Documentary Reflection

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I. Love. Documentaries. Most of what I watch on Netflix are documentaries. I'm always looking for new and interesting educational flick that I can watch grab some snacks and cuddle up in bed. Call me a nerd, but documentaries are my favorite kind of films to watch. It's always been hard for me to sit through a "regular" movie. I don't even really like going to the movies and shelling out cash for a sub par movie.Any movies I see I never end up loving, or I find myself thinking that I wasted two hours I'll never get back. I never feel that way with a documentary. Maybe it's because documentaries tend to be less deceiving than "normal" movies, meaning you're never really 100% positive how an action movie or rom-com is going to pan out. At least if I've watched a documentary I know I've learned something, while if I don't like a movie I've wasted upwards of two hours of my life.

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I'm assuming my love for documentaries comes from never ending and most likely eternal curiosity. I've always been a curious little thing. I was always the kid who liked to going to school and wanted books about animals and science for Christmas.  I just liked knowing things. Ever since I've been a little kid, I've been asking questions my mom couldn't answer and by the time she flipped through our stash of encyclopedias and found out how horseshoe crabs swim, I've thought of three more questions to ask. Documentaries satisfy my curiosity, with mounds of knowledge at the tap of my keyboard. I can find out about literally anything I want to without having to read a dry text book. I like knowing things, and documentaries let me know things.

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I don't believe people who say they don't like documentaries. I think they just haven't found one that they liked. When someone says "documentary" people usually shiver as they think back to grade school when the teacher would role out a TV cart and put on a film about the American Revolution narrated by some British guy (but I also think you're lying if you say you didn't like it when Bill Nye the Science Guy played on those TVs). There's a documentaries for everyone. Sports, science, food, religion, travel, biographies, animals, fashion, the list goes on and on. Some of the best, most interesting movies I've seen have been documentaries. One of my favorites is about a company putting American men in content with Ukrainian and Russian women in what's called a modern mail order bride company. I've seen one about people whose lives have been consumed by a game called Second Life, Blackfish about the whales, AIDS victims in different countries, veganism, the list goes on. I challenge those who hate documentaries to watch one that a lines with their interests, and see if they still hate documentaries.