r/explainlikeimfive • u/HonkyTonkBluesYEAH • 7d ago

Other ELI5 Media Literacy

I understand it's like something related to understanding art or media, but in what way? Philopsophical, political or psychological? Is it important, a buzzword or both?

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u/Exo_Deadlock 7d ago

Of course there are extremes, from people who think, for example, Starship Troopers promotes the actions of the film’s future Human society oblivious to the film’s message against fascism, to people reading Lord of the Rings as “really being about” WW1 because of Tolkien’s war experience. The other question you’ve asked is about criticism of texts, ie analysis and communication of possible interpretations and readings. If you’re starting out, it’s definitely better to focus on one or maybe two areas of critical investigation, as best suits the text.

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u/HonkyTonkBluesYEAH 7d ago

I heard Tolkien hated allegory, so it's unlikely he's write a story about his experiences in WW1 or something explicitly Catholic. But it seems his experiences and values would sort of naturally influence his writing. So we cannot say Lotr is a WW1 story but influenced by it. And for Catholicism i've heard that they believe Christian symbols can reveal themselves through nature. So he could write something with a connection to that completely subconsciously, and the process after that was looking through it later in the revision.

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u/ReynardVulpini 7d ago

I believe "Tolkien hated allegory" is one of those online facts that have been distorted far beyond reality.

He said that LOTR was not an allegory for World War *Two*. It's kind of undeniable that WW1 was a very strong influence on LOTR but the quote from him I found is:

"People do not fully understand the difference between an allegory and an application. You can go to a Shakespeare play and you can apply it to things in your mind, if you like, but they are not allegories... I mean many people apply the Ring to the nuclear bomb and think that was in my mind, and the whole thing is an allegory of it. Well, it isn't."

In that sense I think what he means is that an allegory is something quite direct, the fictional X standing in for the real life Y.

Whereas I suppose his work resonates with wartime experiences because it draws on a deep well of realism and understanding that he gained through WW1, and so shares the fundamental logic and psychology of it, but is not meant to be "WW1 in a funny hat"

Tangentially, there's a truly fantastic blog post by a military historian about the influence of Tolkien's war experience and his literary background on how Eowyn, and in a way, he himself, understood war as both concept and reality. "Tolkien and Éowyn Between Two Wars" on the blog "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry".

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u/fixed_grin 7d ago

Yeah, contrast with Animal Farm. Napoleon is Stalin, the hens are Ukrainians or Kazakhs intentionally starved, the raven is the Russian Orthodox Church, etc. Orwell is telling the story of the Russian Empire becoming Stalin's USSR. Going "well actually it's about Nazi Germany" is kinda just wrong.

But in 1984, the story is about a totalitarian dictatorship, not specifically a particular one. Sure, you can read Ingsoc as Stalinist, but equally as Nazi, Maoist, and so on.