The annoying Hollywood cliches and how they wish to shape the world

If you watch movies often, as I do, you will realize that most scripts seem to follow a script. There seems to be a checklist of cliches in Hollywood these days, which are, annoyingly repeated movie after movie. Funny that movies from other countries do not seem to follow this “script”. Exactly who force feeds this agenda on script writers is not clear. It is difficult to fathom they all really share the same views about certain things and folks.

First of all. These days, whenever a police chief is portrayed in an American movie, he is black. Judges are often black AND women. This obviously does not represent the reality in most instances. Most judges in the USA are still men and white. Perhaps Hollywood thinks this will change things…

The movie industry alternates its own self view as exclusively a purveyor of fiction, with a lofty role of actor of change. Meanwhile, a lot of people see movies as news programs. They know it is fiction, however, they truly believe what they see in movie screens as representation of truth in some form.

Cops and doctors are normally represented on a good light. There are some corrupt policemen, however, the police is normally portrayed as diligent crime fighters, true heroes who will take a bullet for anybody. The majority of police do very ordinary work, such as writing parking tickets, and at least where I live, they take their time to report to a potentially violent “situation”. As for doctors, a friend of mine who is a surgeon, posted on Facebook the other day, that most doctors in America suck. They care about social standing, quit studying after leaving school, and are bureaucratic test readers. I did not say this, a doctor did. Yet, physicians are generally portrayed as altruistic individuals, who “feel the pain”  of their patients.

Whenever you see a classroom in a movie, nine out of ten times, it is an English or literature class. It seems that in writers’ minds, writing and literature are the only things that matter, and all other areas of knowledge, rubbish. Sure, writers should write about what they know. However, there is a little of self-glorification. “What we do is cool and relevant, everything else is boring and irrelevant.”

Children…how many child geniuses have you seen on Hollywood movies? Well, in my few dozen years of life, I have never seen a child that fits the children that appear on American movies. They are always witty, highly intelligent and cultured, articulate and mature way beyond their years. What I see, across the board, are  lame children. Children are still children. Worse yet, they are maturing in their 20’s now, in their late teens they still behave as they are in the early teens.

Religious people are always portrayed as demented, hypocritical demagogues. So much for not being prejudiced.

All orientals know martial arts…

As for the stuff that sells, yes, sex. There are some annoying cliches in that area as well. Every movie seems to have lesbians now. Not gays, lesbians by the truckload. And the lesbians are always highly feminine and beautiful, knockouts. I have met many lesbians, and have never met one who is both feminine and beautiful. Most are masculine and ugly.

I suppose that according to Hollywood’s worldview, the American population will take a dive in the next few years. That is because whenever there is a sex scene between a man and a woman, most likely, it is anal sex. Contrary to all evidence otherwise, Hollywood seems to think that all women love anal sex, and so do men. According to them, that is all folks of all cultures and ages are doing. What exactly is the point of this, I do not know.

Sometimes one gets the feeling we are getting an agenda pushed down our throats. They might wish they will change the world, but judges will continue to be white men mostly, children will remain lame inarticulates, cops and doctors bureaucratic, and lesbians ugly. And hetero couples will continue to enjoy the missionary position.

To get or not to get a credit report from Experian? DON’T GET IT

I never had my identity stolen, however, a couple of months back, I suspected something was wrong.

A few years ago, I requested free credit reports (everyone is entitled to one, once a year), writing directly to the top credit reporting agencies, by snail mail. It worked great.  Now, you have to go through a website, which confuses users by hinting their identity has been really stolen. Since I have very little time to waste with games, I decided to go directly to one of the providers, and I chose Experian.

The free report I was entitled to quickly became a 1 dollar report. That meant I needed to provide a credit card number to pay the buck. And here a little nagging problem started.

Not only would I be charged US$ 1 for the report, however, by requesting it from Experian, I would agree to try out for a US$17.95 a month credit monitoring service, which I could cancel at any time. If I canceled within 7 days of ordering the trial subscription, I would not be charged anything, not even the first charge.

I ordered my US$1 (free) report on a Wednesday, and found out all was clear with my credit. Then, the next Wednesday I called to cancel the subscription. Funny thing. To sign up, you can do everything on line, within tops five minutes . To cancel, you have to speak to a rep, and stay online for a good 30 minutes. I hate to think that the idea is to have you give up on the cancellation and be stuck with the subscription forever…

Be that as it may, I did call, stayed on the line patiently, and spoke to a nice rep. Although she kept on trying to convince me to keep the service, I denied every time. Then, after five attempts to keep my hard earned dollars, she offered the service for half-price, which I found outrageous. After I gave her a few thoughts on the hard selling tactic (why not offer the service for US$8.00 to begin with?), she confirmed the service would be cancelled, THAT I WOULD NOT GET ANY FURTHER BILLING FROM EXPERIAN, and I got an email confirmation on the trot.

Much to my dismay, I just got my credit card bill, and guess what it contains? A US$17.95 charge from Experian!! Yes, siree!

Needless to say, I was beyond outraged by this point. I explained, over and over again, that I opted out of the service within the prescribed seven days, that I got verbal and written confirmation, yet, the representative insisted I did not comply with that requirement, and that although the subscription would be canceled henceforth, that US$17.95 charge would stand.

After referring to this business deal in not very endearing terms, and making a rhetorical observation concerning the mission of the company, which is to protect us from scams and aspects of this transaction, which looked like a scam to me, I told the representative that I would feel free to share my nasty experience with the entire world, by writing on several dozens of blogs to which I contribute material.

That did the trick, though. She was so adamant that the charge would stand just a few seconds before, however, when I said I would make the matter public, a third party, a supervisor, I guess, entered the picture and allowed the credit!

I can only say this: before you order anything from Experian, think twice. I have since then read similar stories on the internet, so I can assure you that this is not an isolated incident. I am ready to do battle next month again.