Shattered Sight
When I watched movies when I was little, I would watch to imitate the graceful actions and to sing along with the melodic songs of the Disney princesses. I didn't really listen to what they had to say because they were just pretty images floating across my TV screen. And that was it. But last night at 1 am, I decided to rewatch a past Disney classic that I'm sure you've heard of -- Mulan. As I continued to watch and to listen more intently to the words spoken by the characters, I realized how sexist the movie was. Granted it was probably hyperbolized in order to demonstrate the surprising fact that Mulan had even dared to go to war as a man, but it was not something I had realized when I was younger. At first I thought it was just two or three times that it would be mentioned and it would end there, but as I paid more attention I heard the men in the movie say more things like "she'll never be anything, she's a woman," and "Mulan, I know my place. You should probably learn yours."
The difference of my perspective from then and now shows me how much clearer I see the world. Yes, I am only 16 and I will probably look back at my teenage years and wonder what in the world I was doing, but it's interesting to see the growth that happened in the span of about 10 years.
Though we don't realize it, as humans we are always growing, developing, adapting, and learning -- and that's what makes our existence beautiful. The fact that there is so much to learn and so much to see and how that can in turn change our perspective day by day is truly amazing and mind blowing. When I was 6 I didn't realize much about reality: I took the sexist remarks in this family-oriented movie and took them at face value. Now that I'm 16 and have been exposed to more, I have the ability to distinguish what I want to learn for myself. Maybe you saw the reality in these movies at an early age or maybe you haven't seen them yet at all, but the fact of the matter is that we're all part of a gradual process of growth.