My Favorite Movie

Two times a year, my favorite movie becomes seasonally appropriate. The Nightmare Before Christmas is both a Halloween movie and a Christmas movie, and I will watch it in October and December. And probably sometime in June or July too, honestly.

Having The Nightmare Before Christmas as my favorite movie makes me feel childish. I wish my favorite movie was something serious, adult, classic. Something uncommon that makes you think. Like, oh what an intellectual movie, you must be a sophisticated person!

But no, it’s Tim Burton’s 1993 film about a skeleton who kidnaps Santa Claus and takes over Christmas. What does that say about me? It probably says that I went through a scene phase in middle-school, which, okay, maybe I did.

Quick note here: I got into arguments when I was 13 about not being “scene.” That was a silly, dumb style, which I was not. I was punk. Totally different. Not silly. Definitely not scene. Though, the real name of the style should probably be, “I’m 13 and uncomfortable.”

I was self-conscious about my favorite movie choice when I was in my scene/punk/emo/wannabe phase too. It felt too much like I was trying too hard to be different, like I had drank the Hot Topic Kool-Aid, and now I was just a follower of the crowd trying to not be a follower.

Disliking things because they’re popular is stupid, but it’s a pattern that a lot of teenagers seem to fall into. You’re either the “in-crowd,” who wears American Eagle or Aeropostale and listens to The Jonas Brothers, or you’re the “alt-crowd,” who likes The Nightmare Before Christmas, Invader Zim, and Hot Topic.

I didn’t like feeling like a cookie-cutter person, even if that cookie-cutter shape was of Hot Topic bracelets stacked on top of each other instead of the popular, Mean Girls shape. It made me feel like a poser. Like who I was at the time was “just a phase” like every grownup said (spoiler: it was a phase).

I wanted to be unique, authentic, and completely me, which is what every one of the alt-crowd, Hot Topic kids wanted, and we ended up being mostly the same.

How depressing.

The truth is, though, that that was who I was at the time, and I did, authentically, like The Nightmare Before Christmas. And I still do.

I was an uncomfortable, unhappy, teenager, like most teens are. The teen years are the years when you become horribly self-aware and completely oblivious all at the same time. There is a constant mix of knowing exactly what you want but not knowing who you are.

You know you’re not a kid anymore, you can tell that because you feel different, so you assume you’re an adult, or at least as good as one. And then, of course, real adults talk down to you because they know you’re not a real adult yet, which just makes everything worse. You feel misunderstood in the midst of being understood.

Being a teenager is a terrible experience that we must all go through to reach the mundane existence of adulthood. I am very grateful to have made it passed the teen years into these mid-twenties. While I still don’t feel like my identity is fully established, I’m far more comfortable with the unknown parts of my soul and all the mysterious potential of my life.

AND YET

I still feel silly when I tell people my favorite movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas. I want so badly to be taken seriously. It’s too bad serious things are boring or depressing.

Although, I do like a good period drama, and that’s more serious than animated movies about singing monsters turning Christmas into a horror zone. Find me curled up with a fuzzy blanket, ice cream, and Summer in February or Pride and Prejudice in the cold months.

Anyways, who’s excited for Frozen 2? Let me know what your favorite movies are and if you ever feel silly or ashamed to tell people.