The Fangirl and I

So I was thinking about major money-grabbing corporations after reading Iceye's little post about the Nintendo DS. I... don't really have anything to comment on it since I don't know the first thing about Nintendo DS. However, it got me thinking about Quality again, specifically lack of quality, which I presume is what she implies about Disney in that post.

In the last post, I talked about what is good. Now I wonder, what is bad? Do I have any right whatsoever to declare a given piece of artwork "bad"? I... honestly can't come up with any arguments for this. It's easier to argue for good; this is something inexplicable that we feel, that resonates within us without rhyme or reason. This I can live with.

Bad art, though, comes with a more fundamental problem. At least when I see something that I think is beautiful and good, I know this. But bad art generally creates weaker emotions - generally, a failure to provoke any kind of thought or emotion at all is a sign of bad art (unless it's so bad it's good, but that's another thing - let's not bring comedy into this, comedy is the single most incomprehensible thing in the world to me). Bad art is bad because it doesn't do anything, much like a broken piece of machinery doesn't do anything. It's useless. It lacks utility.

But maybe that's just because I can't understand it? There's tons of art out there, that I would consider bad but which clearly resonates with people, clearly makes them feel very strongly about it. When teenage girls rail about Edward vs. Jacob, they do it because they have very, very strong feelings about it. As a matter of fact, the rabid devotion of a fangirl is probably a far more powerful emotion than anything I have ever felt as a result of any work of art. How can this be? How can there be so much fantastic, passion-inspiring, truly wonderful art out there that I just can't get?

In other words, this is my thesis: If I read, for instance, Twilight and don't feel very strongly about the book, that's a very sad thing, because it means I'm reading it wrong. Clearly there is a certain way of enjoying this book - a certain point of view - which makes it inspire true passion. Which makes it better than anything I have ever encountered. Failure to enjoy it is a tremendous loss, one which I can make up for with other works of art, but still. There's something here that I'm missing. That I won't be able to experience.

To use a poorly-constructed simile: "What if my true love really is out there, except we're both male, and we're both straight as arrows"? Something wonderful which you're missing out on because of preferences which you can't change, preferences which are just hard-coded into you for no good reason.

It's pretty sad, don't you think?