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Shall people be forced to like something as intellectualism?


Solister

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Modern Times, 1936

That was a tricky question which pop-up in my mind and I thought it could be interesting to share it.

I'm mostly sure you already faced yourself needing to read a book for school and asked yourself “Why I need to read this? It's old, and boring!” and likely, someone answered your “Shut up, it's a classic, it's important for your intellectualism”. – And if not, something very similar.

Initially I came up with this idea because a few months ago I found a very curious fact in my school:

Most people actually are looking forward to keep up-to-date with most of his/her favorite artists releases, but I think we all know that's not all kind of genres that are popular today. Certainly, something like Classical Music or Classic Jazz aren't something you'll find in most people's libraries. But how about something like The Beatles?

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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, 1967

I know, its might be hard to believe, but The Beatles' songs aren't something you easily are going to find in this generation's music library, maybe with some rare exceptions (Including me). As this generation faces forward to Pop and minor artists in their home countries, I noticed at my school that listen to something like The Beatles today is most a signal of intellectualism, than properly of good music, even though that was exactly the opposite of what they spread in the 60's.

A few months ago I challenged myself for something: As most of us knows her, Kate Higgins was the Tails' voice actress during 2010 and 2013, and if you ever had searched about her life, she also makes some Jazz songs (Where some tracks are free!), so I thought that could be a nice way to put something more “intellectual” in my library (Considering my library as something like: 70% of Electronic Music and its sub-genres; 20% of Rock and 10% of other minorities).

It was a hard adaption, I remember it took some time from listening a few seconds of the music, than the shortest tracks, until one day I was so tired of my own songs that her songs actually put me up.

I could mention many examples of paradox cases where “classics” music still being popular, or how people see not so old songs, but that's not the main point now.

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Star Wars, 1977

Moving from Musics to Movies, I found the situation aren't that different. With mostly hundred of movies releasing each week, only a few really jump high to get into the top charts of the best movies ever released. As shown above, Star Wars might be a perfect example. Initially released in late 70's, but with sequels, prequels and spin-offs still being released, many geek fans argue that the first Star Wars should be considered as classic as a Shakespeare book. I don't think I really need to explain that argument, but I guess it mostly covers the main topic idea.

Looking on what I've noted in the past months, do you think our conception of intellectualism is correct? Do you believe people should be forced to like something just as "intellectualism"? Do you believe that something like The Beatles already can be considered as intellectual? And how about more or less intellectual music genres? Can one of the highest success movie series be considered as classic as a Shakespeare book? And going even further, do you believe some video games also will be tagged as classics?

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Folks who look down on those who only enjoy the media from their own time are just being pompous, as are those who big up the fact that they like media from older than their own time.

 

Whether a piece of media has any higher value for being a "classic" or somehow a defining work of a time/genre is a total spectrum that depends purely on the interest of an audience.  It's perfectly valid for someone to say "oh you haven't seen The Adventures of Prince Achmed? It's the oldest known feature-length animated film, you should watch it" to:

  • an animation student who you know is actively looking for unusual examples of animation to draw inspiration from
  • someone interested in the history of animation
  • someone interested in silouhette or puppet-based animation and art
  • very specifically film adaptations of the stories of the arabian nights

You'd sound very pompous if you said the same to someone who simply said "oh I love animated movies, my favourite film is Beauty and the Beast" or whatever.

I feel pompous even bringing up such an obscure example, so for full transparency, the only reason I mentioned that film is because I got the chance to see it at a local cinema the other week and thought "hey I consider myself an animation fan, could be interesting", since I'd only ever seen short clips of it in animation-related documentaries before (and wouldn't have been able to recall it's name until I saw it for myself - give me a year and I'll probably forget it again). Honestly I was dreading it being a total bore due to being such an old film (from the silent era, even).  I don't regret seeing it but it did drag on a bit.

 

Basically, as with all art, it's entirely subjective, and to try and enforce universal importance to any one piece of art is dumb.  Universal is the key word there though - that's not to say that there aren't pieces of art that hold importance, but it's entirely dependant on context, namely whether the people involved in the discussion care or not.  Shakespere was an incredibly culturally significant playwrite, but I'm not going to become a better person by watching his plays.  I can still appreciate the influence he had even if I don't care for his work myself due to it not appealing to my tastes.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that "every gamer should play Super Mario Bros, it's so culturally significant", and it was, but that can be appreciated from afar or just in reading.  I don't care if kids today prefer fortnite or whatever.  Because you know what other game was incredibly culturally significant before Mario?  E.T. for the atari.  Not sure quite as many people would say that one was worth playing, but it sure as hell had a cultural impact.  Coz that's the other thing, people only ever recommend the good stuff, even though technically, an "intellectual" on any kind of art would really say that literally EVERYTHING should be studied to improve your understanding of a genre/medium/etc.

 

 

(Sorry if this post is a bit of a mess, hopefully my thoughts get across, I got stuck putting them into words pretty often here).

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It really does depend on the subject as there are two ways to approach something, on a mainstream scale and on a specialist scale. On a mainstream scale, it is actually the opposite as much of the time, if people are forced to like something it is out of popularity. It is why people are getting into Fornite and My Hero Academia because their friends, schools, colleges, etc are into it and don't want to miss out, it is also why trashy stuff is in like Love Island/Big Brother/flash in the pan reality show because of heavy advertisement and marketing. On a specialist scale, people might actually be forced to watch/read/listen/play something because they need the knowledge required whether it is a school subject or a heavily focused field into the history of mediums especially if you want to be a teacher yourself. A literature buff has to know about Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, a music buff has to know about anything from Mozart to The Beatles to even One Direction in the future, a movie buff has to know from the early surviving French movies to Citizen Kane to The Godfather. For both sides, it is a case of peer pressure and heavy persuasion from people. Not everyone follows peer pressure though.

A good example is Citizen Kane considered by many to be the best film of all time but unless someone who has an interest in movies or likes political stuff, it would not appeal to them. They will go, ugh... black and white, poor picture quality, boring! An not so known fact was that Citizen Kane didn't actually do that well when it came out. It is something that became a cult classic and cult classics are normally for some reason have a higher praise than the mainstream stuff around the time and the praise sticks over time.

Another thing to touch is society. So something that is popular in the past might be forgotten or heavily disliked in the future. Tastes do change over time as cultures change. The Beatles would have been popular back then because they are considered rockstars but go into detail with their songs but now could be considered cheesy pop songs with hard to understand accents that are a touch annoying. If people like them now, they are either considered hipsters by society, studying music or ironically like them just like ABBA. I think they are still popular in the Nordic countries but in their homeland of Liverpool, just an artefact of the 1960s.

Will Star Wars be remembered (and loathed) like Shakespeare? That is going to be really hard to say as obviously we can't predict 400 years into the future (if humans are still around then). We can however judge whether it will be remembered in the future by examples from the past. Authors such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, John Steinbeck that are over 100 year old are remembered today, perhaps more so due to a higher population. The cut off point seems to be Agatha Christie with Poirot and Miss Marple and Roald Dahl for children with struggling examples past that with J.K Rowling with Harry Potter might be the closest modern example. Star Wars was from the 1970s and one of the few things from that era that are still remembered today whether it is movies or in general, the original trilogy are still considered classics. If Disney keeps marketing on and off for the next 80 years, we'll be safe. If future generations still have interest in Star Wars that is.

As for gaming, now this is perhaps where I come in since gaining knowledge throughout the years when it was a pretty niche thing to now where there are thousands to millions being investing into the medium. Many of the old arcade games, some NES/Spectrum games and now even Mega Drive/PS1/N64 games are considered classics today with the odd Dreamcast game or two included for good measure. Some PS2 era games are also pretty close to that or a cult classic like people wouldn't have thought that Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom would have been remembered to this day.

Using examples from the past. Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros, Space Harrier, Legend of Zelda, Contra, Out Run, Tetris (just like Shakespeare, not the original version but the interpretations that came after), Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter II, Daytona USA, Crash Bandicoot, Super Mario 64, Pokemon. Metal Gear Solid and GTA (at least from 3 even though 1 sold really well) by the series, Jet Set Willy and Shadow of the Beast in the UK as well. Most are considered classics today even people who don't have much interest in games know most of these games. What I wrote about Citizen Kane could easily apply to Shenmue as that is considered a cult classic that was groundbreaking in history in terms of what it did to the medium. Future classics might be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Assassin's Creed 2 and Red Dead Redemption even though they are close to or already 10 years old.

Now this is where it gets interesting. Literature and music don't tend to age as much apart from physical condition, terminology or content in terms of books. Movies and games however due to the increase of better technology throughout time and games more so. What could be considered groundbreaking would be considered aged in a short time. So if a game does get remembered; it is by the gameplay itself, have a clear graphical style to prevent it getting as aged, enough people have played it or when compared to its competition of the time. Most of these remembered games are actually the opposite to movies/books/music as it is the old pick up and play but gets really deep the more you get into the game. The closest thing in gaming to an intellectual point of view are the indie games, "walking simulators", strategy games and story focused games that have popped up in recent times (well except strategy games) however unless you get the same critics as movies/books/music being involved a majority of them are going to be forgotten too.

I give an example of two popular games that aren't actually as remembered today as they were. Gran Turismo and Wii Sports. GT was big in 1998, it was considered GOTY in Europe and was a big seller, it had a lot of content compared to others of its time and for a console game, tried to be a simulator that only F1 games at the time were doing. The sequel even better. So why is it not remembered today? Sequels with advanced technology, not many people are interested with the early 3D era of graphics like how people don't like black and white movies and other options existed after like Forza. If people still play the first two games, it is either due to nostalgia or as an intellectual point of view as in studying the history of racing games. Jim Ryan of Sony Europe was actually disgusted when he got to see the games again. Wii Sports was massive when the Wii came out, some people even bought a Wii just for this game, it is the highest selling bundled game of all time afterall. No one remembers playing the games, there is no nostalgia or any talk about it and even though it was massively popular, it'll be forgotten in history. Also Wii Fit as well. It's like a NES in the UK scenario, it happened but people just don't remember it.

Even then the classics aren't guaranteed to be liked today or in the future. Already Space Invaders is getting more forgotten as time goes on. Super Mario Bros and Sonic 1 have their quirks with the physics for SMB and the controls/level design for Sonic 1 making them harder to access for the younger generation, Sonic even has that the series has never been gone mindset for some. Crash Bandicoot 1 has flaws with its design and even that had to have a remake despite still selling on PSN as of 2018. Unless people are interested in those games, won't force anyone to play on them. Then can try it, if they like it great, if they don't like it that's good too.

If something doesn't interest someone, they shouldn't be forced to like it whether it is popular or intellectual. They can follow and try it or even need to study them for future reference but we need to make our own opinions that much of the time, people are just too scared to make.

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