Post #54: Double Standards

This year, one of my biggest struggles has been overcoming double standards. I have been told one thing, adhered to it, only to watch someone else win/get credit/get away with something after completely disregarding the standards set for everyone else. For a short film competition, I altered my short film to fit the strict 'no violence' rules. I was told if I used nerf guns my film would be disqualified. I was allowed to use my fingers to make "guns" but I was not allowed to fire them. The video that won in my category featured explicit, R-rated violence. A guy's head is shot and explodes. All over the screen. And they had highly realistic fake M-16s. My nerf gun is bright pink with white swirls amd flowers on it. When I and a few other contestants asked about this other video, we were told that the violence in the winning film was acceptable because it was pertinent to the story line. A story about starting a nuclear war with Russia. My thirty second scene was a Mark Wahlberg movie parody. The guns are "cocked", but never fired. The MW character has animal control on her tail. It's a parody of Shooter. But my almost violence was unacceptable.

I was told to read poems that were school appropriate at my school's poetry slam this week. I left my mother's day poem at home because it said "shit", and I knew that it would be considered inappropriate. I read one of my other poems. I watched contestant after contestant get up amd share poems that would quickly get DQ'ed if held to the same standards I was told to adhere to. And at a school function, I don't want to see mindless violence or hear about you and your significant other getting naked and doing I don't want to know what. It's not the time or place. In my free time, I watch violent movies. But I am aware of the rating, and so is my mom. I am aware of what I am exposing myself to. But at school functions, if I am expected to keep it clean and PG, I expect everyone to be. I have never been dress-coded, sent to an administrator's office or held after class. I follow the rules, and sometimes I wonder what would happen if I broke the rules. If I let my Tyler Durden side out to play. But I know better. So I'll just keep following the rules and being a fairly decent person.

"Creepy people do the things decent people want to do, but have decided are probably not a great idea." - Mike Birbiglia, This American Life "#515"

-D.