Alice In Wonderland

Tim Burton's new movie Alice in Wonderland is gonna be friggin awesome! I mean look at these pictures of the cast!! I am such a HUGE Tim Burton fan; i love all his movies, short stories and all his characters. He is like a total genius to me and I greatly admire his unique artistic vision in everything he has done. Nightmare Before Christmas is my all time favorite from his movies, but I'd say Alice In Wonderland might just top it now. Its still a Disney movie tho, so let's hope the people at Disney dont screw things up and start limiting what he wants to do with the movie. I can't wait!! =]

Standing Up For Who You Are

*** I took this from Gabriel's Motivation in a bottle...
I really liked the way he expressed his view, and I agree with him completely.

In today's society people seem way to occupied with survival. People focus all their energy and time in keeping a job or making money.

Personally, even I sometime find myself denying who I am because it make someone else uncomfortable. That is wrong. I know it. But, sometimes the fear of losing a job or not having the approval of my peers makes me switch into self preservation mode. Whether its being afraid of acting too gay, or ignoring a comment that was said because you/I don't want to make someone else uncomfortable. It's simply wrong. I know for a fact that those who disapprove of you will do so no matter what you do, and the more you try to get them to like you - the more they will in turn openly disrespect you. So its better to just be who you are, express yourself how you like and let what's going to happen happen.

All this is especially true when your dealing with a person that is feeling uncomfortable around you based on some bias or bigoted idea they hold. Don't let their myopic ideas or dogmas poison your own. And it happens, a lot. These are some examples I've seen:

-People being afraid to be too gay because of fear they will offend someone.
-People who form opinions about societal/political issues based on trying to agree with someone, as opposed to actually life experiences.
-People who don't socialize based on being afraid of not being accepted.
-People who have changed political parties either to agree with someone or to take revenge on someone.
-People who try to look religious to be liked or to please.
-People who buy into gossip or hatred of another person to agree with someone or be liked.

I'm sure many of these we have all seen. It's sad and disappointing that people have to go to these lengths in order to feel security. I don't think social or job security should be so valuable as to compromise self security.

Now, I'm not going to lie and say I hold this to be true for everyone. Do I think a bigot that hold hatred and disdain for gays should be able to freely express themselves? No. I'm know that might look one sided, but I'm a firm believer in do what you want, as long as it doesn't hurt/suppress another. Someone being flamboyant at work or in a restaurant doesn't stop someone else from being happy. But, talking or expressing bigotry does make someone fearful to be who they are, in turn making them unhappy (if the bigotry your expressing it towards Blacks, Asians, Jews, Gays, Muslims, Women...etc.).

Picture this - A black person is in a restaurant eating. In the table next to them there are a group of individuals making racist jokes and hateful comments against blacks. The black people would want to leave, no? The racists should be told to stop or kicked out, right? The difference between being Asian or Black and Gay or Jewish is that somethings people can hide and somethings people can't hide. You can't hide being black but you can hide being gay.

If you were to tell this same scenario with a gay person instead of a black person, you would probably say for the gay person to stop acting flamboyant or to act straight to stay out of harms way. Your first instinct probably wouldn't be to say that the anti-gay comments stop, right? Think about it. Things like being Jewish or Gay are easily hidden. But, should they have to be hidden? No. Never.

To close this up, people should be who they are as long as it's not stopping anyone else from being who they are. If you're offended because someone is expressing racist or hateful ideas against you, your justified in being offended. If you're offended because someone is being themselves and you just don't like it, even though it truly doesn't have anything to do with you...your a bigot.