Budding obsessed Xena fan that I am, I was looking through the Whoosh! archives when I came across an interview with Josh Becker. He seemed like a pretty smart (if weird) guy, and a excellent director – who doesn’t like obsessed Xena fans – but I was curious about the statement that he was a “lightning rod for praise and condemnation due to his openness and outspokenness.”
I checked out his website, and my first impressions seemed rather correct. He seemed to be the stereotype of the crazy director – he is rather serious about life, and even more serious about his movies (he is constantly telling people to “grow up”). He is incredibly opinionated about everything, and is smart enough that his ideas seem right a good portion of the time. He obviously knows a lot about making movies – his site is full of advice on film structure, DIY filmmaking, etc.
Now, I usually like opinionated smart people, even if I don’t agree with them. But the more time I spent on Josh Becker’s site, the angrier I became. For a while I couldn’t figure out why. Sure, he’s a condescending jerk to people who ask him dumb questions, but lots of people are like that – it wouldn’t make me hate him.
Suddenly, though, I realized what my problem with Josh Becker is. He is a complete Art Snob.
What do I mean by this? An Art snob is someone who thinks that they can objectively determine what constitutes Art (with a capital A), and furthermore, are able to correctly judge the quality of said Art (or non-Art, as the case may be). Now, everyone has opinions, likes and dislikes, regarding entertainment and other potential art forms, but the Art snob claims to rise above the level of opinion – they can apparently compare to some absolute standard, some ideal form, some way of knowing just how good something really is (other peoples opinion aside).
Normally, one expects to find the Art snob in the persona of, say, a stodgy old professor who teaches ancient literature or painting, or perhaps a serious classical musician who disdains popular music and thinks the world stopped with Mozart. But these stereotypes are just that. I was an Art snob at one, or more specifically, a Music snob. I didn’t like music as a child. Than, in sixth grade, I began playing trumpet in the band. I fell in love with the instrument, and more generally, with classical music. I started by listening to band music, than to symphonies, piano sonatas – mostly just the famous stuff at first, than more obscure works. I despised electric guitars and drumsets. At some point I started to listen to jazz, but that is about as ’serious’ nowadays as classical music is.
Around my senior year of high school, though, I started listening to popular music (or at least popular style music), and realized that there is no absolute truth that makes classical music better that popular music, or vise versa. Now I like both types of music equally, and in fact would argue that there is really no objective way to determine the difference between them, and thus there should be no distinction at all (more on this in a future blog post).
Josh Becker is a Film snob. He is obsessed with the ‘rules’ of screenwriting, with the three act structure of said rules, and with many other seeming arbitrary considerations, claiming that such things distinguish ‘good’ writing from ‘bad’ writing. He perpetually argues on the basis of these rules that many, many films are boring or terrible, ignoring the fact that in order for a film to be boring, the audience must be bored, and well, several million people were demonstrably not at all bored and in fact liked those films very much. His first objection to Passion (the Mel Gibson movie) was the Mel Gibson was a third-rate director and a second-rate actor, without giving any good reason for this fact (the quality of a director or actor is apparently something that Mr. Becker alone can judge!). He hates comic book superhero movies, because comic books are for kids (and being a kid is bad). And all to what end? He says that some films are really worth watching (they follow the rules of good storytelling!), and it is the film industry’s fault for making the bad ones, and not making enough good ones.
Now, I don’t usually like moves based on comic books either, but for good or ill it seems that most people do. And that is the reason the Art snob is invariably wrong. The only reason for producing Art, whether in the form of a film, a painting, or a piece of music, other than for the artists own satisfaction, is for … *gasp* …the audience’s enjoyment. Mr. Becker admits that. His negative reviews are filled with a distinct sense of “I hated this film. Hate Hate Hate. Crap Crap Crap. Oh look, some justification. If only it had been good, i.e. if I had liked it…” If the audience likes a film, the filmmaker was successful. If they don’t, they’re not. If one of Mr. Becker’s film had gotten the same financing, distribution, and marketing, as, say, Dark Knight (which Becker dislikes without even having seen), would people have liked it more? Would it have made even more money? While I suppose this is possible, I think it is safe to say it is not the case.
So in other words, Art just doesn’t transcend. And even if you really believe it does, it is undeniable that certain things are popular, and you can hardly fault the producers of popular culture for giving people what they want. Now, should you want to argue that the audience’s taste is a fault, than by all means. I personally, however, believe that the only problem is that people are not deriving as much enjoyment from overly popular pieces as they ought, and would do better seeking out entertainment more exactly suited to their taste. This is only a problem of distribution, however, and new technologies (first Cable TV, and now the Internet) are causing this fragmentation to happen even now. The end result will not be the audience suddenly appreciating real Art, but rather each person becoming more able to find that which is most enjoyable and meaningful to them individually.