Pig. It tastes good.
Why do we care that people think we have good taste?
Don’t like reading? Allow me to read it to you 👈
As someone who dresses as though they live out of a found suitcase, I can tell you that I was caught a little off guard when a friend told me that they trusted in my taste. Admittedly, they were talking about my taste in film, but let’s not get caught up in the minutia of this most excellent compliment.
My friend thinks I have good taste! This is the kind of revelation that throws those curtains of self-doubt wide open to let light flood in and warm the cockles and cockle-adjacent regions of one’s heart.
My friend thinks I have good taste! This is exclamation-mark worthy. No gaudy chandeliers in my front foyer, no sirree. Just good, reliable taste that folks in a no-time-to-waste universe can set their enjoyment clocks to.
It’s nice to hear that a friend trusts your taste. It’s not so nice to hear in the same breath that the film you have just recommended is perhaps causing them to reassess that trust.
“Really?”
There was a tone to his voice after I said the name of the film. A one-eyebrow raised tone.
“Are you sure you want to take this chance?”
I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of what he said after a short back-and-forth on the film and the career of the actor in it. The chance my friend was referring to was the prospect of detonating my branch on his Taste Trust Tree, and having only just found out about the existence of this branch, I panicked. My confidence opened a window and promptly jumped out, leaving me alone on the phone with some dead and anxious air.
Did I really enjoy the movie THAT much? Was this the cinematic hill I was prepared to die on? The premise of the film does sound ridiculous when said out loud, and the actor in this film has—let’s be honest—made some stinkers over the years. Of course, my friend was pushing back. OF COURSE.
I fired a reckless panic shot into the air, bringing up the name of a film we both love that this actor was also in.
“Whoa, hold on,” he said. “Are you saying this film is at that level?”
Full red alert now. “Wait. Wait.” I said, spiraling. “Lemme just walk that back a little.”
Spineless. No, not spineless. I have a spine made of wilted wet lettuce.
Sidebar.
What is good taste anyway, and why do we put so much stock in being considered to have it? Who sets the scale and how did they get that job? What’s at either end of that scale? Is everyone’s scale the same? Does it really matter in the great, grand scheme of things that you have good taste?
I have no answers. Sorry. Wet lettuce spine and empty head. But I think we can all agree that good taste is subjective. The Caretaker of my Taste Garden wears different overalls and carries a very different rake than your caretaker. What you see as the height of sophistication could be total burn-it-to-the-ground garbage for me. While I have no answers, I will say that I think taste is felt. And that good, bad, or ugly, if you feel it, that’s your taste and you should probably just own it. Go ahead and buy more gold-plated gargoyles for your driveway if that’s what trips your trigger. You know you want to.
This brings me back to the story.
My friend knows my taste. I know his. In this, our scales are level.
48 hours, he said. If at the end of that 48 hours I stood by my recommendation then he would watch the movie. If he hates it after that is the ‘what’s at stake’ element in my hero’s journey.
It’s no biggie, really.
“My opinion of whether I can trust your taste will be ruined forever.”
Again, I’m paraphrasing and the sentiment is playfully overdramatic but this is high-stakes poker, people. I don’t believe for a second that my reputation will be ruined forever, but the thought of having my first checkmark in the negative column and him having doubt in future dealings gave me pause.
Did I really want to push all my chips in for this movie?
To help me decide, I did what I always do when I need a big think—I went for a very long bike ride.
Made a bullet list in my mind.
Started getting very worked up about the film again.
Had a conversation in the redwoods with the squirrels and the newts.
This film. This film. This film. Realized I didn’t need 48 hours.
“I DO stand by it,” I thought. “He should absolutely watch this film. And guess what, buddy? This trust thing works both ways. If YOU don’t like it, my trust in YOUR taste will have a checkmark in the negative column, too.”1
When I got home, I sent him a four-and-a-half-minute voice note about why I stood by my decision.
I basically pitched it to him.
I laid it all out.
All the philosophical reasons I could not stop thinking about the film.
What I believe the job of film is.
What art does.
Why I thought people hated this particular film2.
Why he might hate it and why it would be OK if he did.
I closed with an example of why I am a person of contradictions, and while I love great and powerful films, I also cannot leave the house if the Sandra Bullock/Bill Pullman film, “While you Were Sleeping” comes on the television.
Make of that what you will.
And then I texted it to him.
I have not heard back yet, which either means he hasn’t listened to it or he’s so stunned he is incapable of response. Or maybe he’s watching the film AS WE SPEAK? Boy, I hope so. I can’t wait to see if my branch remains intact in his Taste Trust Tree. Honestly, even if I lose a little bark on this one, I can take it.
Taste is determined just as much by the things we hate as the things we love and we can’t live our lives only watching the “good” things. We must expose ourselves to the art that makes us uncomfortable, too. It’s how the taste sausage is made. To know what you like, you must discover what you don’t like and set your planetary poles. To get taste you must taste it all.
Because ultimately, that’s what taste is: Eating all the sausages.
The difference of opinion.
The positioning of alternate points on the compass and all the wild swings between.
“Hi, Chad, it’s Janeen,” I say. My voice does not betray my nervousness. I believe what I am about to say. I trust myself. I am not afraid. Taste, my friends, does not exist in a world without debate.
“Hi, Chad, it’s Janeen.” I say, “And here’s why I think you should watch the movie Pig.”3
Yours in tiny thought,
Janeen
This week’s amends…
“Be easy on yourself. Have fun. Only hang around people that are positive and make you feel good. Anybody who doesn't make you feel good, kick them to the curb. And the earlier you start in your life the better. The minute anybody makes you feel weird and non-included or not supported, you know, either beat it or tell them to beat it.”
– Amy Poehler
On Rotation: “MRA” by Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath.
I also added this to my Music to Write by (No Lyrics) playlist. Though it might be a little too distracting with its head-nod-inducing ways.
Who doesn’t love a slinky? I mean, here, play with this spring! I never realized that the jingle was the inspiration for LOG in Ren and Stimpy and now these two things have connected in my mind and of course it was.
Via Boing Boing
Did any of this spark a tiny thought of your own?
j/k. I’m just lashing out. Part of me thinks a conversation where we’re both on different sides would be more exciting anyway. I think I just miss lively discussions about film.
It seems to be quite polarizing.
I look forward to your letters. Also, don’t watch the trailer. Go into it knowing nothing.