The Right Cliché

I've had worse ideas, than getting SuperSculpey in mine eyes... I could assemble a list of the top worst things I've had in mes yeux, but seriously I doubt it would crack the top 5... let's see, that shard of glass... that clod of lakebed clay... ghost pepper juice... I'm not sure if any of that mustard gas actually got into my eyes, but I looked at it from only a couple of feet away, so that's a solid maybe...? And, cat afterbirth?

Dang it's somewhat miraculous I've still got these peepers...

To say "cliché" is the cheapest form of critique, in the sense that there's absolutely no arguing against it. Any other subjective experience can offer evidence for or against itself, but the figmentation that something may be cliché will always stand alone, because it will always be "true" from any of the reference frames that offer that criticism.

They said to avoid cliché like the plague, hahaha, but they didn't ever bring up that there's such thing as the right cliché to use. Cross their minds?, it didn't even zephyr its way through the same room in which they were standing, ghost through the same hallways. Tell a child to think creatively, in this manner, and what you're doing is stifling creativity- telling them there's a wrong and a right way to problem-solve, make them second-guess that which they would not have first-guessed, when the only such right-way-to-problem-solve limitation in nature is whether the problem is, y'know, "solved" or not (of course, all you can ever do is create new problems for the next generation, but that just makes it fun. Wee.)

So. I don't really believe in cliché. I don't see movieland as "creatively bankrupt" whatever that would mean, have no problem with Hollywood coming out with excessive sequels, and if anything see it as a potential sign of increased creativity (depending on the subjective quality of the rest of the film, of course)- but with previous films to draw upon, after all, each moment can offer up far richer context and far deeper content, remix totally something you're deeply invested in.

Even if something perfectly cliché is played perfectly straight, it's still at least partially unique- every juxtaposition is unique in context; the only circumstances in which cliché disappoints are when it feels like the cliché is just a placeholder, that the creators didn't dig deep enough, when we can see some better trope that would fill the niche in the milieu that the "cliché" currently occupies. When it's the right cliché, we give it no heed, take it for granted as some operational principle of the universe (which may or may not be a good thing, but it's most assuredly not like we're going to notice either way due to the very nature of the beast.)

I think that's all I have to say about that, at the present time.