Brother Bear

we watched Brother Bear on TV just now.

i've seen it once before, and thought it was a pretty good film, but it's amazing how you can see so much more once you get a bit older.


there was this one scene in the film where Kenai, a human who was turned into a bear, and Koda, a real bear cub, were looking at ancient cave paintings. one of them depicted a huge scary-looking bear and a man pointing a spear at the bear. then Koda, the real bear, says:

"Those monsters are real scary...
especially with their sticks."

and that line, to me, is the point where you realize that good and bad are relative to where you are standing. light and shadow depend on the time of day, where you are, and what's around you. in the film, man thinks the bears are monsters, so they attack them. but to the bears, the men are the real monsters.

it's really just a very simplistic way of showing that there are always two sides to a struggle. you could write a whole essay on this, but basically, it all comes down to perspective. it all does in the end.
there's this one word in English that i really, really hate...

context.

you have to talk about how a person's context influences their values and attitudes and therefore guides them in shaping an understanding of the text in every single lit essay you do, and it's really annoying cause sometimes you just don't want to.

but i guess there's a reason they make you do that, because it teaches you to pick up things like this. it teaches you that everybody has different values, different beliefs, different priorities, and that it all makes a difference to the way they think. like how some people want to marry harry potter, but others think he takes himself just a little too seriously to be likable.

personally, i believe harry potter is just a character from a book.

but we digress.

we just always see things the way we want to, and somehow fail to consider the other side of the story. or maybe it's just that we refuse to. i don't know. but really, just put yourself in someone else's shoes and try to see what it's like for them.

heck, somewhere in the middle of watching that movie, i considered turning vegetarian.