This is something I've touched on before, but I wanted to devote a bit more time to rounding out my thoughts on media elitism. It also lets me foray into non-issues unrelated to relationship status, which is something I had intended for this blog right from the start.
The other day I met a book-loving friend for coffee, and conversation turned to what we were currently reading. I spent many years following my graduate degree in an anti-reading stupor, largely fueled by my graduate work on the multimedia experiences that I strongly feel constitute a modern sense of "reading." It's all about the way we consume stories and culture, after all, and the frustrating focus on beating dead books served only to alienate me from the medium. But I've recently rekindled (heh heh) my reading through the acquisition of an eReader, and happened to have cracked open The Road the morning of our coffee meeting.
"I saw the movie... I'm not so sure about the book yet," I began.
"Oh, the book is way better. The movie was pretty bad."
"Huh," I replied. "I consider movies and books to be separate textual experiences, separate textual artifacts. I really liked the movie." It was my polite way of saying that I discounted his opinion.
"Oh, well put,"—trying to recover his credibility here—"I think I just don't get film."
But the conversation continued to other "failed" movie adaptations of books. I listened as he expounded on how specific adaptations were not well done, all related in a tone of complete objectivity. I didn't bother to argue; in fact, I didn't bother to say anything, just let him ramble on while I tried to keep most of the smirk out of my smile. Yes. You do not "get" film. Your mistake is in trying to do so.
On the one hand, this is the type of unattractive attitude that reinforces my single lifestyle—but that's not what this is about. This is about that frustratingly nonsensical spectrum of enjoyability that people place things upon. The need to compare, to create a hierarchy, to weigh apples and oranges against each other and determine which is better. It is all pure illogic; that is the only objectivity that can be determined.
I love film as a medium because it plays on many senses to tell a story. A good soundtrack can manipulate my emotions like nothing else, to name just one aspect. And it does all this in a convenient allotment of time. Seeing a movie in the theatre adds the fantastic dimension of being part of a collective readership, a shared experience. What's not to love?
Let's take an example that my book-loving friend might understand. Say there's a book written in another language, and translated to English. A literal translation is not going to be enjoyable; the story has to be retold using different language conventions. In this example, we're only translating from words to other words. What can you possibly expect for a translation from written page to silver screen?
I'm not saying that movies are better, or that books are less multidimensional. I'm saying it's not a matter for comparison, and each should be considered on its own merit.
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