# Your unpopular interpretations of creative works \[Spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 3, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194 "2009-08-03T18:34:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/241 "2009-08-16T18:29:46Z")
> [@](#): > > How? Gotham City got that way because Batman fixed it. Because of his presence, all or most of the sane criminals have either skipped town or gone straight; most of the ones who’re left are the kind of wackos who think it’s a great idea to hang around putting on face paint under blacklights, and increasingly isolated and unorganized low level criminals. Crime is kept so in check—and mostly to the domain of harmless bumblers and weirdos—that the city has experienced a massive economic and cultural boom, and the streets are safe enough that the Dark Knight can openly attend charity auctions in front of the press. Exactly. All the rational criminals left cities like Gotham and Metropolis and moved to some city that doesn’t have its own guardian. For them, crime is just a business and they relocate to where business is better. The ones who remain in (or come to) Gotham or Metropolis are the crazies - the criminals who want/need the challenge of defying a superhero. That’s why you always see these guys committing overly elaborate crimes and leaving clues all over the place - the crime itself is just a means for them to get the superhero attention they crave. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/242 "2009-08-16T18:52:04Z")
Clerks II is an unhappy ending only if you don’t think Kevin Smith is imaginative enough to think up a character with different dreams and goals than himself. What was Kevin Smith’s dream? Become a filmmaker. What was Dante’s dream? Become his own boss. If he’d gone to Florida to run the carwash, that never would have happened and his fiancee would have driven him nuts with her controlling behavior. And he ends up with Rosario fucking Dawson. It’s not a very good movie in a lot of ways, so I feel kind of odd defending it, but it is at least thematically consistent. As for mine: Cars is the world that results from the aftermath of a Maximum Overdrive takeover by machines and the subsequent extermination of humans. ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/243 "2009-08-16T19:37:00Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > I’ve taken to calling this the Lex Luthor Syndrome, combining the names of the two most common examples of it (Syndrome and Luthor, natch). > > A rather bizarre form of [Misaimed Fandom](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MisaimedFandom), where the painfully transparent self-justifications of a villain are taken at face value, because they claim they’re doing it for the ‘normal’ man, despite its clashing with their own actions, and the universe they’re shown happening in. > > ‘I’m doing this for the little people, the ones without powers. The ones who are endangered, or killed by my attempts to strike at the heroes, or demonstrate my own superiority. I could create a cure for cancer, or revolutionize transportation technology, but I can’t, because there’s someone with superpowers! I have to spend all my time and resources showing them up in extravagant and dangerous combat, or else “humanity” will be held back by _the very fact that they exist_.’ Lex Luthor Magneto Syndrome… _nods_ ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/244 "2009-08-16T21:36:28Z")
I’ve mentioned this before, but my reading of _The Hitcher_ (1986) is that John Ryder (the Rutger Hauer character) is just a figment of Jim Halsey’s (C. Thomas Howell’s) imagination, and that Jim Halsey is really the killer. It’s the only way to explain how Ryder is always able to find Halsey, no matter where he is. (The jail, the motel room.) It explains how Ryder got into the motel room without making any noise. It also explains why Halsey is there in the police interview room when Ryder is being questioned and why Halsey is along for the ride when Ryder is being transported to another jail facility. In this interpretation, when Ryder suggests that Halsey kill him, it is really just Halsey contemplating suicide. This is an “unpopular” interpretation, per the OP, but I have occasionally run across online reviews that mention it, so I’m not the only one who sees it as a possible reading of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/245 "2009-08-16T21:56:10Z")
Oh, and I agree that _The Incredibles_ is an Objectivist screed. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Understander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3da27b/32.png) [@The\_Understander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Understander)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/246 "2009-08-17T02:39:15Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > In **Arrowsmith** , I think that Martin Arrowsmith was a prima donna, and while he admittedly had talent, the real tragic hero was his mentor, Gottlieb. I also think that Sinclair Lewis intended to portray them both as such. He didn’t want us to support or identify with Arrowsmith very much. Huh. This is the thread for unpopular interpretations… but I can’t get entirely on board with this one. I think that a prima donna is forgetting about the scrub-girl at Zenith General and marrying spoiled richie Madeline Fox ASAP. He’s partnering with Clif Clawson and getting them jazzed-up strychnin pills (now marketed as Cialis) out to the public and cashing in. Sure he’d indulge in some occasional research when the mood struck, but only enough to scratch an itch every once in a while–he is not sitting in a leaky boat with Terry Wickett trying to make medicines out of quinine, while cheerfully admitting the overwhelming probability of failure. That’s a little too Don Quixote for a self-obsessed glory hound, eh? Since his childhood Martin has been completely obsessed with science, to the point where he makes himself an unpaid houseboy to a drunken townie doctor just for the books and medical artifacts in his run-down domicile. I agree that Gottlieb IS a tragic hero, just like Arrowsmith… and therefore I would bet on Arrowsmith dying alone and unappreciated, just like his mentor. What was the point of the prologue where the family character is demonstrated by tough old Grandma Arrowsmith out in the wilderness, if not to illustrate the family character and establish the theme of cross-generational bonding that define the relationship between master and pada… student… at the University? Lewis is quite the idealist-- “A Doremus Jessup can never die”, anyone?-- so I find it’s best to take a WYSIWIG approach to his novels. Maybe not the stuff that lends itself to much subversive criticism. I tend to take Lewis at face value. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/247 "2009-08-17T04:53:18Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I wrote the same thing here a few years ago. Romeo and Juliet is not a romantic tragedy, it is a comedy that few people get. It is making fun of teenage drama and fickleness. Romeo was just a horn-dog pure and simple and would take whatever he could get. There are a English professors that share the same view and Andy Griffith of all people has a standup comedy routine describing Romeo and Juliet that makes all of this perfectly clear. You and **SpeakToMeMaddie** would probably both very much enjoy [_Good Night, Desdemona (Good Morning, Juliet)_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight_Desdemona_(Good_Morning_Juliet)). Among other things, we get to see Romeo and Juliet, like, two weeks later when the infatuation is wearing off. Also, the heroine in the play is convinced both _Othello_ and _R&J_ were comedies gone wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/248 "2009-08-17T23:56:22Z")
Speaking of R&J as a comedy, watch the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s performance of The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged). They do a hysterical 10 minute long performance of R&J, with Juliet played by a guy in a wig. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/249 "2009-08-18T19:54:23Z")
_Super Mario Sunshine_ is in fact a work supporting the collection of taxes as a necessary part of upkeep in any society. Okay, firstly, consider that this is the first Mario game (excluding the RPG spinoffs) to actually have a plot beyond 3 sentences. It’s also the first game with numerous NPCs with lines, and the first (and only) Mario game with voice acting. This indicates a huge shift in the way Mario’s games were perceived in the making, and given the size of the shift, it would actually make sense for them to include a moral, as opposed to the others. Now, as for the specific moral. It may seem odd at first, since the Piantas and other natives seem nice and friendly, and the shine sprites are never explicitly compared to money. But as we progress through the game, we see more and more ‘special’ Piantas who possess shine sprites, and not so coincidentally, these ones have a huge overlap with the ones who are disdainful of you or want to exploit you. Also, consider the trial at the beginning: no witnesses, Mario had no lawyer (unless Peach has been sneaking off to law school), and no-one seemed to even consider that Mario’s plane had just landed. It is quite clearly a sham trial, intended to make someone clean up the filth around the island–and the task quite clearly falls on outsiders. As the game progresses, we learn that the main cause of the problems is the lack of Shine Sprites. But! Consider how many of the islanders are hoarding or keeping shine sprites. The Tanookis in the beach hut have 24! And that’s not all…the juice stand guy has one, the hotel manager has one, the Noki grandfather has one, the mayor has one…it’s clear that the islanders are stubborn and selfish, and that the reason you were assigned to clean up the island is because them doing it themselves would be a political nightmare. And yet…the collection of shine sprites is a critial task for the island, and the more Mario collects, the cleaner and nicer the island becomes. Granted, it’s made clear that not all of the sprites come from the islanders: some of them come from the environment (mining & logging?), and some of them come from secret caches (donations? lobbyists?), but a good amount do. Mario is a tax collector, and it is made quite clear that his job is very necessary for the welfare of the island. At the beginning of the game, when residents are forced to part with their shine sprites for very little benefit, he is hated like any other tax collector. But at the end, when the islanders see how much they benefited from him, they rejoice–like how we, as a society, enjoy the public parks, the sanitized water and relative order in a well-functioning government. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/250 "2009-08-18T20:11:41Z")
> [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](#): > > The moral of **Romeo and Juliet** is that teenage passion is destructive, dangerous, and ultimately meaningless. Both children should have listened to their parents, honored their family and community obligations, and used a lot more common sense. Had Romeo controlled himself like a man he would have forgotten Juliet as quickly as he had Rosaline, and gone on to live a prosperous life with a lot less murder and mayhem. This was my “unpopular interpretation” when we read this in high school. IIRC, I said something like, “except for the marriage & suicide part, Romeo has done this before, and would do it again”. It’s not a tragedy because R & J couldn’t be together, it’s a tragedy they met in the first place. They caused all that grief for something that would have lasted a month, tops. Romeo didn’t “save” her from some awful marriage, Paris was a nice, handsome guy who Juliet probably wouldn’t fallen in love with if he hadn’t gotten in the way. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/251 "2009-08-18T23:56:58Z")
> [@badbadrubberpiggy](#): > > This was my “unpopular interpretation” when we read this in high school. IIRC, I said something like, “except for the marriage & suicide part, Romeo has done this before, and would do it again”. > > It’s not a tragedy because R & J couldn’t be together, it’s a tragedy they met in the first place. They caused all that grief for something that would have lasted a month, tops. Romeo didn’t “save” her from some awful marriage, Paris was a nice, handsome guy who Juliet probably wouldn’t fallen in love with if he hadn’t gotten in the way. I don’t remember where I read this and I don’t know if it’s considered a mainstream interpretation or not, but I’ve seen it suggested that _Romeo and Juliet_ might have worked out okay as a romance at least in the short term if only Romeo had behaved more sensibly. At the party in Act I, Scene V, Lord Capulet prevents Tybalt from going after Romeo. He doesn’t even have Romeo thrown out, which would have been well within his rights. So it seems that at least as far as Lord Capulet is concerned, the blood feud is cooling down. Lady Capulet wants to see Juliet married well, and probably could have been convinced to accept Romeo as a son-in-law since he does have money and is from a family of the same prominence as the Capulets. Romeo’s parents are barely in the play, but seem very concerned about their son’s well-being and happiness. What’s more, at the beginning of the play the Prince has explicitly forbidden further violence between the two houses. If instead of Romeo’s whole “let’s sneak off and get married and not tell anyone” scheme he’d just told his parents he was in love with Juliet and then openly asked Lord Capulet for Juliet’s hand in marriage, the whole feud might have ended with a wedding. Whether R&J would have been _happy_ is another question, but by dealing with things openly they could have avoided a lot of collateral damage. ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/252 "2009-08-19T03:01:21Z")
I hadn’t ever thought of Romeo & Juliet from this angle but it _does_ make a great deal of sense, and I quite like it. After all Juliet was only 13, not exactly the most rational of ages to begin with.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/253 "2009-08-20T00:14:42Z")
I like to subscribe to the theory that if Rosaline had just been willing to slum it with Romeo, everything would have been fine. Of course, what kind of a guy must Romeo be? This chick would rather go into a _convent_ than go out with him! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/254 "2009-08-20T00:22:03Z")
> [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](#): > > Some literary ones: > > In **The Road Not Taken** the poet is expressing regret, or at the very least ambivalence, for his choice. > > William Dobbin is the emphatically not a sympathetic character in **Vanity Fair**. In fact he is the biggest loser in a story filled with biggest losers. > > The moral of **Romeo and Juliet** is that teenage passion is destructive, dangerous, and ultimately meaningless. Both children should have listened to their parents, honored their family and community obligations, and used a lot more common sense. Had Romeo controlled himself like a man he would have forgotten Juliet as quickly as he had Rosaline, and gone on to live a prosperous life with a lot less murder and mayhem. I don’t think this is a particularly unpopular take on Romeo and Juliet; at least not among a certain segment of the population. Indeed, if I’m not mistaken, Shakespeare’s primary source for the story viewed it this way (heaping a lot of blame on the meddling Friar Lawrence). ---
**Author:** ![Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speak_to_me_Maddie)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/255 "2009-08-20T15:51:51Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I don’t remember where I read this and I don’t know if it’s considered a mainstream interpretation or not, but I’ve seen it suggested that _Romeo and Juliet_ might have worked out okay as a romance at least in the short term if only Romeo had behaved more sensibly . . . > > If instead of Romeo’s whole “let’s sneak off and get married and not tell anyone” scheme he’d just told his parents he was in love with Juliet and then openly asked Lord Capulet for Juliet’s hand in marriage, the whole feud might have ended with a wedding. Whether R&J would have been _happy_ is another question, but by dealing with things openly they could have avoided a lot of collateral damage. I like this; it jives with my current ideas on Shakespeare’s tragedies. I believe that Shakespeare was deliberately trying to set out a new identity for English tragedy as opposed to the Greek tragedy that he (and every other Renaissance student) grew up on. Greek tragedy is a result of circumstances out of the control of the principal characters. Mean gods, bizarre coincidence, cruel fate, flaws in human nature, etc. In other words shit just happens and woe is us. But in Shakespeare’s plays tragedy is the result of sinfulness, particularly by a single character. The tragic events can be traced back to a single person’s bad behavior; if they had behaved differently then tragedy could have been averted. Yes, there are often more bad apples than just the one. But Iago, for example, is a thoroughly evil person, so there is no tragedy in that, the tragedy lies in Othello being seduced by evil. It is his decisions that turn a bad situation into a tragedy. I’ve been struggling with this blame game in regards to _Romeo and Juliet_. I do believe that Shakespeare was using the same structure as with his other tragedies, but I’ve been unclear on who the “principal sinner” is. Your explanation makes a strong case for it being Romeo. I really need to go back reread or re-watch. If anyone else can help me solidify these ideas I love to hear about it. ---
**Author:** ![Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speak_to_me_Maddie)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/256 "2009-08-20T15:53:24Z")
> [@sjc](#): > > I don’t think this is a particularly unpopular take on Romeo and Juliet; at least not among a certain segment of the population. Indeed, if I’m not mistaken, Shakespeare’s primary source for the story viewed it this way (heaping a lot of blame on the meddling Friar Lawrence). What was the source material? Tell me more. Can you point me toward it? Thanks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194.md?page=12)