From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #171 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Friday, October 13 2000 Volume 01 : Number 171 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 12:04:03 -0700 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: Re: [AML] Moral Issues in Art I said in my last post that I wanted to talk about art as testimony and mention some limitations of the didactic approach. A couple of years ago (9-NOV-1999, RE: Exaggerated Experiences (part 2)) Benson Parkinson made a comment about how the Church has shifted to "a strong rhetorical stance" in its publications: "State what you know, simply and clearly, and bear testimony." This contrasts to an earlier policy of "us[ing] strawman arguments" and "criticiz[ing] other churches' teachings." (Anyone who went to seminary in the 70's will remember that, particularly in lessons about the great apostasy--and of course there's Tom Trails. I remember my seminary teacher telling us that the Navaho man who portrayed Tom's bishop in the filmstrips (filmstrips instead of videos, fancy that. I was watching _Man's Search for Happiness_ once--maybe in Charles Metten's film appreciation class, but that would have been before my mision, not after--and as the opening theme came on, dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-de, all the RMs ("I don't know what the phrase means" a non-member in Don Norton's Usage class once said, "but from the way it's used I gather it refers to an extremely horny young man") said "beep-beep") spoke perfect, very articulate English and was hurt and offended that the Church chose to portray the bishop as speaking broken English.)) Ok, if anyone still remembers the original point after that long group of parentheses (is there such thing as a parendissertation?), I'm going to suggest in my next post that part of my objection to the didactic is that it argues instead of testifying. I've already made that point in various ways in this thread and it wouldn't be worth repeating except that it has much wider implications than we've considered and I'd like to see those wider implications discussed, expecially since I'm exploring them somewhat in my RMMLA paper. I'm going to suggest that didacticism is the dominant rhetorical stance in literature and lit theory just now, has been for maybe 150 years, and that one effect of that stance is a feeling that we must protect ourselves from art. As a prelude here's a brief description of how at least one person experiences the need to protect himself against didactic messages. I mentioned on Sept 21 that advertising is a wholly didactic artform. Todd Petersen replied Tue, 26 Sept: > Though Harlow is convincing, I do not hold advertizing to be an art, > which is why I threw my advertizing portfolio into a dumpster > behind my apartment building in Seattle and began to rethink my life. It's too easy for me to agree, though given the recent threads on the legitimacy of genres, I'm not sure how to base the claim that advertising is not art except to say that the total aim of advertising is didactic, to teach us to consume. That implies, of course that true art does not have as its whole aim (the word _whole_ is crucial here) to teach us--a circular argument, defining as not art any work which uses the techniques and inspiration of art but seeks wholly to teach us. But my point about advertising is not whether it's art or not. My point is that we are surrounded by works that employ the rhetorical techniques of art for the sole purpose of teaching us to buy, buy, buy birdies (save the birdies--collect the whole set). More important, we recognize that many of these messages are lies, and that we have to protect ourselves against them. (This is what I thought about when Jason Steed said Wed, 27 Sep, that our culture "facilitates, even necessitates, a resistance to 'didacticism.'") This is not MLM, and if you click here you can see live, hot teenage sex, and you must be serious about earning a five figure income in the next 5 weeks, and this program practically sells itself, and if you don't pay us lots of money to tell you the secrets of submitting your website to a search engine you could get banned for life from some search engines, and if you send this letter on to just 5 more people with $1 and a note saying "Please add me to your list," which will mean the $1 is a purchase and will make your solicitation legal--not a despised chain letter (and way the buy, I have a cd with millions of proven e-mail addresses I can sell you so you can foist this not-a-chain letter off on everyone everyone else is mailing to too)--you will get $250,000 by the end of the month, and if you send this other chain letter MicroSquish and AOL--who have teamed up to test a new e-mail technology (never mind that they're busy suing each other all over cyber- and non-cyber space) will mysteriously know you've forwarded it to other people and send you a check for $250 for each person who forwards it, and $75 for each of those recipients who forwards it and I've checked this with a lawyer and he says it's legit and I got it from a friend who doesn't send me junk and the post office is going to start charging 5 cents for every e-mail, and "666 is really 999 turned upside down" and $9.99 is a darn good price for this, this, this England. Can I come up for breath, or do I have to tell you that if you order now Ed Snow will send you his beehive Jello mold with 666/999 inscribed on the bottom, and a package of green jello at no extra charge? Harlow S. Clark ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 16:18:19 -0600 From: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Subject: [none] aml-mag@lists.xmission.com>From ersamuel@byugate.byu.edu Thu Oct 12 10:54:30 2000 Received: from [128.187.22.133] (helo=email1.byu.edu ident=SYSTEM) by lists.xmission.com with esmtp (Exim 2.12 #2) id 13jlcj-0000SD-00 for aml-list@lists.xmission.com; Thu, 12 Oct 2000 10:54:29 -0600 Received: from spitfire.byu.edu ("port 10668"@spitfire.byu.edu [128.187.22.178]) by EMAIL1.BYU.EDU (PMDF V6.0-24 #45325) with SMTP id <01JV8WQN11VY8ZF8VE@EMAIL1.BYU.EDU> for aml-list@lists.xmission.com; Thu, 12 Oct 2000 10:52:44 -0600 (MDT) Received: from UCSNet-Message_Server by spitfire.byu.edu with Novell_GroupWise; Thu, 12 Oct 2000 10:50:30 -0600 Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 10:49:53 -0600 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: [AML] Entertaining Art (was: What Should the Critic Critique? To: aml-list@lists.xmission.com Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 5.5.3.1 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Content-disposition: inline Sender: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: aml-list I asked >>Let me also add this question. Is it possible for a work of art to = be=20 >>boring? Doesn't boredom suggest a lack on our part, not on the part of = the=20 >>work itself? > Eric responded >I agree with this in theory, but in practice I think that lets the = artist=20 >get off too easy. I've seen far too many movies that were just >thundering= ly=20 >dull, where it was apparent the filmmakers hardly even cared >about = being=20 >entertaining. To say that it was my fault I didn't get anything out >of = it is pushing thing a bit, I think. I can agree with part of this; I have certainly seen films and TV shows = and plays that I thought were dull. But what does it mean to say that the = makers of certain films never even tried to make an entertaining film? = I've seen films that tried to entertain me and didn't. But I've never = seen a film that didn't even try. It's just too hard. Making a film is so enormously difficult, requiring = dozens or hundreds of artists each putting in literally hundreds of hours = work apiece, that there's no way they didn't care about the film being = entertaining. I can't imagine it, anyway; to put it in economic terms, = absolutely nobody wants to make a film that won't make money. =20 I am just so hesitant to open THIS can of worms, but timorously and = fearfully, can I ask what it means for a work to be entertaining? I mean, = I think Waiting for Godot is the most entertaining play ever written. = I've seen it in production a dozen times at least, and I always get = something new out of it, and I think it's funny a lot of the time, and I = just think it's fabulous. And one of the more dubious pleasures of = watching Godot in performance is watching the rest of the audience, for = whom it patently was not entertaining, stream out of the theatre at = intermission like the place just caught fire. =20 Some possibilities: 'Entertaining' means it was funny. We laughed. Since this is measurable, = it's far and away the most objective; the more laughs recorded on our = laughometer, the more 'entertaining' we judge the work. Entertaining means it's viscerally rewarding. We felt a kinetic response; = our heartbeat increased, our palms became sweaty. =20 Again, this is measurable. =20 Entertaining means it kept the kids from whining about wanting more = popcorn. Crank up the whine-o-meter, and plot the movie on a graph. Entertaining means it's morally uplifting in a structural sense. Bad guys = got caught and punished and good guys ended up with the pretty girl. I've = got a Star Wars problem here, in that the bad guy ultimately goes to = heaven, but otherwise, this is measurable. =20 Entertaining means we are caught up emotionally in the lives of the = characters. A bit more subjective, but if you measure tears shed and = hankies shredded. . . . Entertaining means it was erotically engaging. =20 Entertaining means comfortingly familiar. My daughter turns seven this = week, and she wants a Scooby Doo party. She adores Scooby Doo. She = especially likes the episode where they investigate a haunted house/mansion= /hotel/ski resort, only it turns out it wasn't really haunted after all, = it was just a previous owner scaring people off. Ever see the episode of = Home Improvement where Tim makes a doofus of himself, is corrected by = Wilson the neighbor, and makes it up to Jill in the end? Ever see the I = Love Lucy where Lucy, against Ricky's advice, tries a new job and makes a = hash of it? Entertaining shows, all of 'em. Entertaining means horrifically bad, utterly inept, laughably idiotic. = Entertaining means an unbelievably bad movie, with two robots and a guy in = the corner mocking the film's ineptitude. Entertaining means a movie you = went to at a drive-in theatre with some of your high school friends = crammed into the trunk of your car, and you all sat on the hood or crammed = into the front seat and laughed and tried to make out (unsuccessfully) and = snuck up behind girls sitting with their friends on the grass and went = 'boo' and ate lots of terrible popcorn to, later digging it out of your = braces with a popsicle stick. Some of the best movie experiences of my = teenage years, let me tell you, were watching movies like Kidnapped Coed = and Hitchhike to Hell and The Creepy Thing That Wouldn't Die at the = Hoosier Drive-In. Very entertaining films.=20 Entertaining means it was intellectually engaging. It gave me, Joe = Audience, something to think about. Entertaining means it challenged deeply held beliefs, and caused me to = re-think previously held positions. Perhaps it offended me--that's an = emotional response. =20 Entertaining meant I had to pay very close attention, I had to think very = hard indeed, to figure the movie out. And maybe I didn't succeed; maybe = there's a central mystery in the text I still don't get. Maybe its a film = that moves very slowly, asking me to concentrate on the tiniest details = for some hint or clue as to what it all means and what it's all about. = Marvelously entertaining films, those; I've seen a number of them and = count them among the greatest films I've ever seen. So what's entertaining? All of the above? Yep. Eric Samuelsen - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 16:05:13 -0400 From: "Eric D. Dixon" Subject: Re: [AML] What Should the Critic Critique? D. Michael wrote: >What's the difference between the critic saying author Q shouldn't >write about x,y, or z, or the former Soviet government saying author >Q shouldn't write about x, y, or z--except that the Soviet Union had >more power to enforce the opinion? What's the difference between D. Michael Martindale saying the critic shouldn't say what the author shouldn't write about or the former Soviet government saying the critic shouldn't say what the author shouldn't write about? It's not only a difference in the amount of power, but a fundamental difference in *type* of power. The critic's opinions & dictates only have as much force as their competition in the marketplace of ideas can bring -- generally, they have to survive on their own merits as judged by other contributors to and consumers of public discourse. An oppressive government's opinions & dictates have as much force as their guns and prisons can bring -- merits notwithstanding. >> Who's to say what the critic's business is or isn't? > >Me. I'm as intelligent as the next guy. Who's to say what the author's business is or isn't? The critic. He's as intelligent as the next guy. You sound an awful lot like the people you're denouncing. Eric D. Dixon "There is nothing less interesting than a fact unilluminated by a theory." -- Steven E. Landsburg - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 12:04:44 -0700 From: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Subject: [AML] Didactic Literature (was: Moral Issues in Art) - -108,114-115,119-120,125-126,132-135 X-Juno-Att: 0 X-Juno-RefParts: 0 From: harlowclark@juno.com Sender: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: aml-list I appreciate this discussion a lot, especially Todd Peterson's insistence (Wed, 06 Sept 2000) that "to call something didactic is actually to position oneself against it more than it is a claim about the work itself." Disagreeing with Todd has helped focus my thinking. Todd reasserted this in his 26 Sept reply to my 21 Sept post on advertising.=20 > I still think that to call art didactic comes, not from anything in=20 > the nature of the art itself, but from the viewer/reader.=20 My first reaction was, if didacticism isn't something inherent in the work, only comes from the reader, it's not possible to have satire. But of course, Todd didn't say didacticism isn't inherent in works of art (indeed he believes all art teaches). He said that criticizing a work of art for being didactic says more about us than about the work. I generally agree that our reaction to art says more about us than about the art work. That's the central idea in my RMMLA paper, that interpretation is always a choice. Art does not interpret itself or force us to interpret in a particular way.=20 Of course, my objection to didactic art is that it does attempt to force an interpretation, and in considering that objection it occurs to me that I use the term _didactic_ in two different ways, to describe art that takes an approach I don't like and to describe a genre. While working out my AML paper "Light and Delight" a few years ago it became clear to me that satire is didactic (it offers us, usually by implication, something better than what it is satirizing) and didactic writing is satirical (it tells us there is a better way to live than we are living now). Mormonism has a rich satiric tradition, going from Elouise Bell and Calvin Grondahl and Robert Kirby and Ed Snow back to Parley P. Pratt's "A Dialogue Between Joseph Smith and the Devil," (further back if you count the satiric portions in the Book of Mormon, particularly Alma's prayer on the Rameumptom (no, he wasn't the governor of Utah 30 years ago)).=20 You can build a solid literature on satire, but I suggested in that paper that satire finally has the same limitations as any other didactic approach. To suggest how solid a literature you can build on the satiric/didactic think about Lionel Trilling's "On the Teaching of Modern Literature" (in his 1965 book, _Beyond Culture_), perhaps the most significant lit crit essay in the last 50 years--probably not the most important or influential, but it signifies everything about how literature has been taught in American classrooms since modern literature emerged as an academic subject after WWII. Trilling pioneered modern literature as an academic subject, at students' repeated importuning. Reluctantly. You don't point a howitzer at your students without assessing how much damage you might do, Trilling says. =20 Actually the word he uses is describe. Trilling notes the discovery in our century that a literary work is a "structure of words," which seems obvious, but focuses attention onto the words and away from matters such as what an author wants the work to do. This makes modern literature easier to teach, because what it wants its readers to do is very personal. Part of modern literature's power comes from the way it asks, and asks=97no, demands=97answers to very personal questions like, are you happy? do you like your job? your family life? your marriage? are you saved or damned? But these are not the kinds of questions you ask the large groups sure to sign up for a modern literature course. Nor are they the kinds of things you wish to tell a large group of students.=20 A teacher can describe a structure of words in minute detail, say everything "that can be said about formal matters, about verse-patterns, metrics, prose conventions, irony, tension, etc." (9), and still not touch the soul of a literary structure. Students may learn a great deal about "verse-patterns, metrics, prose conventions, irony [and] tension," but little about the passion that informs a work of modern literature. And since "these structures were not pyramids or triumphal arches, they were manifestly contrived to be not static and commemorative but mobile and aggressive" (13), you can't describe them without talking about the damage they can do. And you can't just leave the howitzer there on the back wall. It has to be fired (as Chekhov said about the gun over the fireplace on a stage set) before the curtain comes down. The teacher "must confront the necessity of bearing personal testimony. He must use whatever authority he may possess to say whether or not a work is true, and if not, why not; and if so, why so. He can do this only at considerable cost to his privacy" (9). (Those 3 paragraphs are one long paragraph in my essay, "Lucid Dreaming," maybe the least dreamlike paragraph in the essay. It's one of my best, partly because I worked hard to give it a dreamlike narrative quality rather than the didactic/expository/pedantic quality you might expect in an essay on literary theory.) To paraphrase the paraphrase, Trilling's description of modern literature (roughly 1840-1950) means that modern lit's mode, its way of being, its=20 rhetorical stance, if you want, is satirical/didactic. It positions itself against or beyond its culture. This view of literature has dominated lit classrooms for close to a half century, I would think. (I remember it from my high school AP class 25 years ago, Trilling's book came out 10 years before that, and he had been teaching a while before writing it.) In other words, though writers like to complain about how the public mistrusts literature and art, the perception that art is dangerous has been fostered by writers themselves and by the critics, who laud the danger. So here's my main objection to didactic writing. People don't like being preached at, even in sermons. We'll take instruction in a sermon, but we prefer the instruction tied to a story. (I'll bet if most of the people on this list walked in to Deseret Book and saw a children's picture book called "The Walnut Tree" they would know immediately what it was about even if they remembered nothing else from the April 2000 general conference. We know what the book is about because we remember the story.) We resist being preached at or to, as we resist being made fun of--both are unequal relationships. This is the chief drawback I see for Mormon writers. If they write in the culture's didactic tradition (preaching) they risk not being able to take their work to the wider culture. If they write in the wider culture's didactic tradition (making fun of), they risk alienating their people. But there's a more serious problem. Because the satiric/didactic is the dominant trope for lit crit in our time, it's natural for an audience to interpret a work as an attack if it contains things that make the audience uncomfortable. Even if the author does not mean it as an attack. I think that's what happened with _The Giant Joshua_ and a bunch of other literary works. It's quite apparent Maurine Whipple has deep regard for the people she's writing about, but the people who read her words didn't see that regard, apparently thought it an attack. That reaction and the consequences that rippled out from it are tragic. I agree with Trilling and others about the tremendous energy in modern literature, contemporary lit, too. I have said before that I believe that energy came in the pentecost when Joseph Smith dedicated the Kirtland temple. Because I believe that I try to interpret literature outside the didactic/satiric tradition, and to write outside that tradition--though I have a fairly satiric bent. I have more to say, but it will have to wait till after RMMLA. Harlow S. Clark ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 16:36:43 -0400 From: "Eric D. Dixon" Subject: Re: [AML] What Should the Critic Critique? D. Michael wrote: >Lots of interesting, intelligent points being made, but I have yet to >hear anyone address my assertion that criticizing the artist's choice of >subject matter is a form of censorship. If that's true (and I don't believe it is), then criticizing the critic's choice of judgments is also a form of censorship. Both artists and critics should be free to write about whatever they want and make whatever judgments they want to make. Then everyone else gets to criticize both the artists *and* the critics, as they see fit (yes, including you). You seem to be consistently inferring that critics simply shouldn't be *allowed* to say certain things, and implementing that idea is as blatant a form of censorship as exists -- although saying it is not. In any case, freedom of expression in criticism is just as valuable to a free society as freedom of expression in art (I'm tempted to say it's even more valuable, but it's just a temptation). Ideas can be harmful, but combatting bad ideas by forcing the speaker to shut up is more harmful still. Conflating persuasion and oppression is a pretty good way to bring about more of the latter. Eric D. Dixon "There is nothing less interesting than a fact unilluminated by a theory." -- Steven E. Landsburg - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 01:31:37 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] What Should the Critic Critique? "Eric D. Dixon" wrote: > You sound an awful lot like the people you're denouncing. I realize that. But I feel justified in doing so because, assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, I don't believe the critic is an artist. He may use artistic skills while expressing himself. But he is not a creator, he is a reactor. That alone makes all the difference. The creator must be free to talk about whatever he thinks is important to talk about. The critic is free only to react to how well the creator did--but not to insist the creator leave certain subjects alone. There are people who believe we shouldn't write about homosexuality, or promiscuous behavior, or drug use. There are people who believe we shouldn't write about any evil. How about those "critics" who claim only scripture and correlated publications should be read, and no other literature? Eric's fond of talking about slippery slopes, and I think this is one of them. If we allow the critic to say what an artist should and shouldn't talk about, where does it end? - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 01:51:52 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] What Should the Critic Critique? "Eric D. Dixon" wrote: > In any case, freedom of expression in criticism is just as valuable to a > free society as freedom of expression in art (I'm tempted to say it's even > more valuable, but it's just a temptation). I still can't see it. The one form of criticism that no one should partake in is what a person should be able to talk about. That's what the First Amendment is all about. I can't help the fact that, in the process of protecting freedom of speech I am obliged to restrict one form of freedom of speech. It's an interesting paradox. Of course, as so many have pointed out, I shouldn't have the right to force my restriction on critics in any other way than by expressing my opinion. Does that resolve the paradox? - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 07:39:45 -0200 From: "renatorigo" Subject: Re: [AML] What Should the Critic Critique? > I think the critic should be able to critique anything...But most of time the critic is an opportunist person trying to promove himself by criticizing hardly other people. The critic should have freedoom if he really be a critic.. I could ask: Who can be considered a critic? Who critique the critic? Renato Rigo Brazil - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 09:37:25 -0600 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: Re: [AML] Didactic Literature I haven't really had much to say on this thread up to now. I probably = don't have much to say on it now. But there's an interesting phenomenon = I've noticed, and I thought I'd toss it out there, and see if anyone else = has noticed it too. I'm more likely to be upset, offended, bugged by didactic movies and plays = and novels that I agree with, than ones I don't agree with. This week, my wife and I got free tickets to attend a Hollywood premiere = of the new movie The Contender. Billed as a 'political thriller,' it's = about a female senator named Laine Hanson (played by Joan Allen), who is = nominated to become vice-president following the death of the incumbent, = and who is targeted by political enemies, who use lurid tales of a sex = scandal from her past to derail her nomination. She's a Democrat and a = liberal, and her Republican opponants are trying to use her sex life to = get rid of her. Is it barely possible that there are some Clinton = resonances here? Well. Point is. I'm a Democrat. I thought the impeachment proceedings = were appalling, and I agree with pretty much everything this film has to = say about sex and politics. I also agree with most of what Laine Hanson = stands for politically. And Laine Hanson is played by the great Joan = Allen. And the President is superbly played by the even greater Jeff = Bridges. And the bad guy is played by Gary Oldman at his scenery chewing = best. And my gosh there are some terrific actors all through it, = including Christian Slater as a real weenie Representative. So, here we = have a movie that is superbly acted by some of the best actors anywhere, = an exceedingly preachy movie, extremely didactic movie with a message = pretty much all of which I agree with, visually arresting, not even all = that badly written, given its agenda. I hated it. I loathed it, I despised it, I wanted to throw things at the screen. In = the final scene, when Jeff Bridges, as the President stood up and gave = this big speech, almost every syllable of which I agreed with, with = stirring music and flags waving and Joan Allen jogging through Arlington = National Cemetary (I mean, they didn't miss a beat), I did something I = never do. I booed the screen. Okay, so why is that? Legacy is a film that was made by the Church, about = my ancestors, and I agree with everything it stood for, and I think it's a = detestable movie. I cringe my way through the First Vision movie, I = writhe in agony through most Church films. I cannot read Gerald Lund, = because I want to keep my testimony, which would be shattered, I think, if = I had to read much more than I have. And yet I just get the giggles = (nothing more serious) at the embarrassingly sexist and racist Johnny = Lingo.=20 And now, the Contender. =20 Why is that? And am I alone here? Am I the only person contrary and = ornery enough to find movies that preach things I agree with persuasive = just the other way. =20 After I saw the Contender, I wanted to become a Republican. (Don't worry, = it didn't last long :-}) After seeing the First Vision, I wanted to = become a Methodist (or whatever that preacher guy Joseph didn't like was). = For me, didactic movies that preach things I agree with make me want to = take the opposite point of view more, not less, seriously. Here's why, I think: issues we care strongly about tend to be issues = we've studied carefully and know a lot about. This means, in turn, that we = know pretty well the ambiguities and inconsistencies and problems in our = own positions. Didactic films and plays and novels, in an effort to = persuade the unpersuaded, simplify the argument, remove those ambiguities, = melodramatize the events. And so, to someone who's studied things out, = didactic works present an embarrassingly one-sided, simpleminded perspectiv= e. And so I sit through something like The Contender, feeling like a = small minded, self-righteous twit for being a Democrat. And I put Gerald = Lund down (or more usually, heave the book across the room), thinking = those Missourians had a point, and maybe Haun's Mill wasn't such a bad = idea. Okay, so I'm a contrarian. Am I the only one out there? Eric Samuelsen - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 14:53:51 -0600 From: Terry L Jeffress Subject: Re: [AML] What Should the Critic Critique? On Fri, Oct 13, 2000, D. Michael Martindale wrote: > I still can't see it. The one form of criticism that no one should > partake in is what a person should be able to talk about. That's what > the First Amendment is all about. I can't help the fact that, in the > process of protecting freedom of speech I am obliged to restrict one > form of freedom of speech. It's an interesting paradox. If you protect freedom of speech, you must protect all speech -- even the speech that condones the limitation of free speech. Protecting speech does not create a paradox. Saying that you have free speech with some restrictions creates the paradox. A critic should have the complete freedom to make any statements about art -- including about what subjects art should and should not include. The artist might vehemently disagree with the critic's proclamations, but the artist has the same freedom freedom as the critic and can continue to create art that suits the artist predilections for content. This thread seems to keep making some sort of tacit assumption that the words of a critic some how become an enforceable law. Critics and artists should have the same freedom. Critics can certainly create pressure on artists, but with freedom of speech, the artist can freely oblige or ignore the critic. - -- Terry Jeffress - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #171 ******************************