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Why is film snobbery so openly tolerated?
- Thread starter guek
- Start date
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It wasn't supposed to be.
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
shadowsdarknes
Member
I don't know if GAF is more snobby than other enthusiast places, but we get snobs all the time here.
We constantly see "Game/Movie is shit" in reference to something that plenty of people like.
We constantly see "Game/Movie is shit" in reference to something that plenty of people like.
I don't buy regular blu-rays or dvds but I'd buy a Criterion released copy of Guardians of the Galaxy in a heartbeat. Take that!
Infernostew
Member
The Prestige proves otherwise.
I saw this a lot in Mad Max threads. People raking others over the coals for not appreciating the innate wonder that is its visual storytelling.
Don't get me wrong, the visual story telling in Fury Road is absolutely superb! But there was always this undertone of superiority there that I didn't get. As with all art, it's not always one or the other.
Secret Fawful
Member
RMCU. Russ Meyer Cinematic Universe. Roger Ebert wrote some of those so they've got to be quality, right?
You made Star Wars look sophisticated that day. That CNN lady called you poetic.
Bookmarked this for when Tilda Swinton wins Best Supporting Actress for Doctor Strange.
Look with your own eyes, and weep at how one list could be so utterly safe and absolutely wrong.
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
CharminUltra
Member
Interstellar shouldn't be anywhere near the top 100, but at least GAF got #1 right.
Da GOAT
birthday-suit
Banned
I just hate people who act like Arrow is a good show, and people who encourage the corniness found in Arrow and The Flash. Because The Flash isn't terrible terrible, but performances like the guy who plays Captain Cold and all the corny Cisco jokes make me go please staaaaaaahp!
But I like Birdman and Pain and Gain. I can appreciate all types of movies, as long as they're good.
But I like Birdman and Pain and Gain. I can appreciate all types of movies, as long as they're good.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Well, I just wrote a post on being a snob on everything (music, books, television, movies, video games, etc) , then looked at and the thread title and thought 'yeah, why would movies be more important?'. And then I backspaced it, as is tradition. It's time for some speculation, kids.
I think the difference is audience. Movies (but also concerts and other ritual gatherings) are a heavy investment in terms of time and being social. You spend between 90 and 270 minutes locked in a room with a bunch of strangers, who may annoy you more than get from them, yet you come back to that room for the next movie, and you tend to remember both the audience experience as well as the movie.
Books don't have that, or at least not until we get to the mystical realms of poetry and literature. Television doesn't have that. Video games will never have that (not for lack of delusions though). Music usually doesn't have that, but it does with opera and classical music, where suddenly the same thing happens as with movies, and these things can more than 300 minutes too. Being able to sit through all of that clearly requires a degree of self-control, and the belief that it is worth it. Beliefs that can be created by anything, and yet also decide whether that 270 minute sit was a waste of time and money or totally worth it. And obviously that investment is biased towards positive, not negative.
Basically, any such gathering is a massive experiment in cognitive dissonance. Massive because N>150 for a full room. That's a lot of peer pressure in how to feel about what you're watching, and random events among the audience can shape the collective feelings too. Someone loudly pointing out an error can make the average viewer think of the entire thing less positively than the average viewer in a room where someone loudly applauds something. There are obviously limits to how much this can vary, since a movie can just be 'that bad' or perhaps 'that good', though the first is easy to recognize whereas the second isn't.
But anything between those extremes will have become tied to the group events during viewing and a sense of belonging with that group (even if just in the memory of the screening), so the eventual opinion isn't just a private opinion, but an implicit group opinion. And that is a very big investment for a human mind. Usually even larger than time or money. It also means those opinions will be more firmly held (even if they don't make sense) and more aggressively defended and attacked. Keep in mind that winning an argument here dictates not just one mind, but a whole group. So that's worth having an argument over a lot more than an opinion that has an audience of one.
So in terms of 'why movies' (and opera / classical) attract snobs more than other time wasters, it could be said it's tied to how they are consumed and what that does for the value of the formed opinion during consumption.
btw, you might also use this to try to explain why watching someone playing a game is more valuable than playing it yourself: an audience beyond just one.
I'm sure somebody already thought of this in some academic backwater that nobody cares about. So I'm claiming it as my own original thought. FOR KEEPS! Wubba lubba dub dub, motherfuckers!
Simple TL
R version: the value of snobbery becomes greater when the audience is larger.
The alternate version is "and now he's now longer allowed to pick the movies". Nobody wants to be that guy.
/speculation
Meh.
I think the difference is audience. Movies (but also concerts and other ritual gatherings) are a heavy investment in terms of time and being social. You spend between 90 and 270 minutes locked in a room with a bunch of strangers, who may annoy you more than get from them, yet you come back to that room for the next movie, and you tend to remember both the audience experience as well as the movie.
Books don't have that, or at least not until we get to the mystical realms of poetry and literature. Television doesn't have that. Video games will never have that (not for lack of delusions though). Music usually doesn't have that, but it does with opera and classical music, where suddenly the same thing happens as with movies, and these things can more than 300 minutes too. Being able to sit through all of that clearly requires a degree of self-control, and the belief that it is worth it. Beliefs that can be created by anything, and yet also decide whether that 270 minute sit was a waste of time and money or totally worth it. And obviously that investment is biased towards positive, not negative.
Basically, any such gathering is a massive experiment in cognitive dissonance. Massive because N>150 for a full room. That's a lot of peer pressure in how to feel about what you're watching, and random events among the audience can shape the collective feelings too. Someone loudly pointing out an error can make the average viewer think of the entire thing less positively than the average viewer in a room where someone loudly applauds something. There are obviously limits to how much this can vary, since a movie can just be 'that bad' or perhaps 'that good', though the first is easy to recognize whereas the second isn't.
But anything between those extremes will have become tied to the group events during viewing and a sense of belonging with that group (even if just in the memory of the screening), so the eventual opinion isn't just a private opinion, but an implicit group opinion. And that is a very big investment for a human mind. Usually even larger than time or money. It also means those opinions will be more firmly held (even if they don't make sense) and more aggressively defended and attacked. Keep in mind that winning an argument here dictates not just one mind, but a whole group. So that's worth having an argument over a lot more than an opinion that has an audience of one.
So in terms of 'why movies' (and opera / classical) attract snobs more than other time wasters, it could be said it's tied to how they are consumed and what that does for the value of the formed opinion during consumption.
btw, you might also use this to try to explain why watching someone playing a game is more valuable than playing it yourself: an audience beyond just one.
I'm sure somebody already thought of this in some academic backwater that nobody cares about. So I'm claiming it as my own original thought. FOR KEEPS! Wubba lubba dub dub, motherfuckers!
Simple TL
R version: the value of snobbery becomes greater when the audience is larger. The alternate version is "and now he's now longer allowed to pick the movies". Nobody wants to be that guy.
/speculation
Meh.
andythinkpad
Member
It's really not a special case in GAF, maybe you should watch some youtube movie critical review/fanboy related channels and see the rest of the world are just like GAF.
So in other words, you're a snob?
bananafactory
Banned
It's OK to like shitty movies OP
Anyways, I'm kind of picky in regards to certain things about films I watch, but I try to keep it to myself because it's annoying when you enjoy a movie and people tell you how much it sucks
If my friends enjoy something I don't I just let them have that
Anyways, I'm kind of picky in regards to certain things about films I watch, but I try to keep it to myself because it's annoying when you enjoy a movie and people tell you how much it sucks
If my friends enjoy something I don't I just let them have that
Combat Wombat
Banned
I try not to be. I watch and enjoy a lot of trashy movies and shows.
Monocle
Member
To be fair, there were posters who acted like the visual storytelling flat out didn't exist, and that all the movie's fans were hyping a lame film for no good reason. Kind of frustrating when you know how well made it is.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Because film movements that advanced the medium to what it is today were championed by theorists, critics, and film loving people that are not very different of what one considers today a film snob.
Yeah films get some criticism. Not sure it is a unique phenomenon. We do the same for music, art, and circumcision.
ROUGE_BLOCK
Member
You can pretty much find this on any internet forum to be honest. I've seen it on rotten tomatoes and IMDB for instance
Crumpet Trumpet
Banned
im not a movie snob. i dont watch movies because i have a life. all i do is play fan translated jrpgs and listen to kpop, movies are for marvel stanning losers
Idk I think Truffaut would dig the MCU.
The movie gaf thread needs posters like this, sincerely
TheKaeptain
Banned
MoS obvs. Allegory was his jam.
Secret Fawful
Member
I feel like "film snobs" have an internal test by which they decide whether or not they can see eye to eye with someone on film or not. I think a lot of filmGAF's is the Avengers/Marvel. Mine is Forrest Gump. I can look past a lot, but if you like Forrest Gump, then my snobbery switch flips on hard. God, that movie FUCKING SUCKS.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
And I wouldn't say that he wouldn't. Just saying that critics/theorists, even the ones with the more narrow mindsets of how cinema should be defined, had and important footprint in the medium.
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
Shawshank Redemption, Citizen Kane, Avengers, Psycho, 400 Blows, Inception, Terminator 1, Taxi Driver, Jaws, Star Wars, etc.
Heh. I find the idea of a litmus test for personal taste interesting. I can't say I have one for movies since so much of the medium consists of mindless entertainment masquerading as art.
But I guess I have the same reaction you do to people who love stuff like Twilight or Fifty Shades. But that's more because I think those books are actively harmful in the ideas that they push. Like, I think Transformers is a garbage franchise but if someone else finds them entertaining, it just means we have different criteria for what is and isn't good entertainment.
More_Badass
Member
What if people have eclectic tastes? If they can enjoy Forest Gump and Avengers and The Raid and Grand Budapest and any other number of genres and movies?
It's not like people only like one thing
So I'd say that's a really really silly metric to go by. Actually having any kind of metric based on someone liking or not liking a single work is just stupid
You're right. I remember when I was learning about film theory and thought the early theorists who thought that film should be "purely visual montages of real life" because "story and narrative had no place in cinema" were the ultimate trolls.
Citizen Mane
Member
Oh, I didn't read this thread past your first post. You got me. I'm sorry.
And you are right, in that that sort of thing is very common here. It actually bothers me.
Hey now those films aren't that bad.
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
Who doesn't love Jaws?
* Adds Jaws to list with which to decide whether or not they can see eye to eye with someone on film or not.
Alright, we're almost all good. Just missed one.
Yeah. This is the big reasons I don't think it's particularly constructive to have that one offending movie when tastes so frequently overlap at least partially.
Atraveller
Banned
So, so agreed
old manatee
Banned
This was my actual favorite film in 2011.
TAJ
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Seriously. I work with people who seriously think that streakers should be executed.
Fancy Clown
Member
Jaws ain't pleb gang material, man. Best blockbuster ever made and it didn't even make the quarter-finals of the blockbuster showdown on here.
Awww, you were already my favorite FilmGAF member with just that post.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
This is why I believe that film students going more into theory should be obligated to take production courses as well. It does miracles washing away the preconception that knowing what's right and what's wrong alone, lets you make what's right.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Yeah, but that's more than likely because she just wasn't expecting me to have something more than basic fan-isms tripping over my teeth.
I mean, there's a ton of posters here who, when they talk about TV or Movies, I pay attention, because they're good at explaining why they like what they like - even if it's something I didn't like, or haven't seen. Because I'm nowhere near any kind of "film expert" or whatever. There's a bunch of shit I've never seen, a ton of holes in my collection, stuff that I know I should have watched and given a shot by now that I still haven't gotten around to because I'm too busy sticking to the niches I already know I'm predisposed to liking. I may be okay at explaining why I like what I like, and why I think it worked better than some other movie it's compared to, but that doesn't make me Andrew Sarris or whatever. I'm an aging hobbit talking shit on a gaming forum when he's not talking shit on a podcast.
So when someone who actually went out there and challenged themselves, and learned from it, starts sharing, I'm gonna pay attention. Because they might cause me to look at something a little different, and nudge me into giving some of that other shit a try finally.
And sometimes that guy just gets written off as a snob because it's easier that way.
and sometimes that guy is just an insecure dickhead who is fronting real hard and hoping you won't catch them out.
It takes all kinds.
More_Badass
Member
I mean, I can only speak for myself, but as I've gotten older, I have pretty eclectic tastes. Saw Sicario and The Martian this week, looking forward to The Flash Season 2 later today, really need to give Blade Runner another chance on Netflix, want to check out '71, rewatch the doc Restrepo.
I used to mainly watch action movies; now I'll pretty much watch anything that's not a chick flick.
My metric is really low. I've gained a greater appreciation for cinematography thanks to the awesome channel Every Frame A Painting, but really if a movie entertains me, that's good enough for me. A great story, excellent acting, fantastic action or stunt work or CGI, that's all icing on the cake.
If I'm entertained, that's what matters
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