Once a former colleague and I were talking about how overrated most movies are. We were actually astonished and pretty disheartened. (“Avatar”? Christ.)
Then I took a big leap and mused that life is overrated, and I wasn’t really kidding. My pal nodded, even softly repeating my words. We traded wry grins that belied a deep sadness. We went back to work.
Funny thing is, even that sadness was overrated. Because it wasn’t quite sadness so much as bluish resignation, a minuscule sigh. Life, overrated as it may be, goes on.
Isn’t everything sorta, kinda overrated? All right, not everything. There’s family, romantic love, learning, travel, dogs, bourbon, art, Billy Wilder, anything concerning Doritos.
Still, the very question is unnerving. It’s not the most joyous thing to realize I can think of a kajillion things that are overrated, yet I’m sure you can, too. Let’s go for it. I’m totally just spitballing here:
- empanadas
- “The Wire”
- Johnny Depp
- most rap
- “The Queen’s Gambit”
- Sofia Coppola
- dinner parties
- all things Harry Potter
- “Twin Peaks”
- sports
- music festivals
- celebrity/celebrities
- chicken breast
- fake breasts
- almost every Netflix comedy special
- zombies
- Quentin Tarantino
- road trips
- “The Office”
- late Red Hot Chili Peppers, including “Californication” (but not “My Friends”)
- giant Ferris wheels in major cities
- “Fargo” (the 1996 movie)
- Brazilian waxing
- Dave Eggers
- Prague
- politicians
- “Vertigo”
- year-round warm weather
- Colson Whitehead’s novel “The Nickel Boys”
- David Sedaris
- convertibles
- “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”
- video installations
Excuse the haphazard tally; I was just getting started. I could have tossed in podcasts and pork rinds. Hell, I think I’m overrated. Put me in the top slot.
The thing with overrating stuff is how impossibly subjective it is. I can say life — or, for that matter, “Titanic” — is overestimated and there’s a 90-plus percentage you’ll disagree. Surely one of you thinks David Bowie is overrated, but I’d argue he is not, to my grave.
But subjectivity is part of the pleasure. Sports fans (grossly overrated) forever gauge teams and players in heated arguments of gladiatorially subjective rating games.
And it is a game. In Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” Diane Keaton and Michael Murphy rattle off members of their own “Academy of the Overrated,” including Vincent van Gogh, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lenny Bruce and Ingmar Bergman, formidable figures that seem name-checked just to piss off a breed of urban intellectual. (Woody himself goes apoplectic listening to them.)
As a game, cataloging one’s personal overrated (movie, food, person, book) is a cathartic kick. The characters in “Manhattan” are having a giggling ball airing their pointedly curated Academy. Tossing together my list above was fun and purgative, despite its sloppy incompleteness. (Though I did self-edit as I went. I felt some inclusions would offend sensitive readers. Like God, and jellybeans.)
Is life really overrated? Sometimes, especially when you consider sickness, loss, debt, all those Tyler Perry movies. But it’s underrated, too — getting lost in a European city, succulent bone marrow in a good restaurant, fond memories, Al Pacino roaring his way through “Heat.”
Maybe it’s an even split. Maybe life and all its facets, good and not-so good, are what make things interesting. Maybe Coldplay (overrated) and cold weather (underrated) can coexist. And maybe, really, overrating things is itself overrated.
GNASHING. 
As my dad used to say, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” Or as you put it, “The thing with overrating stuff is how impossibly subjective it is.” Rating of any kind, over/under/well; all subjective.
You and I agree on the rating of bourbon – certainly NOT overrated. The two of us could sit and sip bourbon and go over your list and the back and forth debate would take so long that we would get impossibly drunk – which is overrated. Except in certain circumstances, like when my girlfriend of 3 years told me she was lesbian, broke up with me and I dove into a bottle of overrated vodka – though at the time I probably gave that swill 5 stars for getting the job done. Or maybe that was just the stars swirling around in my skull.
Finally anyone giving this comment a good rating is probably overrating it.
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This is so good. You made me laugh, Paulie, and that is NOT overrated. Thank you much!
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I don’t know if I’m the former colleague referred to here, but this sounds like one of our conversations from back in the day. My own overrated list usually starts with The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. The Searchers usually pops up on it. Vertigo, too — yes! I acknowledge I overuse — overrate? — the word “overrated.” And I would be overrated if I were rated in the first place. … Damn it, Chris, may our paths cross again someday soon. That would not be overrated indeed.
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Indeed! It was you and I, Jody, having that conversation so long ago. I was hoping you’d notice. And I was SO going to include Pet Sounds on my list, but for some reason backed out (you know, all those crazed BB fans ; ). I just watched a doc about the making of that overrated album, so it was fresh in my mind. I’ll never get it. Miss you lots with very fond memories. Yes, may our paths cross again! Fingers crossed … Be well!
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