Journalism. Which has a pretty strong focus on “Communication” and “English”.
If the person watching/reading the work is bored by it, then the work is boring to that person.
I’ve read Shakespeare’s works, I’ve seen Shakespearian Plays performed by professionals who know what they’re doing, and I’ve watched films of Shakespearian works, and as a general rule they fail to maintain my interest.
Now, I enjoy watching a proper Shakespearian play performed by a professional Shakespearian Company- but that’s because I’m enjoying watching professionals work, the costumes, etc. The actual plays themselves just don’t hold my interest any more than Pride & Prejudice or those innumerable Chick-Lit stories twentysomething women like to read do, for the most part.
Yes, it does. It has a lot to do with taste. Personally, I hate poetry, despite knowing perfectly well what the “point” of it is.
Or, you could just accept that our viewpoint on the subject is different to many (if not most) other people’s. I’ve lost count of the number of things where I’ve had to make peace with having the minority opinion.
The scene does serve an important purpose in the plot. The problem is, it doesn’t serve that purpose well. Marge needs a reason to second-guess the story Jerry told after she leaves the dealership. When she meets her old classmate, and later learns that he was completely bullshitting her, that’s the impetus for her to rethink the story Jerry gave her and to go back and double check it. The problem with that, of course, is that it comes across like Marge had never heard of lying before. She’s supposed to be a competent and experienced police officer. If nothing in Jerry’s story rang false to her the first time around, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for her to have second thoughts when she meets some other guy, who has absolutely no relation to the case she’s working on, except that they both feature kind of pathetic guys who lie a lot - and she didn’t even know that until she went back in the first place.
Here’s something I don’t get, and I think it’s because America has a very different approach to watching movies than I do, or I was brought up to do.
Opening weekends.
Not only does choosing the perfect dates for the opening weekends, and the competition of other movies at that date, absolutely obsess distributors and studio executives, but it’s even borne out by the fact that Americans really do flock to the cinemas as soon as possible, camping out on opening nights or at least lining up for hours, and the statistics really do point to a correlation between opening weekend and overall box office take.
It’s hard for me to believe that this is still a major way consumers behave, when the movie will still be around five days later, and will be out on DVD in a few months, so there’s really no need to rush and get so excitable.
The tradition of movie-going in America seems to be based on the fact that they invented movies in the first place, so it’s very deeply embedded in their culture for it to consistently play out like this.
But I really find it difficult to get my head around.
But if you can understand it for this person, why not for this one? And if you can understand it for those two people, why not for these two? And these three and those three? Eventually you wind up with everyone who watches movies regularly wanting to see the movies they’ve been looking forward to sooner rather than later.
I always found them incomprehensible until I stumbled onto the authorship debate and the theory about the 17th Earl of Oxford. Once you plug him into the equation, it all makes perfect sense.
I’m talking about the culture, not the individual. I grew up in a country where you see movies whenever you like, and opening day is no different to any other day as long as it’s still running.
America seems to obsess over opening weekend.
I think, as you are in amongst it, it’s hard for you to see what I’m talking about. In fact the movie-watching culture I experience may be equally incomprehensible to you.
I kind of thought it was something like that, but it didn’t seem like it could be. It’s just too weak, especially for the Coen brothers. Not that I don’t believe you but do you have a cite for that?
It’s because we’re special. Actually, I feel the same way you do, and always have. I remember when the first Star Trek movies were being released, and my friends had to be at the theater opening night. I didn’t want to fight the crowds, and see people in costume, etc. So I was willing to wait days, or even weeks, for the crowds to die down, then I could enjoy the movie in (relative) peace and quiet.
For a lot of Americans, there’s a certain feeling (superiority?) in being the first, or among the first, to see a movie (or get the latest gadget). It then becomes something they can brag about, almost like the child’s game of “I know something you don’t know!” In this case, it’s the ending of the movie, or whether it’s good or bad. [/armchair psychology]
I can’t explain team loyalty, but for some people it is an undeniable force. It gets tied up in your identity. Imagine, if you will, watching a football game with your father or grandfather or uncle or brother every single Sunday, every single winter for your whole life. Your family member is happy when the team wins, unhappy when they lose, and has built an entire tradition around the late game because the team is a west coast team and always has a late game. That’s not just “a game.” That’s an integral part of your childhood, memories, family bonding, and tradition. And everybody, even people who don’t watch sports, have a tradition. Now multiply that across multiple generations, across an entire city, state, or region, for over fifty years, and suddenly you have a huge and passionate fan base.
This last year, knowing that my beloved Denver Broncos had changed to the point that I didn’t even recognize them as a team, I decided “Fuck it, I’m going with the winners.” And I set about trying to be a Steelers fan. But not only could I not get invested in the tradition of the Steelers, I felt like a traitor. What sort of person could just give up on a beloved (team/pet/family member/whatever) just because there’s a few lean years? Loyalty and consistency matter to me, and I couldn’t forget that. Now Elway is back and I already feel reconnected to the team and excited about next year.
given my tendency to be deeply involved in fandoms, I think about this issue a lot. I think in a lot of ways, fandom takes the place of religion (or at least acts as a sort of quasi-religion). It’s a community with a shared story. And like with sports, it’s fun
You shouldn’t be reading the Swan of Avon. Oh yes, I mean, you can read it, and get quite a lot of pleasure from it. But the point isn’t to read it quietly to yourself and look up every other word. The point is to see it performed, to get caught up in the beauty and the rhythm of the language, in the emotion of the actors. Due to various reasons, I did not study Shakespeare at all in high school. When I admitted that to my Shakespeare prof, he said “Good, high school teachers do more to destroy Shakespeare than anybody else” and over the years I’ve come to see he’s right.
The expression of emotion and the human condition, the celebration of the English language, the thrill of the perfect image, the perfect economy of words, the timelessness of rhythm. If you are ever interested in understanding poetry, I strongly, strongly recommend Stephen Fry’s An Ode Less Traveled: Unlocking the Poet Within. I studied literature for six years and have already learned more about poetry in the first 5 chapters of his book than in all those years combined. And since it’s Stephen Fry, it’s clear, easy to understand, witty, and wonderful.
What’s hard to understand? As a straight girl, I am attracted to men and the male form. I don’t need to have a place to insert myself to enjoy porn, which means instead of worrying about identifying with the female, I can just enjoy beautiful boys doing dirty things to each other. Is it strange that straight guys like porn that don’t involve cock?
And now my response to the OP:
I don’t get Facebook. It’s terrible. I hate it. If it went away tomorrow, I’d do a dance of joy.
Snow’s not synonymous with winter in a lot of places. On average, I only see it once every two to three years, and winter’s one of my favorite seasons.
Fargo…Cohen Bros…isn’t it? I’ve known of its cult status. I saw the beginning of it once on tv, lots of snow and all that, but I didn’t persist with it.
I was going to say something about Donnie Darko…but that would be opening a can of worms, wouldn’t it?
I was referring to reading about Shakespeare. There are literally hundreds of fantastic books exploring and explaining what makes his writing special.
Since you lack reading comprehension (how’s that MA working out for you?), let me repeat myself: not knowing the point of poetry or not having any idea what makes Shakespeare a great writer is not a matter of taste. It’s a matter of ignorance (SD: “Fighting ignorance since 1973” btw). Whether you enjoy poetry or Shakespeare is perhaps a matter of taste, though from experience it is likely combined with ignorance. Anyone I know who has ever found something boring and then happened upon a good professor or book about it, has totally changed their minds. Perhaps you lack this life experience?
I just can’t accept that you have given an honest effort at the appreciation. This is drawing from my own experience. I could be wrong. If so, I’m sorry.
And you can read those books and still A) Disagree with the authors or B) See that the authors think Shakespeare is special and still simply not see what they see in it.
My reading comprehension is fine. Before I go on, however, in the interests of keeping this conversation civil, I will say that where I come from, calling someone “Ignorant” is an appalling and highly offensive insult. I’d appreciate it if you could find a less… impolite term.
There are some subjects for each person that are just inherently boring and nothing can change that. For example, my own interest is British Military firearms and the British Empire. I can- and have- discussed at length in esoteric detail about the complete service history of a particular firearm, service dates, minor differences in different marks and models, and details right down to the rifling twist and barrel diameter. But here’s the thing: Most other people (who aren’t arms historians) don’t care.
I don’t go around saying “Anyone who doesn’t think the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III Rifle is the greatest and best military service rifle of the pre-Vietnam War era is Ignorant” because A) I don’t believe that and B) even if I did, it’s not a reasonable view to expect lots of people to agree with me on.
Sure, I can try and make it all a bit less incomprehensible to someone who’s new to the whole thing, but ultimately, if you don’t like guns, there’s nothing- nothing that I or anyone else can do to make that particular subject interesting. The same applies to a vast number of subjects, including Shakespeare.
If Bill Bryson (one of my favourite authors and a very funny writer) can’t make me excited about Shakespeare’s works, no-one can. The only people who have come close are the Reduced Shakespeare Company, who did the very funny Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (Abridged), which is a parody of Shakespeare’s works.
You’re wrong, but there’s no need to apologise. It’s not a personal failing on your part that there are learned, educated adults out there who don’t like/appreciate Shakespeare for whatever reason.
I agree with all of this too, and like GuanoLad, I don’t really understand it either. But at this stage I could probably write a book entitled Things Martini Enfield Doesn’t Understand About Americans and we’d run out of forests before I ran out of conent.
Since “Lacking knowledge or experience” doesn’t carry nearly the same negative connotations as “Ignorant”, that’s fine with me, although I’d prefer it if you didn’t use any synonyms for the word, to be honest.
Firstly, it’s a joke. Secondly, it doesn’t specifically call any one individual “Ignorant”. Thirdly, it’s dedicated to fighting Ignorance as a general concept. So not the same thing as you throwing the term at anyone whose opinion differs from your own, basically.
And even though you may not have personally called me “Ignorant”, saying that people who hold the same views as I do are “Ignorant” is near enough to the same thing IMHO.
When you are in my position, and can clearly see that it is special, then you know, internally, that the other person is wrong. There is something that they don’t see, that you do see. If they do see what you see, yet still reject it, then they should be able to give an educated explanation for the discrepancy. For example: “Shakespeare made amazing puns, that I will admit, but I do not think puns add to the richness of a work because <X>.”
I think that is because they are “lacking in knowledge or experience,” off all of the connections that make it interesting. People aren’t stupid – there is a reason they find some things interesting – that reason is just as accessible to one person as it is to another, if they are able to gain the knowledge and experience that allows them to make the connections and unify their understanding of the subject enough for it to “make sense.” In my own life, if I “don’t get” why someone finds something interesting, and I have the time, I go buy a book about it, do some research, buy a “Teaching company” lecture series, etc, and without fail I come out the other side fascinated by the subject. I have no doubt the same would be true for British Military firearms and the British Empire.
