Poi’s room, Sunday the 25th October, 18:37
Good even, gentlefolk. Slick again- bet you didn’t expect to hear from me so soon huh?
So, It seems it’s a good week for inspiration: I have a new blog topic already, wonder of wonders. Today, I’d like to talk to you about the fact that I like everything. Well, lets clarify a little: when it comes to films, t.v, music, venues etc, I seem to enjoy things which everyone else thinks are actively terrible; I like cheap vodka, terrible cheesy nightclubs, terrible horror movies starring Jenna Jameson (and no, they are not porn movies. Zombie Strippers is a sorely underrated film). I like old school 90’s pop which makes all of my mates cringe. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve left a movie theatre thinking to myself “that was awesome” while everyone else starts complaining about it. I’m not embarrassed about this fact- in fact, I personally consider it a good thing: it makes me more readily able to have fun on any given occasion. In addition, having very low… erm, aesthetic standards, I suppose (and no, not when it comes to women. Or at least I hope not)… doesn’t make me incapable of enjoying the finer things in life, or the things that everyone universally agrees are awesome. Just because I like Scissor Sisters doesn’t mean I don’t like Metallica, to give a potentially controversial example.
So, to take the blog out of myself a little, I’m curious: what is it that makes a film, book, piece of music, etc “good” or “bad? Now, I know that the answer generally provided is that there is no real objective “good” or “bad”, but this is only a half-truth at best: some films are universally reviled, others universally loved (obviously I’m stretching the definition of “universal” a little here, but you can at least follow my point). Is it simply a case of tapping in to societies collective subconsciousness? Are there some sort of Platonic aesthetic ideals to aim for in a piece of music/film etc? And if either of these things are the case, how can we explain differences of aesthetic opinion? How can we explain those like me, who seem to have a lower “standard” than the norm? Or am I just an aberration with no need for explanation? That sounds likely.
I have, however, discovered somewhat of a flaw in my own thinking. While it is true that I will read/watch/listen to pretty much anything that us available, I am more of a… traditionalist when it comes to fine art- I’m not a big modern art fan, and I think that, for example, Deschampes fountain is a travesty of a piece, especially compared with something more classically famous, like Monet’s landscapes. It appears that while I have “low” standards in some areas, I’m quite picky in others. The logical conclusion then, is to take the discussion back to a personal level: people have different tastes in different areas of aesthetics.
But the curious thing is this: if I can make the statement “I have low standards in terms of film, but high standards in women”, and you, my readers, can understand me, then we seem to be trapped in a bizarre sort of hybrid position, which accepts both the existence of universalisable “standards” and, at the same time, acknowledges the prevalence of personal difference, and for me at least the union of these two things is somewhat troubling.
One way of viewing it could be to say that there do exist universal standards: the perfect woman, book, piece of art, etc, but it is up to the individual how much stock we set in these ideals. This would also accord with the fact that I can (and just have) self-described as a man with poor taste (or perhaps “indiscriminate taste” is more accurate) in films: I am acknowledging the criteria that exist, I am simply declaring that they are unimportant to my personal enjoyment.
Actually, I’m pretty happy with this solution: I think I may have just done the entire philosophical enterprise of aesthetics. Now I just need ethics, epistemology and ethics and I can pack up and go home.
Yours enlightenedly,
Slick
P.S if anyone in Durham who reads this blog is interested, I will be playing the film “Evil Breed: the Legend of Sam Hainn” starring everyone’s favourite adult movie star, Jenna Jameson (and no, it’s not a porno) sometime soon. Probably around halloween. It promises to be a truly awful/awesome movie.
Slick111's Blog 
This blog did less of my thinking for me than some of your others. I was very confused to discover that a tomato has the same taste (referring to the in-mouth sensation) whoever puts it in their mouth and that it is my reaction to it that makes the difference, not that a tomato actually morphs to be disgusting for me but nice for someone else (I was four, and made to miss break for not eating my tomato). However ten years later I was introduced to the concept that reaction to taste (the in-mouth sensation), and therefore food preference, is not pre-destined or genetic (solely), but moulded by society, income, industrial development, social circles etc.. What a radical notion! Now there was really no need to dislike foods except out of snobbishness (or inverted snobbery.) To my family’s shame at that age, although I would happily tuck into pheasant and could distinguish champagne from blue nun, I did not like olives, red wine, avacado, caviare or carpaccio. Now I find most of them delicious. It is obvious that there is no universal perfection as regards taste; one man’s meat is literally another man’s poison; a medium-rare Aberdeen Angus Steak would make most Hindis very unwell, and (to my shame) I would retch at being offered the taste-explosion delicacy of a Widjuti grub, the tripe, brain, testicle or liver of an animal or expensively prepared Japanese seaweed. Nobody could say that there is a universal standard for delicious apple pie. With the obvious link between aesthetic and sensory taste- both reactions to our senses and both called taste- it surprises me that you settle on there being some form of an aesthetic universal standard. Harry Potter outsells the Bible which outsells Mills and Boon, but does that have correlation to their worth? I know plenty of white people who simply don’t find POC attractive, whereas the most beautiful women I have ever come across have been black, chinese or mixed race. And say you did divide racially (although I take universal to mean you wouldn’t) when defining the perfect women, how would you explain some people fancying Rose McGowan and Salma Hayek more than Penelope Cruz? Who would decide this universal standard of books and women? God? Brian Sewell?
And quality of film is often not linked to peoples’ enamoration of it, which begs the question as to whether you are implying that universally loved films have aesthetic ideals (which I personally would suggest were them being well shot, cast, acted, segued, and, nowadays, with a decent script or highly appropriate soundtrack), or if in fact, considering how most of them do not live up to these criteria, people universally love bad films? In which case why call yourself an aberration in that you love bad films, just because they are different to other people’s choices? And why call 90s pop bad when, although it is “universally reviled”, much of it is clearly a good example of well-produced (or even well-made) pop music? ‘Low standards for film’ to me in fact suggests being comfortable sitting through films with awful sound, audience captivation and lighting (and possibly acting, although I acknowledge some people enjoy bad acting).
Whereas ‘high standards for women’ might make one person sound as if they have exacting intellectual, emotional and intellectual demands on women, others as if they expect women to be little more than house slaves, and you here as if women only have worth if they are extremely aesthetically pleasing (which way of thinking inevitably leads to seeing them as sex objects).
You make it sound much as though to you the perfect woman is associated with objects like books or pieces of art or her standard of perfection with aesthetic ideals. I know that you’re hetero, cis, were talking about aesthetics in this blog and all that, but the reification smacks of misogyny.
This was all far less well-thought out or written than your blogs are.
Kil (nearly half a year after my first comment!)
Hmm, interesting post- I’m wondering if other people are getting the same impression as you are. In reponse to your comment I would say that, while I perhaps didn’t make this as clear as I should in the blog, I am talking of women (and, in fact, the argument could apply equally well to men) in a purely visual/aesthetic context, for which I would argue that “reification”, as you put it, is in fact the appropriate mode for viewing the issue. Your mistake is in your use of the phrase “only have worth”- I make no claims as to the worthiness or otherwise of non-aesthetic considerations of intellect, character etc. If it helps, just imagine i’d used the word men instead of women.
That aside, my point about films etc. is really this: surely at least one good judge for good/bad is popular reaction. In this case I am saying that I enjoy films which are generally disliked, because of bad acting, audience captivation, production or otherwise (I agree those are no doubt factors).