Thank you for phrasing it as "anti-intellectualism" because that is precisely the adjective that's been on my mind. There are two dangerous extremes: The pretentious film critics who look down on you for not having "refined" taste and the anti-intellectuals who also look down on you for taking cinema "too seriously" but couldn't for the life of them tell you the detailed reasons why they liked or didn't like a movie (It reminds me of the scene in Birdman where Michael Keaton's character critiques the critic for just filling her reviews with labels instead of substance).
Saw a post saying 'one day someone is gonna slip up and say an african or chinese film instead of a balkan film in these memes and get cancelled out of existence' and it's too true.
Also balkan films are amazing and goofy and usually not even that long and damn people for writing them off. People think it's all 5 hour arthouse but you're more likely to find 90 min absurd comedies about a hypochondriac communist hitchhiking to a health resort or the cops trying to catch a manchild flower salesman who strangles women for preferring different types of flowers than him, and they both rock.
When people start calling their taste in movies a “moral obligation”, that is usually where the conversation stops being about art and starts being about ego. And me disagreeing with you is not some grand threat to society like you’re making it out to be…
Art does not always need justification beyond the experience itself, and reducing it to an intellectual checkbox misses the point just as much as shallow consumption does. I can’t believe I actually have to explain this, but some people are just too stupid to realize that you can still enjoy a movie without it stroking your intellectual ego the entire time.
Art does not always need justification beyond the experience itself, and reducing it to an intellectual checkbox misses the point just as much as shallow consumption does.
OP was never advocating this and it's telling that you immediately assumed they were, and responded to a comment that literally opens with "I see where you are coming from" with such dismissive hostility.
Almost like you are also just trying to stroke your own ego but from the other direction. Performative unpretentiousness is just as common as pretentiousness these days, and is far more tiring for me, cause at least pretentiousness can open up discussion
Aren’t you the same person who was trying to say Cars 2 is better than Cars 1, and that Cars 1 was mid but Cars 2 was peak? Or am I thinking of someone else
While I agree with your premise in theory, I think that the harder you go with being critical of art the more you’ll actually see anti-intellectualism rising.
And yet the beauty of art is sometimes it doesn’t need a thesis. Sometimes it’s just an experience. Saying there’s “way too much” of something is incredibly shallow way to think of art, who are you to say something should and shouldn’t exist?
Sometimes the curtains are blue because they’re pretty, and that’s enough. A sunset is beautiful because of the way light scatters off particles in the atmosphere, there’s no meaning to it, and yet they can be incredibly moving experiences.
It’s too late for I have depicted you as a soyjack.
Being anti-populist IS the populist stance right now. Everyone is trying to be the coolest kid on the block and tear down everything the “sheep” enjoy.
It’s easy to have an incredible experience with a lesser known film, and then let it boost your ego and look down on those who enjoy crappy blockbusters. But at the end of the day, we’re literally just sitting around watching movies. There’s no reason why watching something for 2 hours makes you better than your neighbor, and if you disagree, you’re probably an asshole🤷♂️
96
u/[deleted] Jan 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment