Apr 20, 2022 09:27 PM
https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2022/04/1...ad-movies/
INTRO (Matt Strohl): Writing Why it’s OK to Love Bad Movies has given me an opportunity to bring together two of the most important parts of my life: my cinephilia and my research in philosophy of art. This is not a book I dreamed up in a library or classroom. It emerges from the countless hours I’ve spent immersed in the medium of film, and it’s more of a love letter than a treatise. The ideas I present convey my own way of being as much as my views about debates in aesthetics.
It is therefore especially moving to me to be read with the careful attention that the contributors to this roundtable display, and it is immensely gratifying that they have taken up my exhortation to dive into the fray and let their freak flags fly. My goal was never to convince everyone to love the bad movies that I love. Rather, my hope was that readers would embrace taste anarchism and proudly celebrate the disreputable movies they love in ways that are expressive of their own idiosyncratic sensibilities.
I argue in the book that so-called “bad” movies are the ones that violate the received norms and standards of the medium in a way that is not perceived as artistically serious. Many of these movies are dull and uninteresting. But many others are exciting precisely because they are so unconventional, and they can be interesting to us in ways that fall outside the scope of culturally constructed notions of artistic seriousness.
Bad movies tend to break us out of our ordinary contexts and open new pathways for aesthetic engagement and social bonding. When I watch a straightforwardly “good” movie, I know the routine. I know how to watch it, how to talk about it, and how others will react to me when I discuss it with them. Loving bad movies leads us into a cultural wilderness. It risks the mocking judgment of those who are in the narrow grip of received norms, but it opens the door to surprises—new joys, new friendships, wilder movies.
Setting aside the script for the way we are supposed to watch movies creates the opportunity to watch them in our own way—a way that is expressive of who we are as unique individuals. Such self-expression, in turn, enables participation in lively communities that celebrate the weirdness and creativity of bad movies and the people who love them. As I argue in the book, coming together to find unconventional ways of appreciating movies also helps us find unconventional ways of appreciating each other.
The contributors to this roundtable have answered this calling, and I can only hope that those who read it are inspired to do the same... (MORE - input from those below)
Our Contributors are:
John Dyck, Lecturer, University of West Georgia
Justin Khoo, Associate Professor of Philosophy, MIT
Alex King, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University
Erich Hatala Matthes, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wellesley College
Thi Nguyen, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Utah
Nick Riggle, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of San Diego
Elizabeth Scarbrough, Associate Teaching Professor of Philosophy, Florida International University
INTRO (Matt Strohl): Writing Why it’s OK to Love Bad Movies has given me an opportunity to bring together two of the most important parts of my life: my cinephilia and my research in philosophy of art. This is not a book I dreamed up in a library or classroom. It emerges from the countless hours I’ve spent immersed in the medium of film, and it’s more of a love letter than a treatise. The ideas I present convey my own way of being as much as my views about debates in aesthetics.
It is therefore especially moving to me to be read with the careful attention that the contributors to this roundtable display, and it is immensely gratifying that they have taken up my exhortation to dive into the fray and let their freak flags fly. My goal was never to convince everyone to love the bad movies that I love. Rather, my hope was that readers would embrace taste anarchism and proudly celebrate the disreputable movies they love in ways that are expressive of their own idiosyncratic sensibilities.
I argue in the book that so-called “bad” movies are the ones that violate the received norms and standards of the medium in a way that is not perceived as artistically serious. Many of these movies are dull and uninteresting. But many others are exciting precisely because they are so unconventional, and they can be interesting to us in ways that fall outside the scope of culturally constructed notions of artistic seriousness.
Bad movies tend to break us out of our ordinary contexts and open new pathways for aesthetic engagement and social bonding. When I watch a straightforwardly “good” movie, I know the routine. I know how to watch it, how to talk about it, and how others will react to me when I discuss it with them. Loving bad movies leads us into a cultural wilderness. It risks the mocking judgment of those who are in the narrow grip of received norms, but it opens the door to surprises—new joys, new friendships, wilder movies.
Setting aside the script for the way we are supposed to watch movies creates the opportunity to watch them in our own way—a way that is expressive of who we are as unique individuals. Such self-expression, in turn, enables participation in lively communities that celebrate the weirdness and creativity of bad movies and the people who love them. As I argue in the book, coming together to find unconventional ways of appreciating movies also helps us find unconventional ways of appreciating each other.
The contributors to this roundtable have answered this calling, and I can only hope that those who read it are inspired to do the same... (MORE - input from those below)
Our Contributors are:
John Dyck, Lecturer, University of West Georgia
Justin Khoo, Associate Professor of Philosophy, MIT
Alex King, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University
Erich Hatala Matthes, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wellesley College
Thi Nguyen, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Utah
Nick Riggle, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of San Diego
Elizabeth Scarbrough, Associate Teaching Professor of Philosophy, Florida International University
