The Quirky Behavior of the Present Lost in the Portrayals of the Past

The Quirky Behavior of the Present Lost in the Portrayals of the Past

While watching the academy award winning film, “12 Years a Slave” I had a thought, what were the behaviors of people of the past like? Were they strange like us? With all our weird quirks, strange sense of humors, terrible laughs, strange fetishes and all the other characteristics that make us human. Of course, yes, these people did have all these things, but then why are they never portrayed in classic literature or films that reflect a not modern time period?

It seems as though anything that does not date beyond the mid-twentieth century has an air about it that makes it seems as though everyone within that time period was all alike. But in modern novels, such as “Super Sad True Love Story” by author Gary Shteyngart create characters that are so unique and exceptionally quirky. In Shteyngart’s world, the characters are so colorful with descriptions, the reader seems to know almost everything about these fictional beings. What they like to eat, what they think during sex, the way they laugh, their odd habits. It creates a more real experience for me and many other readers. But when we watch films or reading novels that deal with people that are in the Victorian era, for example, then it seems we lose this very real experience. Why do authors choose not to include these kinds of details in their novels? For a moment, I hypothesized that it was possible that these novels were just more plot heavy and therefore they did not necessarily need to focus on the humanistic attributes of their characters. But “Super Sad True Love Story” still offers a dense plot while giving the reader the opportunity to understand their characters the way they would with real people.

A great deal of this subject has to deal with the way culture is shaped in the time period that the author is writing their work. The culture of the present day is far different than the culture of the 1800’s America or 1912 in England. Our society is very much centered on dissecting ourselves. Understanding how our minds work, flashing our quirkiness at each other, outshining one another to see who is the most clever in a restricted word count. It makes sense that the novels and films that are generated in this era are so focused around creating characters with flaws and quirks, because we can identify with them. This a personal opinion, but much of our culture, especially in our generation is so centered around pleasing ourselves and representing us. Books that can reflect traits that many of us have are more likely to be popular.