Poll: Literary/Film Criticism = the Art of BSing?

[IvoryTowerGamer]

Edit: just to clarify, I'm referring to "what does this mean?" criticism, not "is this book any good?" criticism.

Recently I've been reading some interpretations of the game Braid, and in one interview [http://www.avclub.com/articles/game-designer-jonathan-blow-what-we-all-missed-abo,8626/] with the game's creator I was surprised to find out that he apparently thinks that most literary criticism is just BS. He states that:

I was a double-major in Computer Science and English. And English at Berkeley, where I went to school, is very much creatively-driven. Basically, the entire bachelor?s degree in English is all about bullshitting. And Computer Science, which was my other major, was exactly the opposite of that. You had to know what you were doing, and you had to know what you were talking about?

As a Literature major myself, I've certainly heard this argument a lot, but it always struck me as a little misguided. You are allowed some creativity when developing your thesis, but anything that isn't supported by what's actually in the text would quickly be shot down and taken apart by your peers. Just because there's no one "true" interpretation of a novel (or film, or game, for that matter) doesn't mean that there can't be an incorrect one.

What do you think? Is literary/film/game criticism nothing more than your ability to BS something?

Edit 2: I'd just like to note that getting a good grade in a HS English class by BSing your way through an essay isn't real criticism any more than memorizing facts about astronomy is practicing real science. What experts in each field do on a daily basis is actually quite different from what you are required to do to get a good grade in class.

 

[Lionsfan]

I wouldn't say it's all just BSing, but for the most part it's just spinning around in circles, and not really being straightforward about anything

 

[Azure-Supernova]

When I did English Literature in year 10-11 (for GCSEs) my teacher constantly reminded the class that the verifiers would be looking for certain things and that, regardless of out own opinions, if we brought up these things then we would score marks. Everyone but me took this to heart.

The questions ask for your reaction to characters actions and speech; the various connotations and literal references. As a child I was enforced by a rather anarchical English teacher who always told me that you can bullshit your way through anything; but you'll do much better for being honest.

So I followed the advice of my former English teacher during my exam and my opinion of 'Of Mice and Men' was laid bare. Alongside the many criticisms I squeezed in positive comments. I got a B. My coursework really let me down D:

It's not your ability to bullshit, it's your ability to see the piece of work and all of the little cogs whirring behind it. But it is subjective a lot of the time, people read into things differently.

 

[Veylon]

It's certainly more open to BS than computer science. I've seen literary critics grope for symbols and squeeze works for every drop of supposed "meaning" that the author probably didn't put there. It's got to be especially galling when you're the author and you know damn well what your message was. And then there are the times when so much is extrapolated from a single phrase or sentence that it feels like one of those magical resolution-enhancing computers in the movies.

That said, it can be useful in illuminating what currents of thought went into something. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar tells us something about what Elizabethan England believed about Rome, as does his choice of Shylock as a villain. "I bite my thumb at thee" is a crude insult that's worth fighting over to this very day, once properly explained. These kinds of details, literary criticism is good for.

 

[Sejs Cube]

Criticism doesn't just mean nitpicking or complaining, it means analysis.

Yes, analysis has merit.

 

[IvoryTowerGamer]

I wouldn't say it's all just BSing, but for the most part it's just spinning around in circles, and not really being straightforward about anything

I don't think that's true. A good paper has to be quite up front about its ideas and point to specific evidence to support them.

When I did English Literature in year 10-11 (for GCSEs) my teacher constantly reminded the class that the verifiers would be looking for certain things and that, regardless of out own opinions, if we brought up these things then we would score marks. Everyone but me took this to heart.

The questions ask for your reaction to characters actions and speech; the various connotations and literal references. As a child I was enforced by a rather anarchical English teacher who always told me that you can bullshit your way through anything; but you'll do much better for being honest.

So I followed the advice of my former English teacher during my exam and my opinion of 'Of Mice and Men' was laid bare. Alongside the many criticisms I squeezed in positive comments. I got a B. My coursework really let me down D:

It's not your ability to bullshit, it's your ability to see the piece of work and all of the little cogs whirring behind it. But it is subjective a lot of the time, people read into things differently.

I hate to say it, but high school English is not really a good way to judge the validity of literary criticism, especially when you are talking about standardized testing. You can probably get through your HS career by just "BSing" things, and in some cases teachers actually seem to encourage it.

Perhaps this is why so many people think that majoring in English is nothing more than learning how to BS things. If your only exposure to it comes from HS and maybe one or two university level classes, it'd be quite easy to dismiss the subject. Those who decide to stick around usually find that you can't just pull an argument out of nowhere.

It's certainly more open to BS than computer science. I've seen literary critics grope for symbols and squeeze works for every drop of supposed "meaning" that the author probably didn't put there. It's got to be especially galling when you're the author and you know damn well what your message was. And then there are the times when so much is extrapolated from a single phrase or sentence that it feels like one of those magical resolution-enhancing computers in the movies.

That said, it can be useful in illuminating what currents of thought went into something. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar tells us something about what Elizabethan England believed about Rome, as does his choice of Shylock as a villain. "I bite my thumb at thee" is a crude insult that's worth fighting over to this very day, once properly explained. These kinds of details, literary criticism is good for.

Thing is, literary criticism isn't about trying to find out what "the author meant", it's about trying to find out "what the text could mean to today's readers". This is probably the biggest misconception about majoring in English.

To put it another way, is it actually valuable to know what Elizabethan England believed about Rome? Can you honestly say you care? No, the point of literary criticism is to make the works relevant in today's world and to today's readers. That's why you see things like say, feminist or Marxist readings of Shakespeare when many of those ideas obviously didn't even exist back then.

Books, and art in general aren't puzzles or equations designed for us to "figure out". The author's original intent is not the "one true answer".

 

[trooper6]

I'm a Musicologist--of the New Musicologist variety...so I often do a version of literary/film criticism with music. Is it BS? No. Many people don't understand what the humanities are about at all.

Here is what Dartmouth says:

"Every field of study has its own particular purposes, methods, and goals. In fact, the disciplines of, say, English and Chemistry are so very different that a Chem major attempting to write a Lit paper may very well find herself at a loss. "What does the professor mean when he says that we need to create an argument about a text? I need facts to form my hypothesis. Where does one find facts in a work of fiction? Am I supposed to discuss my research methods, as I would in a lab report? What's the point of researching this problem if there can be no definitive answers to the questions anyway?"

Before you can begin a writing assignment in the humanities, it's important that you understand why people in the humanities write. If you are a science major, you know that the purpose of your work is to describe and measure phenomena. You write in order to inform others about your findings. The larger purpose of your work is to create consensus among your colleagues. You want to come to agreement in the scientific community as to what can and cannot be considered reliably true.

In the humanities, however, the purpose of writing is different. Humanities as a field of study deals with questions for which there are no definitive answers. Consider the questions that have haunted the humanities for centuries: What is justice? The nature of friendship? The essence of God? The properties of truth? While scholars in this field certainly hope to address these questions in ways that are compelling and authoritative, they don't write first and foremost to establish consensus among their peers. In other words, they do not expect to create in their work a reliable, scientific truth.

Students of the sciences may well find this frustrating. Writing in the humanities is not about finding the answer, it's about finding an answer. The humanities concern themselves with the construction and deconstruction of meaning. They have as their center not the interpretation of hard evidence, but the interpretation of texts."

 

[inquisiti0n]

I'm surprised someone would choose to do a double major in those 2 subjects since they're so unrelated and taught so differently.

Personally, I don't have much regard for literature/humanities/sociology/liberal arts, so yeah, I tend to think alot of it is a waste of time and simply an exercise in seeing how much you can get away with. But considering that I'm not a fan of literature in the first place, I guess there exists tons of well written critiques of books I've hated that I would happily agree with.

Game criticism is very different in that alot of what game critics cover is objective. Things like gameplay mechanics, control schemes, (technical) graphics, play modes, etc don't give much leeway to opinion.

As for critics of film and literature, the typical air of superiority is what evokes my contempt. Always so critical of the public for their entertainment choices... it seems so petty.

 

[flim.geek.chic]

That really depends on the author dosen't it? And how passionate they are about the subject?

 

[Dys]

Ultimately, yes, a lot of it is simply talking shit.

I found that I got fantastic marks in English subjects in highschool when I fluffed out my opinion, offered some opinion based off of things beyond literal quotes (things that I deliberately perverted and consciously attempted to make up), yet when I offered a clear cut opinion with supported by solid evidence from a text the score was much lower.

It's the same principle with reviewing media, a lot of it is based on unprovable opinions and looking beyond what is presented, which, ultimately, is talking shit.

 

[The Shade]

Well, as a filmmaker, my feeling is that most film critics are full of crap. But that's primarily on a personal level - the individuals are full of crap, not their subject matter.
A.O. Scott and Roger Ebert do pretty well by their trade. A few others definitely seem to "get it". A lot of small-time critics don't seem to understand their jobs at all. They seem to think that taking a film course in college qualifies them to comment on the intricacies of the film. Instead, they just come off as prudish and pedantic. If I wanted to hear what every hipster and his grandmother thinks of Transformers and how great Wes Anderson is, I'd still be in film school.
Interesting side note: If you want to understand just how full of crap a film critic is, get their notes on what Mulholland Drive meant. Then ask David Lynch what he thought it meant. Contrast and compare.

 

[Veylon]

To put it another way, is it actually valuable to know what Elizabethan England believed about Rome? Can you honestly say you care? No, the point of literary criticism is to make the works relevant in today's world and to today's readers. That's why you see things like say, feminist or Marxist readings of Shakespeare when many of those ideas obviously didn't even exist back then.

This, to me, is firmly in the BS zone. If we don't care about what Elizabethan England believed or thought, then why the heck do we care what some guy wrote in some plays back then? Why do we care about them if they are part and parcel of some bygone and irrelevant age?

Earlier in the thread, you said this:

You are allowed some creativity when developing your thesis, but anything that isn't supported by what's actually in the text would quickly be shot down and taken apart by your peers.

I would love to know how this squares with Marxist and Feminist readings of Shakespeare. This shows a rigor and intellect beyond merely pandering to whatever is popular these days. It shows an interest in what the author actually wrote and, by extension, the world he wrote it into.

Then there's this:

Thing is, literary criticism isn't about trying to find out what "the author meant", it's about trying to find out "what the text could mean to today's readers". This is probably the biggest misconception about majoring in English.

And that's the real beef I have with the humanities. There's a lot of sifting through sand and chasing waterfalls, but where's the gem of wisdom all that searching is supposed to produce? Today's readers will very quickly become yesterday's readers. Are we supposed to believe there's a link between The Bard and Vampires so old Will need not miss out on the Twilight crowd? It seems an abandonment of the very purpose of criticism.

 

[PurePareidolia]

No, not necessarily - it can be, but literary works CAN have genuine meanings and undertones worth discussing. It's just not always clear which of those undertones are there and which are just pattern recognition at work.

 

[trooper6]

Interesting side note: If you want to understand just how full of crap a film critic is, get their notes on what Mulholland Drive meant. Then ask David Lynch what he thought it meant. Contrast and compare.

Here you are falling into the intentional fallacy.

David Lynch might say that Muholland Drive is about rabbits. But so what?
Authors--
a) sometimes lie to their public
b) sometimes lie to themselves
c) sometimes are not successful in conveying what they intend and and convey something else instead
d) are not the sole controllers of meaning of their work

For example, Leni Riefenstahl insists that Triumph of the Will is not Nazi propaganda. And she is the filmmaker. So we are just supposed to believe her that it isn't Nazi propaganda just because she says so...regardless of what the Nazis actually used the film for, or what the majority of the rest of the universe has to say about the matter? That's not how cultural products work. If you look at the field of Semiotics, it talks about the way in which meaning is created both by the creator and by the receiver.

ETA: Also meaning can change radically over time and place. So for example, Bach in his time was just a craftsman who made church music. In the 1870s, he was tool for German nationalists to try and create a unified German culture to go with a newly formed Germany. Hitler used Bach in...other ways. Nowadays, Bach is used in wholly different ways. A good humanist can illuminate how we use texts, why, and what that tells us about either some past culture or more about our own now.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Not much I can add. I figured I'd just share this, instead.

ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in your paper, you say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland. Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English.

<url=http://www.collegiatechoice.com/mydave.htm>Full article.

Yes, it's a hyperbolic joke...though it is worth noting that he graduated with a degree in English!

 

[IvoryTowerGamer]

As for critics of film and literature, the typical air of superiority is what evokes my contempt. Always so critical of the public for their entertainment choices... it seems so petty.

I guess I should have mentioned in the OP that the criticism I'm referring to is not the same as reviews.

Game criticism is very different in that alot of what game critics cover is objective. Things like gameplay mechanics, control schemes, (technical) graphics, play modes, etc don't give much leeway to opinion.

Actually, of the above graphics are really the only thing that can be objectively measured (and even then only if you don't take style into account, too).

Ultimately, yes, a lot of it is simply talking shit.

I found that I got fantastic marks in English subjects in highschool when I fluffed out my opinion, offered some opinion based off of things beyond literal quotes (things that I deliberately perverted and consciously attempted to make up), yet when I offered a clear cut opinion with supported by solid evidence from a text the score was much lower.

It's the same principle with reviewing media, a lot of it is based on unprovable opinions and looking beyond what is presented, which, ultimately, is talking shit.

Again, high school English is quite different from college level English. I'd find it pretty surprising if you were able to get away with that in a university course.

Interesting side note: If you want to understand just how full of crap a film critic is, get their notes on what Mulholland Drive meant. Then ask David Lynch what he thought it meant. Contrast and compare.

Thing is, the point of criticism isn't to find out what the author/filmmaker meant. It's to find out what the work itself means.

To put it another way, is it actually valuable to know what Elizabethan England believed about Rome? Can you honestly say you care? No, the point of literary criticism is to make the works relevant in today's world and to today's readers. That's why you see things like say, feminist or Marxist readings of Shakespeare when many of those ideas obviously didn't even exist back then.

This, to me, is firmly in the BS zone. If we don't care about what Elizabethan England believed or thought, then why the heck do we care what some guy wrote in some plays back then? Why do we care about them if they are part and parcel of some bygone and irrelevant age?

Because as works of art they still have the power to resonate certain truths even in this day and age.

I'm not saying that studying Shakespeare's works within the context of his own life is totally useless. It can be quite interesting as well. The fact is, though, that most people honestly don't care about that sort of reading. When they glean meaning from Romeo and Juliet, it's probably going to be done so from a modern perspective. Even if they know a lot about the Elizabethan England their analysis is still going to be skewed by 21st century biases.

Now, assuming we could actually find the "true" meaning Shakespeare intended for R&J, how would forcing that reading on others help? "Hey, your feminist interpretation of the play is great and all, and I'm glad it helps you and others enjoy the play even more, but frankly it's wrong. X is the only true interpretation, and even though it's almost completely trite to a modern audience it's how we have to teach Shakespeare."

Earlier in the thread, you said this:

You are allowed some creativity when developing your thesis, but anything that isn't supported by what's actually in the text would quickly be shot down and taken apart by your peers.

I would love to know how this squares with Marxist and Feminist readings of Shakespeare.

Because you are looking at the text itself, not the author. While the above concepts might have been totally foreign to Shakespeare himself, the plays might contain themes or ideas that make those readings possible.

Then there's this:

Thing is, literary criticism isn't about trying to find out what "the author meant", it's about trying to find out "what the text could mean to today's readers". This is probably the biggest misconception about majoring in English.

And that's the real beef I have with the humanities. There's a lot of sifting through sand and chasing waterfalls, but where's the gem of wisdom all that searching is supposed to produce? Today's readers will very quickly become yesterday's readers. Are we supposed to believe there's a link between The Bard and Vampires so old Will need not miss out on the Twilight crowd? It seems an abandonment of the very purpose of criticism.

Well I suppose it all depends on what you consider the purpose of criticism to be. As someone above mentioned, the humanities are not like the sciences. English professors are not trying to find the one definitive "answer". If they did, it would essentially kill the text. There would be little reason to read the actual work if it could be completely explicated within a single academic paper. What's more, there would be no reason to learn literary analysis either, unless you plan on reading only brand new material.

To answer your question above, the "gem of wisdom" that academic criticism is trying to produce is that it's trying to make us all better readers/viewers/gamers etc. By opening the playing field to anyone (even someone born today could have a revolutionary new interpretation of a Shakespearean play!) it's showing the value of going back and reading a text that's already been dissected millions of times before. It's main goal is to give the general public the tools they need to enjoy great works of art on their own without relying on academia to tell them what they should think.

 

[Phlakes]

You can find some kind of meaning in anything. The back of my deodorant says "Apply to underarms only." Obviously, this shows that the author values sophistication, using "underarms" instead of a more common word like "armpits," and he was probably raised in a family that emphasized education. The conciseness of the sentence symbolizes man's ability to interpret beyond the capabilities of any other animal, which indirectly suggests the dominance of humans and gives the work a deep historical relevance.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

As a Journalist-in-training I prefer to interpret the subtlety behind a film rather than do critiques...it's a lot more rewarding, and stimulating.

 

[The Shade]

For example, Leni Riefenstahl insists that Triumph of the Will is not Nazi propaganda. And she is the filmmaker. So we are just supposed to believe her that it isn't Nazi propaganda just because she says so...regardless of what the Nazis actually used the film for, or what the majority of the rest of the universe has to say about the matter?

Well, to be fair, Riefenstahl said a lot of things to cover her tracks when the Allied Legal System came knocking at the end of the war.

 

[tigermilk]

Asking 'is literary criticism bullshit?' is like asking 'are black people criminals?' or 'are men rapists?' You can't treat all literary criticism (or black people/men for that matter) as a homogoneus whole.

Critically engaging with ideas and expressing theories accordingly can produce fascinating results and I believe both art and the world are better for it. I'm not doing a Masters degree in Film Studies for the career prospects but because it fascinates me and I want to improve my ability to express complex ideas and apply them to texts.

As for the stories about what hoops to jump through during GCSE study, well that is something very different to professional/academic analysis. GCSE study (if memory serves me right) is about ticking the boxes for someone marking a hundred often near identical pieces of work. Conversely academic writing should be about producing an original piece of analytical writing juxtaposing one medium with themes that can exist externally to the text and bought together tell us something about the human condition or society.