(October 13, 2018 at 10:08 am)Thoreauvian Wrote: I think it is only possible to talk about "better" or "worse" in art in relationship to the specific goal the artist wanted to achieve. Since art has many different possible goals, as is illustrated by the contrast between the Michelangelo and the Rodin sculptures, you have to qualify what you say for each artistic work.
Yes, I think so too. I once had a friendly chat with a German guy sitting in the Metropolitan Museum. He was facing the Rembrandts and I was facing the Vermeers, and each of us tried to convince the other that his favorite was better. I was young and starting from zero. It was a provocative experience.
So I don't want to posit some absolute hierarchy of qualities, in which originality (say) always beats out depth of allusion. Still, I think that both of these qualities counts in favor of a given work.
(That said, we have to be careful when we talk about the artist's "goals." She may have failed at her goal and accomplished something else which is still good, or she might have lied about her stated goal, etc. But I take your meaning, that different works do different things.)
Quote:So for instance, Marvel movies work better as entertainments than most Oscar-worthy productions which are trying to embody some truth about humanity.
Well, I'm more cynical than you are. I think that Oscar-winning movies are also entertainments, organized by a corporation to win Oscars, and are almost always "fake deep." The truth -- or pretense of truth -- that they are after is designed to appeal to audiences.
Here, too, though, I see what you're saying. Marvel movies are good at what they do, and only the worst otaku-types would claim they are meant to be deep.
I think I want to argue that the qualities of good entertainment, if we spell them out, will be seen to be low-level qualities. Fun at the moment, but if that is all that art could do then all art would become close to brainless.
So, let's propose some qualities of purely-for-entertainment consumer products. Not challenging to one's beliefs. (In fact, subtly reinforcing the audience's ideology is helpful for entertainment.) Clever as opposed to intelligent. 99% familiar to the target audience, with just enough added flair (usually visual, in the form of CGI) to give a variation.
So fine for Netflix and chill, but the sum of the qualities can't be held up as a superior product to more challenging works.
Quote:Further, there is also the question of who is seeing the art. Some young person may find the ideas expressed in even a Marvel movie to be new and interesting, whereas an older and regular movie-watcher may be habituated to and jaded about even the best of the best.
Yes, this is important, I'm glad you wrote this.
There is good children's art and good adult's art. I find Harry Potter to be a skillful but boring combination of clichés, but my nieces and nephews grew up with the books and hadn't experienced the clichés anywhere else. For them, it was new. There are also cases where symbolic teaching takes place for messages that kids do well to learn. The most popular cartoon for infants in Japan is about a personified cake-boy, who makes people happy by sharing himself. The "bad guy" is germ-man.
One thing that bothers me about corporate productions is that it expects its audiences to remain infants. Star Trek is great when you're in Jr. High school, but jeez.
The notion that there is demonstrable better and worse is important to me in part because I think people do well to recognize what's better, and graduate to those things. (Not every minute; we all need to switch off sometimes. But overall.)
Quote:My bottom-line assessment is that there are times and places for a diversity of art forms, because of the above and other, similar considerations.
I very much agree with this. And I think that active learning about quality allows us to enjoy more and more types of art as we get older. [/quote]
