It's perfectly sensible ranting! I particularly like this bit: I think that's just human nature -- anything we don't immediately understand needs to be categorized and compartmentalized so we can justify not taking the time to experience it ourselves. Just look at the way many people still consider all animation and video games to be "for kids," despite all the ample examples to the contrary in our modern society.
Completely right. I think why the whole mainstream vs genre thing bothers me is that mainstream writers/editors/critics present themselves as the intelligentsia, but they have this parochial thought process: categorization without analyzation.
(For the record, the opposite is true, as well, when people who like "fun" books sneer at literary fiction as boring and impenetrable. I used to be guilty of that all the time, and occasionally I still am. But if for every formulaic potboiler in genre fiction there's a naked emperor in the literary shelves, then for every engrossing, original genre book there's a literary novel that's intellectual gold.)
Actually, yes, you're totally right that it goes both ways. I tend to be more of a movie buff than a book buff, so the example that's closest to my heart is how on movie-related message boards you'll always hear people say things like "I don't care what the critics say, I always hate the movies they like and like the movies they hate." (Which of course is just an amazing bit of generalization to begin with!)
(For example, it's amazing how many people -- myself included, for a long time -- will buy into the popular conception that Citizen Kane is some kind of high art snoozefest, when in fact it's actually really entertaining and interesting if you just sit down to watch it with an open mind. Which is one of those things that makes me wonder how many people got ruined on literature by having to study it in school.)
I guess the thing is that it's just so easy to fall into this pattern. Even if you're usually a reasonable and analytical person, there's something so natural about making that step from "not my thing" to "objectively bad," that you almost have to consciously try not to make it. Maybe it's especially easy when you're a reasonable and analytical person, since you can justify your tastes much more eloquently...
Completely right. I think why the whole mainstream vs genre thing bothers me is that mainstream writers/editors/critics present themselves as the intelligentsia, but they have this parochial thought process: categorization without analyzation.
(For the record, the opposite is true, as well, when people who like "fun" books sneer at literary fiction as boring and impenetrable. I used to be guilty of that all the time, and occasionally I still am. But if for every formulaic potboiler in genre fiction there's a naked emperor in the literary shelves, then for every engrossing, original genre book there's a literary novel that's intellectual gold.)
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(For example, it's amazing how many people -- myself included, for a long time -- will buy into the popular conception that Citizen Kane is some kind of high art snoozefest, when in fact it's actually really entertaining and interesting if you just sit down to watch it with an open mind. Which is one of those things that makes me wonder how many people got ruined on literature by having to study it in school.)
I guess the thing is that it's just so easy to fall into this pattern. Even if you're usually a reasonable and analytical person, there's something so natural about making that step from "not my thing" to "objectively bad," that you almost have to consciously try not to make it. Maybe it's especially easy when you're a reasonable and analytical person, since you can justify your tastes much more eloquently...
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