Highway 62

* Curt Purcell ponders cultists vs. critics, liking something vs. "getting" something, and other issues of fandom and buffdom and whatnot. I think this is the key paragraph:

The basis for this difference of experience comes down to different patterns of directing attention. Attention--both what it's focused on and what is filtered out of it--makes all the difference. Where I, a fan, see a werewolf in a Paul Naschy movie, non-fans see a bad actor in bad makeup. Well, he is a bad actor in bad makeup, and I'm not surprised that's where most people's attention comes to focus. If I see him as a werewolf in these movies, it's not because I think he's a great actor in amazing makeup. And I haven't adopted some weird critical standard whereby I pay the same attention as non-fans to his bad acting and cheap makeup, and declare it awesome anyway. What I do is focus my attention much more intensely than most on the werewolf he's trying to depict, and filter out or disregard as much as I can of anything that would compromise or spoil that experience.

To what extent do you offer a work you like the benefit of the doubt? To what extent does offering it the benefit of the doubt determine whether or not you like it to begin with? That seems to be the chicken-and-egg question with which Curt and his interlocutor here, CRwM, appear to be grappling.

I'll have more to say on this in a bit since it does fit relatively squarely into some of my own approaches to commentary on stuff I've enjoyed. Yes, I hesitate to call myself a critic, mostly because I'm not. Consumer, sure. Consumer who talks about what he consumes, sure, sometimes. Willing to put things in a larger perspective with an eye towards history and canon-formation (unintentional or not), not so much.

Yes, critics do a lot more than that. I'm being brief.

Anyways, more on this later. Or now, since I've a few minutes.

So in the above, are we simply talking about suspension of disbelief? Or is that simply a symptom of what's being discussed. Is the referenced werewolf unbelievable because the viewer isn't involved in the work on whatever level? Or is the dislike of the work sparked by the fact that the werewolf is just a guy in a suit? It's easy enough to say "Aw, whatta piece of crap, totally unrealistic" and get snapped out of the movie. But then the "cultist" would say "But you have to appreciate it on such and such level."

Well, the "cultist" would. I'd probably shrug it off and say "doesn't work for you." I'm plenty used to things that I love just rolling off of most people's psyches (at best) or freaking them out/alienating them (at..."worst.") I'm not particularly bothered by those sorts of reactions. Nor do those diminish my enjoyment of OCTOMAN or DAWN OF THE DEAD or TANK GIRL (all of which have differing appeals, but are often snubbed or sometimes ridiculed.)

Some of this seems like people being worried about what other people think about the things that they love (or dissect at a distance, or even intimately.) I can't think of something that matters less in my estimations of a piece of work. Honestly. There's plenty of work that's lauded (even sometimes by people who I opinions I respect) that does absolutely flat-out nothing for me. There's plenty of work that I love that gets shrugged off by the same people. There's many situations where we agree that a work is good or bad (though frequently for different reasons). But ultimately it doesn't matter. Does. Not.

Funny how it's often genre work (that's subject to "outsider" marginalization) that gets its back up about these sorts of issues, too. Maybe there's legitimacy issues at work, maybe jealousy of other works that escape such diminishing labels and flourish in a more "literary" category.

And maybe it's all as irrational as trying to catalogue the reasons why you've chosen the person you love (or form or object or work).