Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - Chances In Hell
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Fencedude5609
 Posts: 5088 |
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Right, but the film-theory and whatever stuff you talk about doesn't interest me, I can do plenty of discussion about anime production, animation, seiyuu, etc, but not everyone can learn everything about everything! You think film theory is interesting and have devoted the time and mental energy to learning about it. Thats great! I don't have the inclination to do so, but there is more to enjoying a medium than that. |
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Bonham
 Posts: 419 Location: NYC |
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Yeah, although I haven't read any of his books. I take it you'd recommend them? |
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Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
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Despite hearing about Invisible Ink and The Golden Theme, I haven't read either them yet myself. Although if I could recommend anything to someone regarding the guy, it would definitely be his blog website, Invisibleinkblog.blogspot.com as well as listening to his interview on the Paper Wings Podcast. Honestly, I would also recommend looking up other podcast episodes and blogposts from Paper Wings in general since paying attention to them was how I first heard of Brian McDonald. Listening to his interview first in this past... I think May and then reading more and more of his blog, I feel like for the first time a lot of things were made clear for me regarding storytelling. |
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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You do realize that wasn't his point right? He was clearly making the distinction between the different ideas one more learned about about a particular subject can make in contrast with one who does not have the same knowledge, and his frustration in the fact that people believe that such knowledge hampers that person's ability to enjoy the medium as a whole any less than someone without that knowledge. There was no hidden agenda, no vedetta, nothing to get all grumpy pants in a twist about and jump onto that all "tried and true" self victimization "no one likes fanservice anime" soap box you're apt to championing because I'm going to be real with you fencedude that in particular is something the majority of us do not care about and aren't interested in tolerating anymore. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Then how do we construct the term 'having high standards' around shows? "Oh, you must not have very high standards to like this show" How is this being judged then if it's all subjective? To me that would mean the concept of 'high standards' is just words people say to make themselves seem better than another person, or their opinion is more 'right'. |
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YotaruVegeta
 Posts: 1061 Location: New York |
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Going around in circles, are we?
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Divineking
 Posts: 1293 |
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While you do have a point with that, if the person's acting high and mighty with their opinion, all you have to do is just choose to ignore it. It's pretty much human nature that everyone puts their own opinions above others and can't understand when someone doesn't share the exact same one. Under the same token everyone has their own preferences and stuff they refuse to watch, which is effectively the same as having standards, which are by definition subjective to personal opinion. It still doesn't make their opinion any more right or wrong so long as their not getting the actual facts wrong and sitting around and debating the opinion usually isn't gonna change that. Sometimes it will but if the person is really that absorbed in their opinion of something it's just a waste of time to debate it. And yeah this is going in circles pretty fast 
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Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
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It's what they do.
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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Uh huh. So who is making unwarranted assumptions here, precisely? I don't remember kakoishii being named "spokesperson for the majority of anime fans" |
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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Most of the problem of elitism seems to be a creation of minds of those who are complaining about it. It might not be as much of a delusion or outright lie as notion of critics who insists that, “everything has to be all deep and complex,” but it comes from the same place and isn’t much better. The vocabulary of this whole squabble seems to have been set by people who seem to be angry about being looked down upon by others who have probably barely thought of them. It’s as though they’ve encountered something that they can’t understand, but that seems threatening, so they erect this elaborate, comforting mythology of pretension and self-aggrandizement, which they talk about much more than those who allegedly practice it.
I feel like there’s a division between people who are thinking in terms of relationship to content and those who are thinking in terms of relationships among people. When somebody asserts having, “high standards,” it’s not about anybody but the person who said it and what that person enjoys. People saying that are probably focused on their relationship with and judgments about content, not people. It has little or nothing to do with establishing whom they are ‘better’ than and a lot to do with establishing what they like. Even when they do decry people, such as complaining about the influence of ‘otaku’ preferences on anime, they do so in relation to content. I think that the people who bemoan ‘elitists’ have fallen, with a hint of irony, into doing with regards to the elitists what they accuse, at least implicitly, the elitists of doing: accentuating the negative. Somebody whom you might imagine to claim to have ‘high standards’ and aspires to a deeper appreciation of animation is not merely looking to denigrate and disdain as much of it as is possible. Why would anybody devote time and effort to the subject if that were the case? Rather, they are seeking a mature love of the medium so they can find and can enjoy richer, fuller and even more intense experiences when something meets their standards and rewards their appreciation. I think that having high standards is about finding opportunities to be more joyful; deeming things bad along the way is a byproduct of seeking that joy. It’s just that in order believe something to be truly good, one needs bad things to stand in contrast, or quality, even in a personal and subjective sense, becomes meaningless. To borrow and twist something from The Incredibles, saying that everything’s special is the same as saying that nothing is. I have no education in any sort of artistic appreciation and I am not sure that I would want any, but I do seem to find a significant number of things unappealing, unsatisfying or unpleasant. Nevertheless, there seems to be some latitude in my tastes. I’ve enjoyed some great trash (Weather Report Girl) and some empty-headed spectacle (Project A-ko). Ultimately, I find that I don’t care if somebody happens to enjoy Ikki Tousen or Strike Witches (Neither of which I enjoyed), I do like to ‘evangelize’ on behalf of things I think are particularly good and would give particularly rewarding experiences. If this were all about establishing just who are mere hoi polloi, why would be the point of that? If I were to object to any taste, it might be if somebody were asserting, that the real virtue or purpose of anime is cute girls and boobs, but that is, mercifully, extremely rare. That's still driven by content, not people and the fact that it's so rare is kind of the point.
I presume that he meant to speak for just members here. He’s probably made a modest overstatement at worst. I don’t have, quite sensibly, an ostracon to pass around, but if I did, I'd wager that things wouldn’t come out very rosy for you. Frankly, I don't understand what you're doing here. Do you ever read your own posts? Do you look back on how relentlessly obnoxious, curt, insulting and outright mean many of the little spurts of text that most of your posts amount to are and think, “my presence here is a good thing that people appreciate and are happier or better for?” I had thought that you behaved that way intentionally because somehow holding us in contempt and disdain was a reason to stick around in your mind. Now I wonder if you’re a [insults removed]. If you can’t help be a jerk, that’s a shame, but we’re not your psychologists and we're not obligated to put up with it. Last edited by Surrender Artist on Mon Oct 01, 2012 5:04 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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Fencedude5609
Posts: 5088 |
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The very term "high standards" is meaningless except as a comparison. The very act of stating that you have "high standards" automatically means you are assuming that someone, maybe not any particular person, but a generalized group of people, have "low standards" I don't actually disagree, in concept, with much of what you say, but then again, I'll openly admit that I have some pretty shitty taste in a lot of things. I like any number of objectively terrible anime, I thoroughly enjoy listening to EXIT TRANCE, and other shitty trance music. That doesn't mean I can't also enjoy Utena, or Jintai, or whatever. And I do, a lot. I'll even say they are among the best anime I've ever seen. But again, this goes back to this statement here:
Name someone like that. Anyone. Seriously. You've constructed a straw-Otaku to knock down. To use your examples, I found Ikki Tousen to be average, I love Strike Witches, have never seen Millennium Actress, and love Utena. Whoo hoo!
And that is incredibly insulting, FTR. |
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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Oh look, it's fencedude putting words into other people's mouths again in order to validate his inflammatory points 
Isn't that precious?
Well, for starters he is a she, but I guess I can let that slide 
Otherwise you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. Fencedude is pretty infamous for being loathsome, needlessly confrontational, and endlessly self victimized that if a poll was administer on this forum on whether people actually enjoy his presence here I have no doubt the results would not fall in his favor (of course I could be wrong, but I would definitely be shocked if there were an overwhelming amount people here who enjoy his presence). Also clearly when I stated "us" in my original post I was meaning the populace of this forum and not the entire fandom, silly me I thought that was implied but when it comes to fencedude if you don't spell things out verbatim he uses that as in to twist your words to suit his needs
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Tanteikingdomkey
 Posts: 2346 |
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YAY brians a case closed/ Detective Conan fan. it's hard to go wrong with it and as long as you start skiping the majority of the filler after episode 400 it's a constantly great mystery series. though I would say that it is hard to turn off your mind and just watch it, if you are actually trying to solve the case.
Also just FYI standards are subjective and thus are evaluated differently per person. it's just a matter of how work a show has to do to be HQ in your oppion, and what it has to work on. |
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YotaruVegeta
Posts: 1061 Location: New York |
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You can still have high standards as compared to other people and still keep it to yourself.
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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"High standards" just seems like a nebulous phrase to begin with, it's personal and specific to what you want and expect. I have high standards for hentai and ecchi anime, I also have high standards for mecha, but those are very specific compartments of anime with tons of titles for comparison to draw out what makes something work and something not. And the only way to discern and discover that is to watch the show. Have all the high standards you desire, but don't prejudge a show based off a 3 sentence blurb, and don't let your high standards prevent you from at least trying something new. Apply your critique afterward, when your opinion can actually carry substantial weight.
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