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

[tigermilk]

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.

I think you are presupposing the person who used the noun "underarms" was acting autonomoulsy. I would hazard a guess that audience/marketing research deemed it a term more in keeping with the 'mythic quality' or 'sign value' of their product. The author of the sentence though I presume would have come from an educated and priveleged background that facilitated their sucsess in getting what I would assume is a relatively well paid job.

 

[trooper6]

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.

Which is part of my point. Authors say all sorts of things. These things aren't always "true"--or even relevant. And what they say often changes over time and in response to outside praise or criticism. And if they are people whose livelihood is linked to their image (like Lynch's is...or any artist really)...then what they say is tied to propagating the image that keeps them earning money. Like all those rock stars who say they rock'n'roll all night and party everyday--when instead they go home after the concert and get some sleep with their spouse and kids. Or the 1930s African American jazz musicians who memorized all the big band parts so that white audiences could continue to believe that black jazz musicians couldn't read music and that what they produced was somehow "natural" and "instinctual."

There are many interesting things to say about a text. Some of them have to do with the artist (and other producers) and some of them have to do with the construction of the text itself and some of them have to do with audiences.

And a good humanist doesn't just make stuff up. What you argue has to be grounded and supported...or else no one will buy it and you won't get published and then you don't get tenure and lose your job. At the moment I'm working on an article arguing that there are different ways to look at the relationship between black and white musicians in the 1930s than they ways people often look at them (abusive). I'm also arguing that whiteness is far more complicated than people give it credit for. Well...I won't go into the whole paper (which is about jazz in Weimar Germany)--but the point is, I've been doing research for years on this topic (mainly because it is related to a book I'm working on). I'm not just making up random things.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Interpretation is always a tricky subject.
In part because it's both subjective and objective.

Of course, re-interpretations of works also have to the benefit of social hindsight.
Humanitarian efforts that exist today would have been laughed out of the country back in the 1920s.
Focus on individualist thought is commonplace today; nationalism and work towards the good of the state was popular a century ago.

Whether we decide to put a new spin on old information, or reject old concepts entirely, it all begins with analysis and what we want.

 

[inquisiti0n]

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).

No no, I mean that games have a lot of features that are objectively enumerated in a review. Which is why I view them much differently than I do for film/literature. I didn't mean the reviewer's opinion on those subjects.

But since you're talking about the type of criticism academics indulge in... I think university classes where all you do is analyze poems (or something) are insane. There's also all those cases where the analysis done by those teaching the material don't correspond with the original intentions of the author. ex. Farenheit 451 was supposedly misinterpreted alot.


Basically, I just think they take what they do way too seriously.

 

[Penguinness]

I wouldn't like to single out literature, but writing assignments in general feel slightly BS-y to me. I always preferred things with straight answers, and not just talk. What it comes down to for me is criteria, things with clear and concise criteria are often things that can have straight answers. Writing assignments feel too random.. I can get 90% in one written assignment and 56% in another. It's also down to the markers too, I've had feedback which says x part of the assignment is good, but is marked the lowest when I get it back.

 

[Jordi]

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.

I think you have your problem right here. People (including me) don't really know what "literary criticism" is about but they think they do because they think they took similar courses in high school.

I don't want to be a dick here, but why did you post this question to a forum like the Escapist's if you believe that high school English is not good enough grounds to give a judgment on this topic? Doesn't that basically exclude everybody who is not currently taking these courses at an academic level? Because if it does, it just seems like you would have a horribly biased group of people.

Unfortunately, I still don't have a really good idea on what (you think) literary criticism is. It seems to be about finding meaning in texts. It apparently doesn't matter what the original author thinks the meaning is, so there is no right or wrong. Apparently that meaning can be just about anything, as long as you support it with arguments. And I think that that is what people are referring to as bullshitting. If you are creative enough, you can pretty much take any (long enough) text and point out all of the Marxist/feminist/capitalist/misogynist undertones in it as long as you are creative enough. As such, performing a literary criticism seems like a good exercise in analysis, creativity, writing and argumentation, but it seems that the final product is not that valuable to anyone except maybe if it is entertaining to read (but you don't need academic literary criticism for that).

Which is part of my point. Authors say all sorts of things. These things aren't always "true"--or even relevant. And what they say often changes over time and in response to outside praise or criticism. And if they are people whose livelihood is linked to their image (like Lynch's is...or any artist really)...then what they say is tied to propagating the image that keeps them earning money. Like all those rock stars who say they rock'n'roll all night and party everyday--when instead they go home after the concert and get some sleep with their spouse and kids. Or the 1930s African American jazz musicians who memorized all the big band parts so that white audiences could continue to believe that black jazz musicians couldn't read music and that what they produced was somehow "natural" and "instinctual."

I think the counterpoint to what you are saying here is not that "the meaning is whatever the author says it is", but "the meaning is what the author (subconsciously) meant it to be". The main point there is that even if the author is lying about the meaning, there is in fact just one meaning. That there are right and wrong interpretations. Of course, it could be that a certain text is widely (mis)interpreted in a way that the author didn't intend, and then it might be interesting to analyze why that happened.

There are many interesting things to say about a text. Some of them have to do with the artist (and other producers) and some of them have to do with the construction of the text itself and some of them have to do with audiences.

And a good humanist doesn't just make stuff up. What you argue has to be grounded and supported...or else no one will buy it and you won't get published and then you don't get tenure and lose your job. At the moment I'm working on an article arguing that there are different ways to look at the relationship between black and white musicians in the 1930s than they ways people often look at them (abusive). I'm also arguing that whiteness is far more complicated than people give it credit for. Well...I won't go into the whole paper (which is about jazz in Weimar Germany)--but the point is, I've been doing research for years on this topic (mainly because it is related to a book I'm working on). I'm not just making up random things.

But now it just seems like you are doing historical research. If I understand correctly, you are trying to say "it is very possible that this and this happened in the 1930s, because I found this and this evidence". What you are doing sounds more like History than like a "new and original reinterpretation of a fictional work".

Like I said, it is unclear to me what Literary Criticism is exactly (but I have some ideas), and I think that that may very well be one of the main causes of the bad name it has.

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

Yes it is but if you can make it funny then you are amazing

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

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.

Or, knowing David Lynch, he might just sit outside your house with a cow on a leash.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I would say that it is bullshit but also that bullshit can occasionally be used to make flowers grow.

 

[FalloutJack]

Hi there. Aside from my english-related courses in college, I also took two in film and was thrust into discussions about film interpretation within the mediums the classes revolved around in addition to all the readings. More than once I had to call bullshit among a large number of questionable answers as is. Really, you can read into a film, or a book, or a game...but sometimes it's just about a guy doing his thing and not..."Well, this over here is Freudian and that is a comment on Marxian class-struggle". Granted, some of them might very well be what it seems in subtle interpretation, but I could get some wicked hangovers towards people just reading way too far into it and really really really reaching in their explanations.

So, from personal experience on the matter, Jack votes bullshit.

 

[xdom125x]

Literary criticism isn't all b.s. but it contains a lot of it. There are some examinations of books that are just plain wrong (like claiming romeo and juliet was about love conquering all or about the plight of the working mother. Only the first is ever argued.) I guess because it is a pretty subjective topic, it is hard to judge as objectively right or b.s.

 

[IvoryTowerGamer]

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.

Thank you, that's really a big part of the point I've been trying to make. While I don't deny that there is some BS in the field of literary criticism, I can't really say it represents the practice as a whole. It's a bit like using bad science (IE flawed or biased studies) to show that, say, Biology is nothing more than BS.

But since you're talking about the type of criticism academics indulge in... I think university classes where all you do is analyze poems (or something) are insane. There's also all those cases where the analysis done by those teaching the material don't correspond with the original intentions of the author. ex. Farenheit 451 was supposedly misinterpreted alot.


Basically, I just think they take what they do way too seriously.

Again, why is it so bad if an interpretation doesn't correspond with the original intention of the author? Is art nothing more than a puzzle we need to figure out? What happens when the author's original intent is no longer meaningful to modern readers? Should we ignore the text even if has other possible lessons for us? Should we ignore a new, possibly more enlightening interpretation of a text simply because it's anachronistic?

I wouldn't like to single out literature, but writing assignments in general feel slightly BS-y to me. I always preferred things with straight answers, and not just talk. What it comes down to for me is criteria, things with clear and concise criteria are often things that can have straight answers. Writing assignments feel too random.. I can get 90% in one written assignment and 56% in another. It's also down to the markers too, I've had feedback which says x part of the assignment is good, but is marked the lowest when I get it back.

I agree with that somewhat, but if you are regularly getting random scores (especially if they range from 56% to 90%) I think it might be more of an issue with how you present your argument than the subjective nature of evaluating a paper.

I think you have your problem right here. People (including me) don't really know what "literary criticism" is about but they think they do because they think they took similar courses in high school.

I don't want to be a dick here, but why did you post this question to a forum like the Escapist's if you believe that high school English is not good enough grounds to give a judgment on this topic? Doesn't that basically exclude everybody who is not currently taking these courses at an academic level? Because if it does, it just seems like you would have a horribly biased group of people.

Well let me put it this way: what students do in a HS English class is about as similar to what literary critics do as what students do in a HS science class resembles what actual scientists do. IE, not very.

In a HS science class, you are essentially required to memorize a lot of facts. This is not what actual scientists do in their day to day work, but it is needed in order to have a base understanding of the subject. You might perform experiments in class, but they are hardly ever included on a test (especially a standardized one), and they are rarely evaluated in the same way that an actual scientist would be evaluated by their peers.

HS English is the same way. The way standardized tests are evaluated often goes completely against what most English professors consider to be good academic criticism. Now, if the experts of a subject say something goes against what they consider to be good practice in their field, is it fair to judge the field based on those bad practices? It's a bit like evaluating the validity of science based on papers supporting intelligent design. Even if a good amount of people think that's what science is really about, it's not.

Unfortunately, I still don't have a really good idea on what (you think) literary criticism is. It seems to be about finding meaning in texts. It apparently doesn't matter what the original author thinks the meaning is, so there is no right or wrong. Apparently that meaning can be just about anything, as long as you support it with arguments. And I think that that is what people are referring to as bullshitting. If you are creative enough, you can pretty much take any (long enough) text and point out all of the Marxist/feminist/capitalist/misogynist undertones in it as long as you are creative enough. As such, performing a literary criticism seems like a good exercise in analysis, creativity, writing and argumentation, but it seems that the final product is not that valuable to anyone except maybe if it is entertaining to read (but you don't need academic literary criticism for that).

Well, here's my view of literary criticism:

It is about finding meaning in text. It doesn't matter what the original author thinks the meaning is, but that doesn't mean there is no right or wrong. You aren't trying to find out what the author is saying, you are trying to find out what the text is saying and how that message applies to our current world.

The meaning can be about anything, but it can't just be supported by arguments; it has to be supported by evidence from the text. Conversely, when people do a Marxist/feminist/etc reading of a text, they aren't necessarily trying to show that the text was intended to be Marxist or feminist; they are trying to show how a Marxist or feminist might view the text. The purpose of that kind of analysis is to get people thinking about the text again within the context of a more modern perspective.

And I think that that is what people are referring to as bullshitting.

As I see it there are two definitions of bullshitting: 1) making an argument that you don't personally believe in 2) making an argument that is not supported by actual evidence.

If we're talking about the latter, than good academic criticism is definitely not BS.

If we're talking about the former, then it is possible for bs to be considered good academic criticism, but it would also be possible for bs to be considered good science.

Lets imagine I don't personally believe in gravity, but I devised and performed a successful experiment about gravity anyway. Do my personal beliefs have any weight on the validity of my experiment? Would the scientific community disregard my findings simply because I wasn't genuinely invested in my work? Of course not, and literary criticism is no different. I think people get disillusioned when something that they consider to be ridiculous gets praised by a teacher or academic, but they forget that criticism isn't about writing your interpretation so much as it is about writing an interpretation. As long as a paper is well supported it will be accepted, same as a scientific experiment.

As such, performing a literary criticism seems like a good exercise in analysis, creativity, writing and argumentation, but it seems that the final product is not that valuable to anyone except maybe if it is entertaining to read (but you don't need academic literary criticism for that).

Unlike science, the value of any sort of criticism is fairly subjective. We are talking about art, after all.

However, I think that's the reason why it's so important that there be more than one interpretation for every text. If we did say that the author's intended meaning was the only correct interpretation, art would only be valuable to the small amount of people who agree with that reading. Instead, we have a number of equally supportable ideas, which in turn can help a larger amount of people see value in a work.

To put it another way, which of the following would you find more valuable: learning what the original author's message was (even if that message is totally trite or useless in today's world), or finding an interpretation of the text gave you some sort of personal revelation/changed your way of thinking? Which do you think is more likely to make the work more valuable to you?

Don't know about all literary criticism, but most of my English papers were about BSing things from the books, that I didn't necessarily believe.

I remember in European Literature class I was VERY tempted to tell my professor "Listen if you want us to write a paper about how books from the medieval ages are still relevant, you shouldn't expect more than a lot of BSing."

Again, it doesn't matter whether or not you personally believe what's in the paper, it only matters how well you supported it.

Like I mentioned above, even in science it's possible to make breakthroughs without believing your work. It's your methodology that counts, not your opinions.

Really, you can read into a film, or a book, or a game...but sometimes it's just about a guy doing his thing and not..."Well, this over here is Freudian and that is a comment on Marxian class-struggle".

Like I mentioned in another post above, people that make those types of interpretations aren't saying that "Shakespeare was a Marxist" or some such nonsense. They are explaining how a Marxist might interpret Shakespeare.

 

[FalloutJack]

-Compression Space-

Actually, I think that some of them were doing that, but I know that you mean not to judge all critics in the same light and so on.

 

[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.

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.

I know a lot of people who claim too.

At any rate, high school level is what most people have experienced and seems a perfectly reasonable base with which to base professional attitudes (to be a critic of any sort you don't need any specific degree, and it's more likely that someone who critiques films/games/music/whatever has not studied english, but has studied pop culture, music, film or general arts).

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Yes and no.

On the one hand I can make up anything I like about a given piece, claiming that 'Honky Tonk Badonkadonk' is a feminist song for example, but without evidence my claims wouldn't be taken seriously.

This is where it gets tricky and where scientists and mathematicians probably get the 'all BS' from. Because there are no hard answers in literary criticism. AN author can be influenced by external forces they didn't even realise about, and messages they might have intended to be in the text may be seen completely differently by others, and neither interpretation is necessarily wrong.

On my course (Uni English) we're constantly being told to look for what isn't there. Shakespeare doesn't often have things to say about women directly, but if you look at the way everyone in his play treats women you can see how he's been influenced by the social conventions of his time. Another good example would be the whole Mark Twain N word debate. Mark Twain uses words that today are considred racial slurs without even thinking about it because back in his day they weren't racial slurs, and calling a black man a ****** held as much significance as calling a black man a black man does today.

Which is where the interpretation comes into play. Is calling a black man a ****** always going to be racist, simply because of what that word means? Even back in Twain's day black people were slaves, and referring to black men at all usually had some connotation of the superiority of the white man. Or can mark Twain not be racist because the concept of racism didn't apply in those days?

This is where the danger of arguing about Shakespeare comes in, because a lot of people like to say that Shakespeare's texts have a feminist slant or a Marxist slant, which is completely impossible because Marxism and feminism didn't exist in Shakespeare's day, so there's no way he could have included a perspective on them even if he wanted to. You might be able to do a Marxist reading of Shakespeare, but Shakespeare could not have been a Marxist.

And this is what scientists and mathematicians seem to be unable to grasp. When they look for something, either they find it, or they don't, be it a solution or a formula or whatever. A mathematician can unravel all sorts of complex astral movements just be doing the calculations, and if they work, everything in his process is assumed to work, if they don't work, then he has to find the point where it stopped working, and everything after that is wrong, everything before it right.

In criticism you can make the most outlandish claim, and it is never wrong as long as there is some evidence or interpretation you can find within the text to support the claim. So whether that's BSing or not depends on whether you think personal opinion should have a bearing on interpretation of literature, which I posit that only a scientist or mathematician could think was false. (evidence pending)

 

[trooper6]

Which is part of my point. Authors say all sorts of things. These things aren't always "true"--or even relevant. And what they say often changes over time and in response to outside praise or criticism. And if they are people whose livelihood is linked to their image (like Lynch's is...or any artist really)...then what they say is tied to propagating the image that keeps them earning money. Like all those rock stars who say they rock'n'roll all night and party everyday--when instead they go home after the concert and get some sleep with their spouse and kids. Or the 1930s African American jazz musicians who memorized all the big band parts so that white audiences could continue to believe that black jazz musicians couldn't read music and that what they produced was somehow "natural" and "instinctual."

I think the counterpoint to what you are saying here is not that "the meaning is whatever the author says it is", but "the meaning is what the author (subconsciously) meant it to be". The main point there is that even if the author is lying about the meaning, there is in fact just one meaning. That there are right and wrong interpretations. Of course, it could be that a certain text is widely (mis)interpreted in a way that the author didn't intend, and then it might be interesting to analyze why that happened.

That won't work. If there is only one true meaning, and that meaning is the author's subconscious, then we wouldn't care about cultural products. Because not only can we not ever know the author's subconscious, but neither can the author. So all cultural production then becomes meaningless--and since cultural production still retains meaning...what is rather true is that the author's intentions are basically meaningless. Of course sometimes you want to argue about authorial intent...but that is just as much interpretation as anything else is.

But also, you are completely ignoring the other half of communication, the receiver and use. Let's go back to Leni Reifenstahl. She swore up and down that she wasn't creating Nazi propaganda. That she was just taking documentaries. And she pointed out that she was never a member of the Nazi party. So let's say that somehow we get access to her subconscious and we are able to confirm this was indeed what she intended. Does it actually matter what she intended? If she intended to make documentaries rather than propaganda, she failed miserably. Her films *were* used as propaganda. And they were very effective at it.

There are not right and wrong interpretations in the way you are framing it. There are compelling and uncompelling interpretations. There are likely and unlikely interpretations. There are supported and unsupported interpretations. An interpretation is "wrong" if it is uncompelling, unlikely, and unsupported. So when I'm grading a paper, I have criteria to grade upon. If you throw out unsupported BS, that is not going to get a good grade. Any text has a range of plausible interpretations...but it isn't infininte.

There are many interesting things to say about a text. Some of them have to do with the artist (and other producers) and some of them have to do with the construction of the text itself and some of them have to do with audiences.

And a good humanist doesn't just make stuff up. What you argue has to be grounded and supported...or else no one will buy it and you won't get published and then you don't get tenure and lose your job. At the moment I'm working on an article arguing that there are different ways to look at the relationship between black and white musicians in the 1930s than they ways people often look at them (abusive). I'm also arguing that whiteness is far more complicated than people give it credit for. Well...I won't go into the whole paper (which is about jazz in Weimar Germany)--but the point is, I've been doing research for years on this topic (mainly because it is related to a book I'm working on). I'm not just making up random things.

But now it just seems like you are doing historical research. If I understand correctly, you are trying to say "it is very possible that this and this happened in the 1930s, because I found this and this evidence". What you are doing sounds more like History than like a "new and original reinterpretation of a fictional work".

Like I said, it is unclear to me what Literary Criticism is exactly (but I have some ideas), and I think that that may very well be one of the main causes of the bad name it has.

In order to do good criticism, you have to do research. That is why it isn't total BS. You have to support your interpretation and argue its plausibility. If you don't know history, theory, composition, you can't do that.

There are man different ways to read Shakespeare. I'm interested in gender analysis (which some folks call feminist analysis). I maintain that Shakespeare's works are actually a lot more progressive in terms of gender than people often give them credit for. But in order to make this argument, I need to have done a lot of research on gender relations in Elizabethan England. I also need to know about sonnet forms and blank verse, and theater history, secondary literature and any other number of things. After I have done all the research on politics and history and literary form, and all of that...then I can begin my analysis and criticism.

When I was in high school I pulled crazy things out of my butt in English. Similarly I was encouraged to see the universe in black and white certainty in high school physics. And I was rewarded. But in college you learn that what you did in English in high school won't cut it. Similarly, the black/white way of looking at science in high school won't cut it either.

Who is one of the most respected film critics? Roger Ebert--the first film critic to receive a Pulitzer Prize. He has studied film. He has a deep knowledge of film history and construction. It is why his work on film is compelling and relevant, because he knows what he's doing. On the other hand, he knows nothing at all about video games, so when he started popping off about it, it was unsupported and uncompelling and irritating.