Untag My Life

In the modern world of technology, we label our posts, our pictures and our files for easier organization and search purposes. Everything fits into our little data file nice and compactly, which we tag and bag.

We do this for our lives, as well. Slap a label on everyone, categorizing them as though they should fit the tag as nicely as our blog posts do.

What happens when we don't fit perfectly into the prepackaged label that is chosen to describe us? We are seen as oddities, as eccentrics, as nonconformists. This, but also that. A juxtaposing of dissimilar ideas.

Just as in political parties, people want to believe that you have to conform to fit the group. You're not "one of us" unless you fit every point. You can't be a true Republican or a true Democrat unless you believe x, y, z, and there's little room for argument or moderation. They try to pull you toward the extremes, as the water in a bucket being spun is drawn to the base by gravity.

Americans want so badly to squeeze stories into a nice little labeled box. You can't have a comedy AND an action, it must be one or the other. God forbid you make a sci fi with a western feel (read: Firefly). It's taboo, even if it works.

I love westerns, but I also love sci fi. I love history, but also science. I am a conundrum, as I follow both, almost as religiously as a Catholic follows Christ. My love of westerns does not bely my love of anime; to the contrary, it compliments it.

When it comes right down to it, what I love is a good story. You don't have to fit into a perfect label to be such. When will Hollywood come to understand this? It's the unique stories that take us outside the perfect little standard box which become classic. Those are the ones that inspire. The ones that would challenge us to scrape off the adhesive and look beyond the tag. Beyond the labels to which we are stuck.