out just like people do everywhere. We have to make do with what we have. Chain restaurants actually are often the best in town, as it turns out.

Similarly I once heard someone from away ask why on earth a local couple was having their wedding in the meeting room of a chain motel. Well, because that chain hotel is actually the fanciest place in the little town out here where the couple lived. And the movies that actually make it into our small local theaters? Well, they have to already have made tons of money in other places first, and then some of them will get sent out here to the small theaters in the "wilderness." Otherwise we wait for the DVD or to be on-line. That takes awhile. And we don't often hear about what we "should" be watching unless we happen to read the New York Times regularly. Some people do that even out here, but, really, most don't.

Although my podcast friend was raised in a pretty middle class home and had a bunch of middle class jobs before her career took a different turn, I realize that now, like it or not, she has become a coastal elite. She actually was raised on one coast and now lives on the other. But, you know, I realized that just because she is accomplished, I don't have to buy everything she says. She might be AN arbiter of taste, but she is not THE one. And culture, popular or high, isn't even her filed of expertise.

She is entitled to her opinions about everything and is entitled to express them too. But I'm also just as entitled. I can like or not like anything I want, and who cares if some people might label some things that I like as cliche, inauthentic, shallow, popular but not "art", time bound, mundane, or even bad.

I need to pay more attention to my SECOND thoughts. Probably the first thoughts will continue to just pop up, but I can and should just enjoy what I enjoy. I'm the one experiencing that joy after all, not Podcast Woman or anyone else. And we all needs as much joy as we can get, no matter what stimulates that happy feeling.