The Language of Subjectivity

My mom and I are very close. In fact, my brothers claim from time to time that she and I have our own secret language only we can understand that excludes all verbal utterances whatsoever and relies solely on the fact that her and I tend to see the world through the same scope or lens. We can spend an afternoon of shopping and without saying a word, I can tell; which clothes she likes, doesn’t like, LIKES but doesn’t think she could pull off, items that she thinks are overpriced (but still wants), if a salesperson rubs her the wrong way and she wants me to step in and distract, if she’s tired, if she spots a person in a weird outfit, and I know that face that accompanies her famous line that always annoys me so much….”Katie, you could just MAKE that yourself!”.
For all this connection between us and similarities with how we view, judge, or interpret places and events in our lives, I am sometimes baffled by how differently we often interpret the media. I never really thought about this until we began discussing the idea of subjectivity in class and how everyone views things differently based on what they’ve experienced in their own lives and certain things that interpellate me or that are obvious to MY eye, may go unnoticed by others because they haven’t had the same experiences.
This past year I took on the task of introducing myself to the show Gossip Girl and proceeded to watch every season. I was hooked and I was sure that it was a show my mom would enjoy as well. I waited until she was a good chunk of the way through the first season to ask her if she had noticed anything in particular about the character of Blair….to me there was a glaring issue that I was sure my mom would also pick up on and I was surprised when she didn’t see it too. There is something about Blair, something that is never addressed blatantly on the show but is every now and then alluded to in a very subtle way. I don’t know if most people would even pick up on it but I see this issue and I know it, I know it right away because I have lived it and I can see the signs from a mile. I fill in the blanks differently than someone who has not dealt with the same disorders and I am time and again amazed at some of the things I see or pick up on that others do not. There are however, the moments or ideas that go unnoticed by me that my mom, with the subjectivity of a divorcee, will interpret in a way that never crossed my mind. I think the fact that she utterly cannot STAND Titanic speaks for itself (like literally, banned from the house). So I find it interesting that two people, who can almost read each other’s minds, can’t read the same storyline.