On Spiderman-- read my friends' entries on it first

Hmmm. Well, I did enjoy Spiderman. It was fun and colorful and a big silly grin movie and I liked it very much. And I was glad I could be there for my lover.

Thing is, I'm not a New Yorker. I vacillate between toleration of the city and outright hatred, and I even know why: the first time I visited NYC, I was about seven years old and four feet tall wasn't really in view yet. It was my first Really Big City, and two things happened on that trip that make me wonder why I'm a city person at all. Firstly, there was a sanitation worker's strike, and nobody had picked up the garbage for six weeks. In the middle of summer, highs in the nineties. The smell was inescapable, even in the hotel room. Out on the street-- well, my father carried me on his shoulders for as long as his back would stand it, because he found it unbearable at six foot even. Down where I was-- But my parents had had the hotel booked for a while, and wanted to make the most of our vacation. So we spent as much of our time on various islands and up high buildings as possible. The Statue of Liberty was what really did me in. It wasn't the height, or the view from the top; it was the fact that the staircase was open-framed and spiraling, and that there were gaps between the steps that went down, and down, and the steps themselves were made of metal grating which was pretty well see-through. I got up okay, because I was looking up, ahead of me. But on the way down, I felt like I was standing on nothing, and liable to trip and fall into those gaps. I crawled all the way down the Statue of Liberty, damn near hysteria. I've never been up there again.

That's two of the major fears of my life started right there, heights and dirt. Is it any wonder I've never liked New York?

But Spiderman, well, did help me understand why people love the city. It showed a city where heights are to be rejoiced in; it showed a city which can be lived in, and it was obviously fictionalized, but based on something somebody sees as reality. I can handle that.

However, when it got to the scene that knocked Ruth for a loop, it knocked me right out of suspension of disbelief. Because honestly, that is not only a concept I never associated with New York before September 11th, it's a concept I still don't associate with it. That was just the thing I couldn't accept in the movie, the thing that felt ever so slightly like emotional manipulation: New York City caring? Trying to, yes, post-catastrophe; everyone is very careful about things post-catastrophe; this is a city that wants to be good to people, now. It's just, I can't see that as an instinctive response. A learned habit, yes, and one that will persist, but a blood-and-bone quick reaction, no, much as anyone would like to make it so. Because this is still a city of poor and homeless and filthy, filthy streets and subways. Because this is a city where people are afraid of what might happen next. Because this is a city where I don't watch the news because it's full of the latest fears.

Spiderman was a movie that tried to reassure me about the city, and I think the city needs reassurance. It didn't work on me because I'm not a New Yorker. It is not my fault or the movie's fault that I'm not a New Yorker, but I think it should be noted about the movie, that this reassurance is not-- necessarily-- correct. I'm not saying that's a reason not to love New York; my reasons are my own, as I explained. Neither am I saying one shouldn't love the city, and I'm glad my girlfriend does, has come to terms with the fact that it hurt her when it was hurt.

All I am saying is that, even post September 11th, it's important to realize that it is not compulsory to love New York, and it's important to notice what works of art and pop culture are trying to do, before deciding whether or not to let them do it. I think that, if Spiderman is manipulative, then it is manipulative in a reassuring and healthy way. But people ought to notice that it is before accepting it.

On Spiderman-- read my friends' entries on it first

Hmmm. Well, I did enjoy Spiderman. It was fun and colorful and a big silly grin movie and I liked it very much. And I was glad I could be there for my lover.

Thing is, I'm not a New Yorker. I vacillate between toleration of the city and outright hatred, and I even know why: the first time I visited NYC, I was about seven years old and four feet tall wasn't really in view yet. It was my first Really Big City, and two things happened on that trip that make me wonder why I'm a city person at all. Firstly, there was a sanitation worker's strike, and nobody had picked up the garbage for six weeks. In the middle of summer, highs in the nineties. The smell was inescapable, even in the hotel room. Out on the street-- well, my father carried me on his shoulders for as long as his back would stand it, because he found it unbearable at six foot even. Down where I was-- But my parents had had the hotel booked for a while, and wanted to make the most of our vacation. So we spent as much of our time on various islands and up high buildings as possible. The Statue of Liberty was what really did me in. It wasn't the height, or the view from the top; it was the fact that the staircase was open-framed and spiraling, and that there were gaps between the steps that went down, and down, and the steps themselves were made of metal grating which was pretty well see-through. I got up okay, because I was looking up, ahead of me. But on the way down, I felt like I was standing on nothing, and liable to trip and fall into those gaps. I crawled all the way down the Statue of Liberty, damn near hysteria. I've never been up there again.

That's two of the major fears of my life started right there, heights and dirt. Is it any wonder I've never liked New York?

But Spiderman, well, did help me understand why people love the city. It showed a city where heights are to be rejoiced in; it showed a city which can be lived in, and it was obviously fictionalized, but based on something somebody sees as reality. I can handle that.

However, when it got to the scene that knocked Ruth for a loop, it knocked me right out of suspension of disbelief. Because honestly, that is not only a concept I never associated with New York before September 11th, it's a concept I still don't associate with it. That was just the thing I couldn't accept in the movie, the thing that felt ever so slightly like emotional manipulation: New York City caring? Trying to, yes, post-catastrophe; everyone is very careful about things post-catastrophe; this is a city that wants to be good to people, now. It's just, I can't see that as an instinctive response. A learned habit, yes, and one that will persist, but a blood-and-bone quick reaction, no, much as anyone would like to make it so. Because this is still a city of poor and homeless and filthy, filthy streets and subways. Because this is a city where people are afraid of what might happen next. Because this is a city where I don't watch the news because it's full of the latest fears.

Spiderman was a movie that tried to reassure me about the city, and I think the city needs reassurance. It didn't work on me because I'm not a New Yorker. It is not my fault or the movie's fault that I'm not a New Yorker, but I think it should be noted about the movie, that this reassurance is not-- necessarily-- correct. I'm not saying that's a reason not to love New York; my reasons are my own, as I explained. Neither am I saying one shouldn't love the city, and I'm glad my girlfriend does, has come to terms with the fact that it hurt her when it was hurt.

All I am saying is that, even post September 11th, it's important to realize that it is not compulsory to love New York, and it's important to notice what works of art and pop culture are trying to do, before deciding whether or not to let them do it. I think that, if Spiderman is manipulative, then it is manipulative in a reassuring and healthy way. But people ought to notice that it is before accepting it.