what i mean by "the author is boxed"

[pocochina]

The...introduction? disclaimer? part where I walk out slowly with my hands in the air?...to my TVD post for the week got wicked meta, and then off topic, and then just plain out of hand. But it was helpful to work through, I think, so I decided to make it easily linkable. This is what I mean when I say “ the author is boxed.”

Comments

[pocochina]

I think I see what you mean? That's what I was trying to get at with this:

If a narrative is unclear and open to several interpretations, especially if one or several of those are guaranteed to lead to fandom fuckery, that's always on the table to discuss

though possibly not particularly artfully.

it's when I perceive a dissonance between this impression, and what I take from the story itself, that I say that I'm disagreeing with The Author.

I do see what you mean, and I've definitely had that frustration. I think, for me, I tend to think of it in terms of "the narrative" - that is, the finished product as a whole is making a particular statement, and I am free to agree or disagree. If it's muddled enough to be distracting, and it doesn't give me the cues of being a story about moral ambiguity, I consider that a technical issue, but I'm more concerned with applying my criticisms to a depersonalized narrative than trying to divine who meant what and when, largely because of how I have the attention span of a fruit fly.

I mean, there are definitely times where a particular issue comes across in a way that I can't ignore, I AM LOOKING AT YOU AARON SORKIN, but I think I care more about what the story illuminates to me and what those biases can say about the context in which the narrative was created.

[pocochina]

Yeah. It's just easiest for me, I think. Because I accepted a long time ago that most of the world is going to have beliefs that I find objectionable - including myself, though I'm working on it - and mass media, being a consumerist reflection of society, is going to be even worse. But I just can't start with the birth of Christ every time I want to talk about something that interests me. And I think I'm noticing this as the easiest way for me to set stuff aside when possible, and criticize it as coherently and mental-health-protectively as possible when I think that's useful/important to do.