Shining Theories

Although the movie “Room 237” brought up many interesting ideas about things that went on and some even give many good points, I believe that most of the speakers’ conspiracy theories are more from seeing what they want to see and what they are looking for rather than what they are actually seeing. They force connections between the movie and the theme that they are trying to prove. These people find correlations between very small, seemingly insignificant things in the movie to things that from history or to the theory that they are trying to prove. For example, one of the speakers said that a chair disappearing from one shot to the next is connected to something bigger. Personally, although it may not just be a discontinuity, I think it is nothing big. The theorists try to force meaningless things into things with a bigger meaning. The other thought that I had was: So what? Even if some of these theories were correct what would be the big significance in it. I could understand that if the movie was an allusion to the Holocaust that Kubrick was trying to instill the same fear in the audience as those experiencing the Holocaust felt. But for the Native American genocide theory, my question is “Why?” Other than the fact that the movie could be an allusion to that historic event, what would be the point? I don’t see a big meaning behind this theory. And so I think although Kubrick definitely has bigger meanings behind “The Shining,”  many of the theorists have it wrong.