Literary Criticism
Watch out, this entry is all academic oriented and lame. Hence the icon, it's got Rowen in it so it's automatically the dorkiest icon I have. (Lol I miss that series.)
I've been reading a lot from various sources about Bollywood lately, for that term paper. And something has come to my attention that I feel the need to bitch and moan about, because I've noticed it in the past in the critique of almost every form of artistic expression, from poetry to art to film (exception of comic books). It's unfair, and I suspect that the academic elite who write these critiques don't actually put much thought into it.
There's an attitude that the good old days were better. When we're talking about history you can usually get rid of that by reminding someone that in "the good old days" we all died of cholera or tuberculosis before the age of 30, odds are good that you couldn't vote, buy land, or really move around or do anything you wanted to do, etc, etc. That sort of reality and perspective is the reason you don't usually hear this drivel from people in the medical field, unless they're talking about how now everyone is overmedicated- which, I concede, is sort of true, but too often this idea refuses to ackowledge thatpills have any real value, or becomes the hypocritical view that THEY need their pills, but there's some mysterious and vaguely defined group of hypochondriacs out there somewhere are just mindlessly taking medicine pushed on them by The Man. But I digress.
Since art is subjective, there's no absolute factual data we can point at and go "look, the good old days were actually about as bad as today is." So I'm reading these books on Bollywood and writer after writer is praising old movies and condemning new ones. And since they're analyzing them, they're also providing basic breakdowns of theme and plot and character. And they're pointing out why the old ones sound so much better and the new ones are these awful corruptions of Indian culture. Now here's the thing. I haven't seen these movies, since Bollywood is hard to come by in an American family. So all I know is what these writers are telling me, and they're trying their damndest to convince me the old ones are so much better.
But they sound exactly the same.
The ideas, the morals, the plots even- they've evolved a bit to match the evolving culture, but at the very root of it all, they sound exactly the same. The old is not better than the new. The new is just a reincarnation of the old that matches new attitudes in India. You can't expect such major cultural revolution to happen in a country and still have it's cinema stay exactly the same. And it still expresses the same concerns- social injustice, possible problems with tradition, dangers of westernization- so I really don't know what these critics are complaining about.
This isn't just in Bollywood though, this happens all the time with critics from all art forms. So what I think is happening here is that the old, in memory, is better than the new. But only in memory. That's because, in any given year, 2,000 peice of shit movies will be produced around the world, and 4 or 5 really good ones will come out. But 20 years from now, no one remembers the 2,000 peices of shit. They remember 5 good movies. On the other hand, they're watching 2,000 piece of shit movies from their modern year and that overwhelms the 5 good films from their year. So, since most of what they remember from The Good Old Days are the good ones, and most of what they're seeing today is absolute garbage, old movies must be better.
Ok, examples that you guys might know. My dad collects old American movies. Black and white ones, everything from Alfred Hitchcock to The Creeping Terror, which is the best scifi movie you've never seen about a giant mass of rugs that escapes from space and eats teenagers to the tune of big band music and a voice-over. (Seriously. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.) And let me tell you, there are some really good movies in that pile. But let me also tell you, there are WAY more The Night Monsters than House on Haunted Hills.
So um. I guess this effect is inevitable. But it's also annoying as fuck.
Also,
HOLY SHIT MEDUSA IS THE COOLEST CHARACTER IN THE HISTORY OF EVERRRRRRRRRRR FUCK YES SOUL EATER 60.
....Kay I'm done. 8D
I've been reading a lot from various sources about Bollywood lately, for that term paper. And something has come to my attention that I feel the need to bitch and moan about, because I've noticed it in the past in the critique of almost every form of artistic expression, from poetry to art to film (exception of comic books). It's unfair, and I suspect that the academic elite who write these critiques don't actually put much thought into it.
There's an attitude that the good old days were better. When we're talking about history you can usually get rid of that by reminding someone that in "the good old days" we all died of cholera or tuberculosis before the age of 30, odds are good that you couldn't vote, buy land, or really move around or do anything you wanted to do, etc, etc. That sort of reality and perspective is the reason you don't usually hear this drivel from people in the medical field, unless they're talking about how now everyone is overmedicated- which, I concede, is sort of true, but too often this idea refuses to ackowledge thatpills have any real value, or becomes the hypocritical view that THEY need their pills, but there's some mysterious and vaguely defined group of hypochondriacs out there somewhere are just mindlessly taking medicine pushed on them by The Man. But I digress.
Since art is subjective, there's no absolute factual data we can point at and go "look, the good old days were actually about as bad as today is." So I'm reading these books on Bollywood and writer after writer is praising old movies and condemning new ones. And since they're analyzing them, they're also providing basic breakdowns of theme and plot and character. And they're pointing out why the old ones sound so much better and the new ones are these awful corruptions of Indian culture. Now here's the thing. I haven't seen these movies, since Bollywood is hard to come by in an American family. So all I know is what these writers are telling me, and they're trying their damndest to convince me the old ones are so much better.
But they sound exactly the same.
The ideas, the morals, the plots even- they've evolved a bit to match the evolving culture, but at the very root of it all, they sound exactly the same. The old is not better than the new. The new is just a reincarnation of the old that matches new attitudes in India. You can't expect such major cultural revolution to happen in a country and still have it's cinema stay exactly the same. And it still expresses the same concerns- social injustice, possible problems with tradition, dangers of westernization- so I really don't know what these critics are complaining about.
This isn't just in Bollywood though, this happens all the time with critics from all art forms. So what I think is happening here is that the old, in memory, is better than the new. But only in memory. That's because, in any given year, 2,000 peice of shit movies will be produced around the world, and 4 or 5 really good ones will come out. But 20 years from now, no one remembers the 2,000 peices of shit. They remember 5 good movies. On the other hand, they're watching 2,000 piece of shit movies from their modern year and that overwhelms the 5 good films from their year. So, since most of what they remember from The Good Old Days are the good ones, and most of what they're seeing today is absolute garbage, old movies must be better.
Ok, examples that you guys might know. My dad collects old American movies. Black and white ones, everything from Alfred Hitchcock to The Creeping Terror, which is the best scifi movie you've never seen about a giant mass of rugs that escapes from space and eats teenagers to the tune of big band music and a voice-over. (Seriously. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.) And let me tell you, there are some really good movies in that pile. But let me also tell you, there are WAY more The Night Monsters than House on Haunted Hills.
So um. I guess this effect is inevitable. But it's also annoying as fuck.
Also,
HOLY SHIT MEDUSA IS THE COOLEST CHARACTER IN THE HISTORY OF EVERRRRRRRRRRR FUCK YES SOUL EATER 60.
....Kay I'm done. 8D