tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post8271313717878071433..comments2024-03-19T07:27:06.216-04:00Comments on VOTARIES OF HORROR: Getting Snarky About Television and Other Anti-Television SillinessKatherine Woodburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14364517253667798449noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-34642803960804969872007-10-23T16:03:00.000-04:002007-10-23T16:03:00.000-04:00You can find Eugene's comments at his blog.You can find Eugene's comments at his <A HREF="http://eugenewoodbury.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow">blog.</A>Kate Woodburyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06276977170991272672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-79316367093730940542007-10-23T13:02:00.000-04:002007-10-23T13:02:00.000-04:00Given that the vast majority--probably in excess o...Given that the vast majority--probably in excess of 99%--of all peoples who have lived on the earth were illiterate and given that most people today do not read outside a narrow, utilitarian, range, I stand by my statement that reading is abnormal (not normal, average, typical, or usual; deviating from a standard) though perhaps it would be less grating, though less accurate, if I stated that reading fiction is uncommon by any measure.<BR/><BR/>Do remember that most story telling in human history was oral, not written. This is still essentially the case with movies and television, with vision--I genuinely believe it is indisputable that human beings prefer their stories through sight and sound, not through reading (before movies, plays were more popular than reading. Watching people getting eaten by lions was more popular than reading.)Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04450897654318345683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-56704851032113115812007-10-23T09:57:00.000-04:002007-10-23T09:57:00.000-04:00I think from the point of view of civilization, re...I think from the point of view of civilization, reading and writing <I>were</I> inevitable. The unusual aspect is how few people could do it and how little of it was imaginative (mostly court records, censuses, and edicts) until relatively recently. (My definition of "relatively recently" is the Renaissance.) In many ways, it <B>was</B> the new technology and caused the same consternation as radio and television: novel reading was salacious and reprehensible and would corrupt the young. <BR/><BR/>Of course, now it is respectable, which is great (and nobody every bothers to thank the Puritans with their 98% literacy rate!), but the corollary is unsettling. One of the sadder parts of Rooney's book is the constant mantra: Well, OBC must be okay because it gets people to read. <BR/><BR/>I'm sorry, but if I really believed that television was a corrupt and malign force in the universe, the justification "Well, it gets people to read" wouldn't be enough. <BR/><BR/>In fairness, what Rooney is trying to do (and to an extent, what I tried to do in my thesis, which is why her book proved useful) is create some kind of standard, any kind of standard, by which to judge books. Forget all this everything-is-relative junk: there is a good writing and bad writing. Let's debate books on their merits!<BR/><BR/>And with this, I utterly concur. Where Rooney got bogged down was in trying to define something ephermeral (OBC didn't do the books justice) by lashing out at another medium.Kate Woodburyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06276977170991272672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-48878887888184498382007-10-23T09:29:00.000-04:002007-10-23T09:29:00.000-04:00Reading isn't abnormal or writing would never have...Reading isn't abnormal or writing would never have been invented (after all, if one writes one must <BR/>read). People have always tried to communicate. Cave drawings may be a form of "writing" or they may be art (I tend toward the latter--why couldn't cave men create art?) <BR/><BR/>But language was a very early acquisition--and communication followed. Story telling was also very early. So why not write down the stories?<BR/><BR/>The problem with Rooney and Co. is that they define something they like and of which they approve with<BR/>something they don't like and think is lower class. The resulting comparison will, of course, be positive for the thing they like and negative for that which they dislike.<BR/><BR/>The key is, as Kate says, to accept each media on its own merits. No art critic compares a painting to a book or to a piece of music. She compares it to other paintings.<BR/><BR/>As far as literature and imagination is concerned, books do energize the imagination. One of the problems with making movies from books is that the reader "knows" what the characters look like. The image of Elizabeth Bennet is in one's mind as are images of the other characters. If the movie makers don't cast <BR/>someone who "looks" like Elizabeth the viewer (and critics) will complain. One of the reasons the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice is so good is that Darcy is cast right and played right--i.e. as most readers know him. This isn't a conscious decision, it is an inner image that arises from the text.<BR/><BR/>I couldn't completely accept Jackson's Lord of the Rings because Aragorn just isn't my inner image. Whenever he appeared on screen I had an inner/mental "nyaah".<BR/> <BR/>Apparently my image was different from most because the movie was a success. But if too many people had had my reaction, it wouldn't have succeeded. <BR/><BR/>From this viewpoint, the better the author's character delineation and the more constant the image produced in the readers' minds, the more careful the producer must be in selecting the right actor for the part.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-83949327281592156712007-10-23T03:06:00.000-04:002007-10-23T03:06:00.000-04:00The notion that television dulls the imagination h...The notion that television dulls the imagination has long puzzled me. Just now it struck me that critics aren't talking about imagination in a holistic sense, but in the very narrow sense of thinking of images. Therefore, since television and movies are fundamentally about images, they replace and thus destroy imagination.<BR/><BR/>(I'd go further; when many intellectuals describe their "imaginations" [say that with a Sponge Bob voice for full sarcastic effect] it sounds awfully like comic books, though that's an insult to comic books.)<BR/><BR/>If having visual imagery is so horrible, then why is theater allegedly good? More importantly, why even bother with house drawings or physics experiments. Hell, why don't we just poke our eyes out so we don't destroy our ever so important "imaginations."<BR/><BR/>One of my growing theories is that reading is actually quite abnormal. Human beings are programmed to use our senses in much more active ways. We're programmed to imagine--by the holistic definition--things and then build them (and then blow them up, but that's a discussion for another day.) It would follow, then, that this idea of reading and imagining being so important is both a conceit and luxury of the leisure classes. It is their way of being "above" the drudgery of actually doing real work--of creating things.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04450897654318345683noreply@blogger.com