And Fucking Furthermore...

Read the previous post first - if you dare to be so bored by my anger - and then if you feel like it, read this one.

I decided to conduct an experiment where I would watch a scene of Doctor Who and then read the recap of the scene. (No, I have no life at this juncture in time, thanks.) In the very next scene of the show, there is more over-the-top humor to the tune of some good, old-fashioned English-Welsh ethnic stereotyping and for reasons beyond me, the recapper finds this funny. Then there are cheesy facial expressions and the like and he's fine with those kinds of sight gags. Finds them hilarious. So do I.

The thing is it FEELS like he is trying to justify finding something funny that maybe he shouldn't because it isn't really different from what he just said was beneath him. I understand that perhaps the two scenes have a scooch of difference in subtlety, but come on. I know I'm an idiot for even giving Fuck #1, but I think it plays into my overall outrage at people who feel they must deconstruct something they don't understand in order to relegate it to some kind of lower form. It's the opposite of when people don't understand something so they mock it as being "too hoity-toity intellectual." And the thing is, why can't they just get along? Why can't it just be what it is and some people like it and some people don't?

I know there has to be a standard on art or else anyone can be published for slapping five words on a piece of paper. But, maybe, that's okay? Maybe it's taken me a long time to get to this thinking. In my previous post, I just mocked something for being "too hoity-toity intellectual." I just did it. I haven't crawled out from under being taught about standards. But maybe I'm evolving. That Book did it (I've decided to stop naming it, in case someone were to ever [implausibly] get angry about this). It was the catalyst.

Because I think that book does this thing - the thing where they have a checklist of standards so if they publish something or don't publish something they don't really have to internalize why. I KNOW they read a lot of manuscripts and so can't be bothered worrying about every single one of them. I KNOW. But I think that having a checklist you can wave at someone is a way of establishing a class system. Either you fit in with our standards or you sit in the corner. The recapper wrote about outsiders to the "cool group" whining about being a victim when really they could be part of the group if they weren't so weak. Wow. There's no such thing as cliques, apparently. Just change yourself if you want to be accepted, because it's never about other people's flaws it's always about your own. Only your flaws are keeping you from being part of the elite. It's never their flaws or their invented system.

Jesus Christ, /soapbox already. And I mean myself. Sort of. Wait, no.