Subjectivity Sickness

A conversation with a good friend inspired today’s topic: is enjoyment a criteria of quality? Of course not. A critic must be objective, only then can true worth be determined, but can influences and perception be severed from the rational mind? No. Subjectivity is a disease that permeates every fiber of my being. Experiences, people, knowledge, hermeneutics, faith, worldview, and my love affair with genre fiction all stain my vision, making objectivity an impossibility. Since all people suffer from this sickness, wouldn’t criticism be rendered futile?

Before college, my conclusion was: criticism has always been arbitrary and therefore has no real meaning. I still believe the nature of criticism is arbitrary because subjective opinions are criticism’s foundations. However, four years of analyzing and writing fiction has taught me some important lessons. Subjective nature doesn’t mean that agreement is impossible. Both in film and writing, a consensus on qualifying good and bad fiction has occurred. Historically this consensus has changed many times, but only the current one—the last one hundred years—is relevant. A general cultural consensus along with my education about narrative and story structure allow for a partition of how much I enjoy a movie, anime or book versus my thoughts on its quality. Hence why my review categories only consisting of concept, characters and story.

That long exposition and joking aside, my answer to today’s topic: enjoyment is not a criteria of quality. For terminology purposes, enjoyment and entertainment will be synonymous with each other while disregarding differences in definition. Any creative medium can entertain regardless of its quality. Stephenie Meyers’ success is a testament to an awful book enjoyed by millions of young—some middle aged—women. Troma Entertainment’s entire existence hinges upon people being entertained by their crap films. Syfy channel taps into this vein as well through airing b-list movies. Here’s a list of some bad movies that I like: Dune (1984), Hot Rod, Rubber, Blades of Glory, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Army of Darkness,and Evil Dead 2. All of these films entertain me, but never would I defend them. While marketing research can tell us what entertains the majority of people, each person will enjoy films to varying degrees. A viewer’s taste in fiction can’t be qualified through logical or objective standards because too much subjectivity overwhelms any attempt.

It's a Bearlock :D Looking for Group = great web comic

By removing enjoyment from my critical process, I gain extra clarity. My English education provides me with a pseudo-objective foundation to review fiction. For example, I thought The Avengers was better movie than Guardians of the Galaxy, but I enjoyed watching Guardians more than The Avengers. Enjoyment/entertainment is not unrelated to the quality of a film. Most movies I deem as good entertain me. The correlation is unavoidable, but the two are not co-dependent. Maybe this distinction separates viewers from critics. An audience member doesn’t necessarily care about quality, entertainment value is enough. The critic can’t ignore the flaws, thus whether the film is enjoyable becomes irrelevant. Other critics probably disagree with me, however, that’s the beauty of Subjectivity Sickness.

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