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Feb. 23rd, 2010 04:57 pmI'm too cranky to have a polite discussion with someone whose meta has annoyed me, so I'm just going to rant in my own journal.
We cannot agree on that. The average media consumer may not know fancy-schmancy jargon like "trope", but he or she knows a trope when they see it. That is why "Scary Movie" and other genre parodies are funny.
We don't all have degrees in literature or history or cultural studies or spend hours every week debating FAIL on the internet, but neither are we therefore culturally illiterate. I do have friends who dislike discussing art they enjoy in ways that are illoyal to the work of art, or who dislike discussing art in technical, analytical terms, but I don't know anyone, be they young child or developmentally disabled, who does not enjoy talking about art.
It can be very basic, like "Teddybear was selfish to eat Chicken's hot bun, and it made me sad," or more advanced, like "I like the way Teddybear's Picture Book* shows realistic childish behavior without condoning or censuring it. It's often funny, and provides many learning opportunities for the viewers." It's all critique, even if it ranges from analytical to not analytical at all, conscious of context to not conscious of context at all.
The more experience a person has with media and culture, the more savvy that person will probably become. I'm not a professional orienteering athlete, but I manage to navigate my way to the store to buy groceries on a regular basis anyway, you know?
Nielsen is not an anglo name. Maybe you just misremembered, it happens. But I see a pattern of assuming the anglo as default, and you unfortunately are fitting into that pattern whether that was your intention or not.
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* Teddybear's Picture Book is an awesome show, and if you think it's bad because Teddybear acts like a little kid you can take your prescriptive, patronizing, these-are-the-social-rules-you-have-to-follow children's shows and shove them. Kids need to be challenged by a wide variety of realitic situations and learn to deal with them responsibly without compromising their own integrity, otherwise they'll be in over their heads when they're exposed to the unsanitized, unpredigested real world. Also my kids, my moral guidance. Television producers do not get to preach theirs to them.
As you can tell, I've had some lively discussions about this show, and not with academics.
Basically, if we can agree that talking about stories from a literary theory and historical and cultural context standpoint removes those stories from the basic everyday enjoyment that most consumers like to experience, then what application does theory have?
We cannot agree on that. The average media consumer may not know fancy-schmancy jargon like "trope", but he or she knows a trope when they see it. That is why "Scary Movie" and other genre parodies are funny.
We don't all have degrees in literature or history or cultural studies or spend hours every week debating FAIL on the internet, but neither are we therefore culturally illiterate. I do have friends who dislike discussing art they enjoy in ways that are illoyal to the work of art, or who dislike discussing art in technical, analytical terms, but I don't know anyone, be they young child or developmentally disabled, who does not enjoy talking about art.
It can be very basic, like "Teddybear was selfish to eat Chicken's hot bun, and it made me sad," or more advanced, like "I like the way Teddybear's Picture Book* shows realistic childish behavior without condoning or censuring it. It's often funny, and provides many learning opportunities for the viewers." It's all critique, even if it ranges from analytical to not analytical at all, conscious of context to not conscious of context at all.
The more experience a person has with media and culture, the more savvy that person will probably become. I'm not a professional orienteering athlete, but I manage to navigate my way to the store to buy groceries on a regular basis anyway, you know?
(Of course, the ridiculousness of Nelson ratings is another essay for an entirely other time.)
Nielsen is not an anglo name. Maybe you just misremembered, it happens. But I see a pattern of assuming the anglo as default, and you unfortunately are fitting into that pattern whether that was your intention or not.
---
* Teddybear's Picture Book is an awesome show, and if you think it's bad because Teddybear acts like a little kid you can take your prescriptive, patronizing, these-are-the-social-rules-you-have-to-follow children's shows and shove them. Kids need to be challenged by a wide variety of realitic situations and learn to deal with them responsibly without compromising their own integrity, otherwise they'll be in over their heads when they're exposed to the unsanitized, unpredigested real world. Also my kids, my moral guidance. Television producers do not get to preach theirs to them.
As you can tell, I've had some lively discussions about this show, and not with academics.