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| Re: Wes Anderson movies may be too smart for you. by Zsenicorpse 07/09/2006, 2:05pm PDT | ||||
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Fussbett wrote: No, I totally think there's just a complete dislocation between the pleasure centers of Wes Anderson fans and Wes Anderson detractors. Like: I can't stand anything he makes! I can't even watch the trailers. I fucking hate him. But my genius is unimpeachable! So pure intellect just isn't enough. You have to be part of his tribe. I think you need to have a particularly large and refined intellect to enjoy, say, the latest Scott Walker album. But most people, like maybe 99.994% of the human race, think it is unlistenable trash. I couldn't even float the idea that it's a work of brilliant and peerless majesty here, where people are generally very smart! Because it's just uninhabitable and that's that. In fact that's a large enough percentage to justify the generalisation "nobody likes Scott Walker." Then there's really popular stuff, like American Idol, where you can think about making claims like "everyone likes American Idol." Or "everyone likes pie." Something like that. Then there's the Wes Anderson Niche. That's when a phenomenon has a large enough following that its members can run into each other on the street, but small enough that all said members are likely to have other things in common - one of which is that they represent a minority of the population in their tastes. Similar fan phenomena include things like: McSweeney's, Pitchfork Media, American Apparel, Sufjan Stevens or Arcade Fire, etc. etc. I think Wes Anderson fans come from such similar backgrounds and have such similar philosophies of value and aesthetics - all of which work together to produce a population naturally inclined to consider themselves as elite, connoissieurs of fine found art, that sort of thing. So their approach to being fans of Wes Anderson is one that smells like elitism and makes elitist claims, like "you're not smart enough to appreciate Wes Anderson movies." A tormented soul like myself, born loving only the very finest and most elegant forms of entertainment (Steven Seagal, Scott Walker, cake, devotional literature of the 9th and 10th centuries, etc.), has only ever known mockery and shame. There aren't enough people who like anything that I like for us to collectively form a group, much less one with pretentions to elitism. So it makes me just furious when hacks like Wes Anderson grow, like crystals, elitist fandoms. There are a million better and more interesting things to watch, aren't there? But having had all my elitist tendencies rigorously sandblasted by widespread criticism, I understand that Wes Anderson fans are watching something totally different than what I'm watching when I was a Wes Anderson movie. You guys are seeing something I can't, just like, when I flip on that Scott Walker album, I'm hearing something you can't. This essentially meaningless difference of opinions is Not Funny or even Interesting. It would be interesting, although probably not funny, to figure out what it is that Wes Anderson fans are seeing. What's the tug? What are they saying to you? Which is similar to what Flavio was asking for. ODDS ARE WE'RE NOT GOING TO GET IT. If Wes Anderson movies mean anything like what I think they must mean to their fans... That's some scary personal-ass shit! Why on earth would you want to talk about it in a forum like this one!? |
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