21 Surprisingly Common Misconceptions

SAVIOR

You think you know, but you have no idea.

1. There’s No Evidence That Vikings Had Horns On Their Helmets

Historical vikings, I mean. The ones from Minnesota we definitely have evidence of horns…

2. Marie Antoinette Never Said “Let Them Eat Cake”

The phrase appeared in Rousseau’s “Confessions” when she was only 10 years old.

3. George Washington Did Not Have Wooden Teeth

He had four different sets of dentures: gold, hippopotamus ivory, lead, and human and animal teeth.

4. Napoleon Was Not Particularly Short

He wasn’t tall either, but just average size.

5. Mussolini Did Not Make The Trains Run On Time

Most of the infrastructure work was done before Moussolini came to power.

6. Einstein Never Failed Math

Before he was fifteen he had actually “mastered differential and integral calculus.” So there’s that.

7. Someone Does Not Need To Be Missing For 24 Hours To File A Missing Persons Report

If there is evidence of violence or an unusual absence one can be filed much sooner.

8. Swallowed Chewing Gum Does Not Take 7 Years To Digest

It’s not digestible, but it goes through your system at roughly the same rate as other food.

9. 420 Is Not The LA Penal Code For Marijuana Use

The term came from people planning to meet at 4:20pm to smoke.

10. When Olde English Was Spoken People Did Not Use “Ye” Instead of “The”

11. The Great Wall Of China Is Not Visible From The Moon

Nothing man-made is.

12. Goldfish Actually Have Memories Longer Than A Few Seconds

So that thing you did in front of your goldfish… He remembers.

13. Bats Are Not Blind

Many do use sonar primarily, but all bats have eyes capable of sight.

14. Lemmings Do Not Have Mass Suicidal Dives From Cliffs During Migration

This was popularized in an early Disney nature film that was shot on a soundstage and the Lemmings were actually pushed off the cliff by photographers.

15. Bulls Are Not Enraged By The Color Red

Red doesn’t stand out as a bright color for bulls, but the movement of the matador’s cape does in fact enrage them.

16. Shaving Does Not Make Hair Grow Back Faster And Thicker

So you can stop trying, that beard just might never come for you… Ma’am.

17. Sugar Does Not Cause Hyperactivity In Children

Children are just crazy.

18. Redheads Are Not Going Extinct

There may be less of them, but so long as people carry the gene there will be redheads.

19. Alcohol Does Not Kill Brain Cells

At least not directly. You can still do things while drunk that will kill brain cells.

20. Men Do Not Think About Sex Every 7 Seconds

It just seems that way. This statistic is actually impossible to measure.

21. Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism

So shut up Jenny McCarthy. Just shut up.

15 Of The Most Confusing Films Ever Made

Most films are pretty linear and easy to follow in their story telling. Others are muddled, but make sense when you think about them — like Memento. But some, some are designed to bewilder, obfuscate, and confuse. These 15 films are all varying degrees of head-scratchers. Some you can pick apart with a bit of work, some you are deliberately impossible to understand, but all are worth the effort of the attempt. Oh yeah, spoilers.

15. Vanilla Sky

While personally I didn’t find this American remake of the Spanish psycho-thriller that bewildering, there were plenty who did, to the point where it was voted the most confusing film ever by a DVD rental company. The fact of the matter is that much of the perceived twistedness and confusion from the plot is all resolved by the classic cop out “it was all a dream.” While perhaps not as utterly blatant as that, but the entire film takes place in the lucid dream of a man in cryogenic suspensions whose subconscious has started to assert itself. That explains the constantly switching nature of reality, and the weirdness that surrounds him. There, easy.

14. Pi

Darren Aaranofsky’s first major flick was Pi, and this twisted black and white look at obsession and paranoia was enough to get him into the big leagues. It’s a combination of Aaranofsky’s trademark incredibly quick cuts, the dense subject matter, and an unreliable narrator that causes Pi to be tricky to follow, as Max Cohen struggles to understand the universal patterns that occur through nature as a way of understanding and predicting the stock market. As he uncovers more and more of a number that may be at the root of things, or may be the unknown name of god, his sanity begins to erode, and his headaches increase, his final inevitable decline is as horrific as it is a relief — both for the viewer and the character.

13. eXistenZ

Cronenberg excels at making you question what is real and what is not, and eXistenZ asks that about video games and reality, as the story blurs the boundary between at least three or four levels of the interaction of both. With the advent of a total immersion video game, eXistenZ is all about asking how much is free will, how much is scripted, and how much is even real. As multiple levels of games and reality begin to emerge, the final scene eventually feels like the whole movie has been sorted out — until the very last line.

12. Solaris

Partly due to being in Russian and partly due to its legendary slow pacing, Solaris (the 1972 version) is notoriously hard to follow. Often called the Russian 2001, Solaris takes place on a space station where the researchers are starting to hallucinate and go insane. The hallucinations cause plenty of questioning about the nature of their reality, which when combined with a psychologist main character and the question of how to approach a truly, truly alien lifeform has lead to many scratching their heads. The final open end to the film leaves just as many questions raised as it answers. It’s still a damn good movie if you can handle the glacial pace, but don’t expect any easy answers.

11. Adaptation

Adaptation is utterly confusing, and unlike other films which blur the lines between reality and fantasy within the world of the movie, it takes on the borders between film and real life — as in our real life. Adaptation is an adaptation of a novel called The Orchid Thief, which has no plot to speak of. So the movie is about the movie’s writer struggling to adapt the book, and make a screenplay, which ends up being about him struggling to write a screenplay about the Orchid Thief. It consciously slips between Kaufman’s attempts to write a script true to a book that can’t be adapted, while shamelessly throwing in Hollywoodesque features like explosions, car chases, and love stories. Yeah, it’s bewildering, and just how true any of it is is entirely up for debate. It’s still a great film, though.

10. Akira

Without having read the immense manga or hitting wikipedia, understanding Akira on the first viewing is extremely tricky. The amount of information presented to the viewer is minimal, and the whole “wait, what happened to Akira? Where did he go? And the blue kids? There’s another universe?” thing is pretty damn hard to get your head around, especially when most of the movie only explains these things tangentially, and you’re more concerned about Tetsuo’s crazy ass powers. Repeated watching and further research really do clarify what the hell is going on, because otherwise you’re left bewildered.

9. 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001 is pretty damned hard to follow, mostly due to the bookends of the film, with the prehistoric opening and incredibly trippy closing, which serve to bewilder many viewers. The bit in the middles is juts fine, though. Kubrick was famously exacting in what he required from his films, and the slow pacing is entirely intentional, and so too is the requirement that you as a watcher actually have to think and interpret what is happening, and not have it handed to you on a platter. The transformation into the Star-Child — and proceeding bad trip through space — is definitely obtuse and was designed to be open to interpretation. My personal view is that when Bowman activates the monolith, he’s whisked to an alien zoo for observation, before they ascend him into a new form. But hey, that’s just me.

8. Naked Lunch

Cronenberg directing a book by Burroughs. You know there’s going to be nothing but batshit crazy here. Only really tangentially related to the book, Peter Weller’s laconic take on the insanity and surreality that surround him rapidly becomes an anchoring point for the viewer. Talking insects, hallucinogens, murder, sentient typewriters, psychic communications, body suits and all other manner of weirdness pervade it, and it’s certainly not for the squeamish or easily bewildered. Unlike many of the other stories on this list, Naked Lunch isn’t capable of being picked apart, instead it’s intentionally obtuse and inscrutable. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

7. Jacob’s Ladder

Military experiments, death, drugs, and psychic powers. Jacob’s Ladder is an utterly horrifying trip into the mind of a broken individual trying to escape the legacy of the horrors of Vietnam. I won’t ruin the ending — which could be viewed either as a cop out, or else the only logical end of the story — but it’s a kick in the gut, that’s for sure. Increasingly horrific hallucinations plague Jacob as he learns more about just what happened when he was wounded during the war, and how it’s linked to everything that’s happened since then. Uniquely terrifying and difficult to pick apart, the ending kind of does away with any real need to explain what’s going on.

6. Mulholland Drive

Pretty much any film by David Lynch belongs on this list, but lets bundle most of them up in with Mulholland Drive, which is possibly his most acclaimed work. Lets face it, barring maybe Elephant Man and Dune, Lynch’s work is uniquely surrealist, and hard to follow regardless of how well you understand his corpus of productions. Lynch has specifically avoided offering explanations of the goings on in Mulholland Drive, instead intentionally wanting viewers and critics to create their own opinions. Non-linear, bewildering, and inter-cut with seemingly unrelated chunks, it’s hard to follow even at the best of times, yet remains a powerful and influential film.

5. Holy Mountain

Chilean filmmaker/artist Alejandro Jodorowsky is either the closest thing we have to a mad prophet, or utterly insane, and I can’t decide which. Anything he makes is so densely packed with symbolism and metaphor that it will break your brain trying to understand what everything means — and it all means something. Steeped in tarot, mysticism, Christian magic, alchemy, and everything else weird and wonderful, his work is transcendental, if you can follow it. He’s more or less given up on film these days, instead focusing on comics where he isn’t limited by things like the laws of physics or budgets. Unfortunately, his later work has become almost a self-cliché, invariably hitting the same points over and over. Here’s something interesting, grab anything he’s done in the last decade, and tick off which of the following are in it: incest, violence and mutilation between family members, castration of a son by a father, a horrible disfiguring wound caused by a parent figure, obese and corrupt priests, back-stabbing royalty. Yeah, all of his stuff hits these points, regardless if it’s fantasy, historical, or sci-fi.

4. Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is much, much deeper than I originally gave it credit for. I first went in with my brain turned off, expecting something “quirky”, but not actually deep. What I got was only the tip of the story, and it turns out there are volumes more information that you need to really appreciate what was going on — mostly given via the notoriously twisted and labyrinthine website. If you don’t have the time to invest the hours required to plumb its depth, I thoroughly recommend this guide.

3. Eraserhead

I know, we’ve already seen Lynch on this list, but could I really ignore the famously off-the-wall Eraserhead? It’s completely and utterly indescribable. There’s a guy, his wife, a horribly deformed baby which may or may not be human, explosions, machinery, oozing wounds and liquids, eraser shavings, and more craziness than I can even understand. It was Lynch’s first feature film, and is 89 minutes of pure snake-fucking crazy. Highly influential, but still utterly unintelligible, there’s really nothing you can do but try and ride it out, or devote a lifelong academic career to trying to decipher it.

2. Synecdoche, New York

Again we see a Charlie Kaufman flick. The guy really does excel at the mindfuck. This time starring the superb Philip Seymour Hoffman as a play director crippled by neuroses who receives an immense grant, and sets up a massive play in a warehouse where each actor acts out a private and banal life, mimicking the outside. Slowly the play begins to mirror the outside world more and more, as he is afflicted by a mysterious illness, to the point where he hires actors to portray people outside, including himself. The film twists in on itself constantly, with the impossibly large warehouse eventually housing a full replica of New York city, including its own impossibly large warehouse, and so on. Sharply dividing to critics, some hailed it as the best film of the decade, others as unintelligible gibberish. Thematically dense but incredible, if you can follow it, you’ll be justly rewarded.

1. Primer

Shot for a mere $7,000, Primer is about time travel. Sort of. It’s more about the breakdown between two people, but an incredibly confusing causally linked time travel mechanism underpins it. If someone tells you they understood it on their first viewing, they’re filthy liars. Written by a mathematician/engineer, none of the jargon or lingo is cut, making it as factually accurate as one could imagine a time travel story to be. The plot loops in on itself in recursive and terrifying ways. Trying to follow it? Here’s a sample timeline, here’s another, though this one is the most accurate. Yes, it really is that batshit confusing, but watching it over and over to pick it apart is surprisingly fun. Unlike some of the other films on this list which are confusing just to be confusing, Primer actually makes complete sense, if you’re willing to put enough time and effort into it to understand what’s going on.

The Sun Will Shine

“But Hanuman did not see Sita, who had the highest family lineage, took birth in a royal family always situated in the virtuous path, resembled a fully blossoming and well brought up creeper, and had a form seemingly sprung from the mind of the creator.” (Valmiki Ramayana, Sundara Kand, 5.23) na tveva sītām paramābhijātām |  pathi sthite rājakule prajātām |  latām praphullāmiva sādhu jātām |  dadarśa tanvīm manasābhijātām || Shri Hanuman, the faithful Vanara warrior, the eternal servant of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Rama, the most arduous surveyor making his way through the insides of the majestic city of Lanka, herein remembers the person he was sent to look for. Though the area he was observing had tremendous opulence and was filled with beautiful women, the person he was sent to find, the princess of Videha, the wife of the prince of the Raghu dynasty, could not be found. Despite the grandeur, opulence, and beauty Hanuman did see in Lanka, his mind was never taken off the mission. Why was Hanuman looking for this princess? Who is Hanuman? When did these events take place? The immortal tale of India, the Ramayana, documents historical events taking place in the Treta Yuga of each creation. The Vedas, the original scriptural tradition of India, note that just as the spirit spark within each life form exists perpetually, so does the inferior energy of the Supreme Lord. God is the fountainhead of all energies, but when there is not a full understanding of Him, distinctions are made that separate the energies into different categories. The superior energy is that which directly relates to the Lord, whose original and most blissful form is known as Krishna. This isn’t to say that God is limited to one form; but in His complete and original spiritual body He is ever blissful, eternal and knowledgeable. Anything directly relating to Krishna is part of the spiritual energy, which is thus considered superior. There is also an inferior energy, which earns its tag from the effect it has on the superior energy’s separated expansions. While Krishna is not prone to bewilderment, illusion, birth, death, old age, disease, death, loss of rationale and so many other defects, His separated expansions don’t have the same potency. As spiritual sparks, they retain the same qualities as Krishna, but the reservoir of these attributes is not the same. Unlike Krishna, the expansions have the ability to become deluded; they do this by thinking that they can enjoy without the Supreme Lord. To grant their request for separation, Krishna uses His inferior energy, material nature, to create a temporary playing field. This realm, known as the material world, constantly goes through cycles of creation and destruction. Even the inferior energy is eternal, but its manifestations are not. In fact, for as long as the spirit souls remain bewildered by this energy and consider it to be separate from Krishna, the manifestations continually appear and dissipate. Within each creation, the duration of time for its manifestation is divided into four periods, with the second known as Treta. This age is marked by the frequency of sacrificial offerings. Think of a giant assembly of priests and worshipers pouring oblations into a large, central fire while reciting hymns and mantras. In the Treta Yuga this type of sacrifice, which is known as a yajna, is especially prominent, as it is the recommended religious practice for the time. The other nice thing about the Treta Yuga is that Shri Krishna, in a spiritual body, one that is a direct internal expansion of His original self, appears on earth. Known as Lord Rama, this incarnation of Godhead is fully featured with the opulences of beauty, wealth, strength, fame, renunciation and wisdom. Yet God is not alone; He has friends, associates, well-wishers, and dear servants. The incarnations essentially act out a dramatic play, one which enchants the pious souls looking for a way out of the misery created by their attachment to matter. This real-life play doesn’t always follow the same script, but the cast of characters is always the same. Shri Hanuman has a prominent role in this production, as he is Rama’s dear servant in the form of a forest-dweller, or Vanara. Hanuman is also described by Sanskrit words like hari and kapi, which both can mean “monkey”. We still shouldn’t confuse Hanuman with an ordinary monkey or some imaginary figure belonging to a mythological tradition. The Treta Yuga takes place early on in each creation, so the human beings and other species are quite advanced. The Vanaras residing in the Kishkindha forest during this time are very intelligent monkeys, as they have many human-like characteristics. Why would Rama associate with monkeys? In any good play, conflict must be inserted, some issue that needs resolution. Without a central issue introduced, there is no reason to pay attention to the story. Since Krishna is the cause of all causes, when He introduces an issue into His real-life dramatic performances, it simultaneously takes care of many other problems as well. The central resolving point of the Ramayana, the Sanskrit poem which describes the life and pastimes of Lord Rama, is the rescue of Rama’s wife, Sita Devi. From reading the Ramayana it is revealed that while residing in the forest for fourteen years, serving out an exile punishment handed down to Rama by His father Maharaja Dasharatha [the king of Ayodhya], Sita was kidnapped by a powerful Rakshasa demon named Ravana. It was for the destruction of this very villainous character that the demigods, the celestials in the sky, petitioned the Supreme Lord to descend to earth in a human form. By Ravana’s taking Sita away through a backhanded plot, Rama gained the excuse He needed to take out Ravana. Rama had to first find Sita. For this He joined forces with the monkeys living in Kishkindha, who were headed by Sugriva. Sugriva’s most trusted warrior was Hanuman, who also happened to be deeply devoted to Rama. Taking the prince’s instructions as his life and soul, Hanuman eventually braved his way across a massive ocean and reached the shores of Lanka, the island where Ravana lived and where Sita was being held. Initially, a large monkey party had been sent to search for Sita, but when it was finally learned where she was, only Hanuman was capable of reaching her. Hence he was in Lanka all by himself. Hanuman doesn’t need anything more than his deep love and affection for Rama to find happiness. He had not even met Sita up until that point, but he knew who she was. He also knew that she was Rama’s wife; hence she was the most important person in the world to him at the time. Ravana’s city was filled with opulence and populated with members of the Rakshasa race, a species similar to human beings but especially prone to sinful activities such as eating human flesh and drinking wine. Assuming a diminutive form, Hanuman roamed the city. While searching from dwelling to dwelling he saw many things typically found in a royal city. He saw so many beautiful women getting ready to enjoy a night with their husbands. In fact, he pretty much saw every type of beautiful woman one could imagine. Through it all, however, Hanuman didn’t find the person he was looking for. In the above referenced verse from the Ramayana, Sita’s wonderful qualities are listed to juxtapose her divine nature to the character of the women Hanuman had seen thus far. It is said that Sita was of the highest lineage. These queens in Lanka were all beautiful and obviously fit to be married to powerful fighters, but Sita’s lineage was supreme, the highest you could possibly find. She was the daughter of King Janaka of Mithila. There were actually many Janakas following in that line, but this particular Janaka, who was also known as Shiradhvaja, was very famous for his piety and mastery over mystic yoga. Janaka was Rama’s father-in-law after all, so it was not possible for him to not have divine qualities in high order. Sita always abided by righteousness, or dharma, for that was the standard set by her family. The queens that Hanuman saw in Lanka were dedicated to their husbands, but since they were married to evil figures, ghoulish creatures who were accessories to the horrible crime of taking another man’s wife and holding her captive, even they had to share in some of their husband’s demerits. In the Vedic tradition, which is the oldest system of societal maintenance known in the world, the institution of marriage is meant to serve as a tool to help a person eventually reach God consciousness. Marriage is not about attraction, finding a soul-mate, or enjoying to your heart’s content. Rather, it is intended to allow for a peaceful coexistence between the genders, a solid basis for family life, and a way to perform your religious duties through a partnership. It is much easier to take up a difficult task and see it to its completion if you have someone there to support you, to help you through the tough times. The wife is meant exactly for this purpose, as the husband’s duty is to remain on the path of righteousness, wherein he develops a pure and unadulterated love for the Supreme Lord by keeping a steady link to Him in consciousness. As a reward for keeping her husband dedicated to piety, the wife shares in his merits. Yet, at the same time, if the husband is sinful, the wife must share in his punishment. Karma is only fair after all, so the results of any fruitive activity must come to bear at some point in the future. Sita Devi, as the wife of Lord Rama, was the most virtuous woman in the world. Hanuman was well aware of this, so this is why he wasn’t so impressed by the character of the queens he had seen in Lanka. He knew that these queens had nothing on Sita as far as dedication to piety and adherence to the duties of a wife went. The queens were enjoying opulence in a royal kingdom, while Sita had renounced safety in Ayodhya to remain alongside her husband and support Him. She was not ordered to leave the town, but when she heard that Rama was forced out, she refused to allow Him to suffer alone. It is also said that Sita’s form was sprung from the mind of the creator. Every person’s qualities at birth are derived from their parents. Hence there is an inherent limitation to the attributes that one can possess. But if you are born from the creator, Lord Brahma, the highly exalted demigod in charge of populating the different worlds, your good qualities can have no limit. Lord Brahma can create anything that he wants to, as he is born from the stem that grows out of the lotus-like navel of Lord Vishnu, who is a non-different form of Krishna residing in the spiritual sky. This reference to Lord Brahma is often cited when trying to describe the beauty of the Supreme Lord, His incarnations, or His close associates. Goswami Tulsidas used many similar comparisons in his poetry when describing Sita, Rama andLakshmana, the Lord’s younger brother. Saying that Sita must have been made by the mind of the creator is similar to saying, “she was one of a kind”, or, “they broke the mold when they made her.” “Since he was childless, and due to affection for me, he placed me on his lap and said, ‘This is my child.’ Thus he developed feelings of love and affection for me.” (Sita describing how Janaka felt when he found her, Valmiki Ramayana, Ayodhya Kand, 118.30) Though Sita Devi belonged to a famous royal family, she actually did not take birth. Janaka found her one day while ploughing a field. Even though he was videha, or immune to the effects of his body, Janaka still felt tremendous attachment to the young child, so much so that he brought her home and raised her as his own daughter. This presented some difficulties later on for Janaka because he did not know who Sita’s parents were. When the father arranges the marriage of his daughter he looks for an ideal match based on the qualities of the children determined by astrological signs at the time of birth. Since Sita was found in the ground, her astrological signs couldn’t be determined. She was of such a high character that Janaka decided that only the man who could lift the famous bow of Lord Shiva given to him previously would earn Sita’s hand in marriage. Though it is said here that Sita must have been born from the mind of Lord Brahma, she is actually an eternally existing personality in the spiritual sky. She is Lakshmi Devi, the devoted wife of Lord Vishnu. So, even when she comes to earth, she always remains with Vishnu. Rama was thus destined to break Lord Shiva’s bow and marry Sita in a grand ceremony in Mithila, Janaka’s home. In beauty, Sita was like a fully blossomed creeper, a flower that had reached its full potential. The beauty of the residents of Lanka couldn’t even compare to Rama’s beloved wife. Hanuman knew this, and his remembrance of Sita showed just how focused he was on the mission. Though he had seen practically everything in the city, nothing was going to excite him, lift up his spirits, or give him hope except seeing Sita. From this steady determination, he would indeed succeed and perfectly play out his role in the wonderful drama scripted by the origin of life, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Hanuman searched through Lanka during the nighttime when the moon was shining bright, but not until Sita was found would the divine servant’s eyes be fully illuminated.