Gift-Giving

So, I know I kind of hyped up my blog in my first entry about what’s to come, but it’s been a week since then, so yeah I guess I’m off to a fairly good start. In all honesty, I put off putting anything up because I started my blog right before Christmas and I wanted to avoid writing about the holiday; I didn’t really have anything to say about it, it’s whatever. But I recently felt inspired to write about the act of giving gifts.

First thing on my mind is the invention of the wish list. Now, I admit wish lists are in fact helpful for the gift-giver. Well, not only is it helpful, it practically does the job for them. In my mind, the heavy-lifting in getting someone a gift is the deciding what to get. From then on it takes no to little effort in actually getting (in extreme circumstances, the attainment of a gift can be hard too, like if I wanted to get someone the first issue of Superman, or a unicorn). So, I would consider wish lists to be a good thing when the giver and receiver aren’t very close. If the two consider themselves to be very good friends or particularly close, then it’s another story.

In gift-giving, if you’re getting a gift from someone you consider to be close, then you shouldn’t need a wish list. Not only because you might already know what they want, but wouldn’t you know what the receiver really wants better themselves. I mean, in the position of a receiver, aren’t the best gifts always the ones that are a surprise? Personally, if a close friend got me something I listed on Elfster, I would be happy in the sense that, yes, I now have what I said I wanted. But, really, anyone could have done what they did: read what I want, then get it. A complete stranger could have gotten me that gift, so the instance that my close friend gives me it s completely diminished. When I say that the best gifts are the ones that surprise you, I don’t mean that the fact that the gift surprises alone is important. It should surprise because it’s what they’re excited to have and always wanted, but never even realized it.

In movies, the director can take the audience through two doors. The first door leads to a place the audience doesn’t want to be (think Elektra). The second door leads to a place the audience does want to be; essentially, the director gives the audience exactly what they want (think Rocky IV). After these two, there is a hidden 3rd door, the door the audience knows nothing about. And, ultimately, it’s also the most fulfilling and enjoyable. The place the audience didn’t know they wanted to be. The film version of Watchmen is the perfect example of why the second door isn’t always what’s best. The audience got what they wanted in the director, Zack Snyder, know for the 300, which was extremely popular and well-received by comic fans with how faithful it was, which was made in the same vein as Sin City, another popular film recognized for it’s movie frame-to-comic panel faithfulness. Watchmen was made in the exact same way: completely faithful to the comic. And it wasn’t received that well at all. Think about Venom in Spider-man 3, the most sought after Spidey villain to be brought to the big-screen, so much so that the fans literally brought him there (producers forced him into Sam Raimi’s trilogy because of fan uproar). And what happened? Well, we got the worst Spider-Man entry when it could have potentially been the best (now that I’ve ranted about movies for a good amount I’ll bring it back to gifts :P)

This same philosophy should carry over to gift-giving, specifically between those that are close. When done right, it shows 1. The amount of effort and thought put into it by the giver and 2. That the giver really knows the receiver on a deeper level others can’t, thus illustrating the quality of their relationship.

P.S. making your gift works just as well in showing how sincere you are about your gift and the person you’re giving it too :)