Forum - View topic4Kids sez: manga sux0rz
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Patachu
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 1325 Location: San Diego |
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Maybe you should re-watch Mr. Holland yourself -- the piece in question was Bach, not Mozart. (But still, a valid point.) more generally: There is nothing wrong classic literature, but rather, the way it is presented: musty volumes being beaten over kids' heads with a remonstrative cry of "You should be reading Dickens and Tolstoy because a bunch of other people say so!" Combine that with the overblown, adjective-spewing, jargon-muddled elitist slop that often passes for "criticism" and "analysis" in the literary community, and maybe that's why we're seeing the hostile attitudes on display in this thread. Quality writings from past times and cultures have been lifted on such a high pedestal, surrounded by pentasyllabic hype from the wrinkly Ivory Tower dwellers known as academia, that "normal people" see it as some kind of untouchable museum piece that's Just Not For Them. Even though they might actually like it! And yet they are afraid to discover it, because everyone else who already has puts on these intellectual airs that scares the laypeople away. So they run off to "entertainment" types of books because all you smarty-pantses shamed them into it. Yes, kids read, but they tend toward the trendy stuff that all their other friends like, because reading The Canon has taken on the image of some kind of dreary chore that will cause you to have to friends. And there is nothing sadder in childhood than having no friends. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Current lit, including manga and graphic novels, have their qualities and are very often excellent.
The classics have their qualities and are often very excellent. My initial response was to the guy proclaiming "hey who cares about this Shakespeare guy". You can love your current literature and fantasy novels all you want but to spit on the classics because you enjoy other things moreso is, I think, kinda ridiculous. Asking people to then defend the classics is equally as ridiculous; you know full well why people revere writers like Shakespeare or Tolstoy. You don't like it, okay, but to say "well hey, everyone who likes the classics is a stuck-up jerkface!" is just as ignorant and elitist as the people who are apparently looking down on you for reading comics and sci-fi instead. Ignoring the great cultural history of the human race because you find it 'boring' or you're rebelling against the "academics" who think you should read great classical authors is just downright foolish. Likewise, ignoring great graphic novels and sci-fi literature because they're "common" is foolish as well. Both kinds of literature have their place in our society. To dismiss one because you prefer the other is to deny yourself exposure to some of the best art the human race has produced. |
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hentai4me
 Posts: 1313 Location: England. Robin is so Cute! |
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please quote where I once stated that people who enjoy 'classics' are stuck up jerk faces, I remember saying that I continually get a vibe of 'superiority' from these people, I never once actually insulted anyone, and seeing as your quote was taken from a post replying to me I can only asume that it was directed at me. and no I dont know why people 'revere' Shakespeare, I read the books we were expected to simply because 'its shakespeare' I was never told why Shakespeare or any other classic was used over anything else, just told 'they're classics' as if thats some kind of answer that means anything. |
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Godaistudios
Posts: 2075 Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment) |
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Sorry, it has been several years since I watched it.  I wasn't quite 100% sure it was Mozart, but after a (very) brief search on it, that's what I concluded. Thanks for the correction.
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MorwenLaicoriel
 Posts: 1617 Location: Colorado |
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Basically, this is what I get from him. When you read his stuff, 'cliches' or 'archetypes' suddenly make sense. Shakespeare--a poor playwright in a time when having such a profession was hardly seen as noble, when a play could be performed a few times and then discarded--managed to create stories, characters, and settings so memorable that they're now a part of our culture. You can see echos of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, MacBeth, etc etc in so much of today's media that it can be startling. Just take a look at the academy awards--Take Romeo and Juliet, make Juliet a guy, change the setting from Shakespearean-era Europe to a mid-20th century cowboy ranch, and what do you have? Brokeback Mountain. (Sure, it's not EXACTLY the same, but it's certainly similar.) Plus, he came from an era where sets and costumes were kept to a minimum to a play. So to compensate, Shakespeare wrote in the characters discussing the setting--almost always in a way that comes off natural. The first line of Hamlet has a solider shivering and commenting on what a cold, dreary night it is. By doing this, he sets up the image for what the setting is--without anything on the stage actually showing this. It makes it so that you can actually READ his plays with very little setting information (although they always help). Ever try to read a script? Not exactly the most exciting reading. Yet Shakespeare's stuff is readable. Thirdly, Shakespeare mixes a lot of poetic stuff into his plays. Remember...this is back when plays were considered throw-away entertainment for the masses. It'd be like someone adding in poetic metaphors into a B-movie. He managed to do this--and was still popular with the general populous. He struck a perfect balance of art and entertainment. Even if you don't like his stuff, you have to at least appreciate the detail he put into his plays, as well as the fact that he's influenced practically every concievable medium for storytelling we have. |
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deathbringer
Posts: 276 |
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So your argument is that Shakespeare invented love stories? |
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Godaistudios
Posts: 2075 Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment) |
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I think his point is that Shakespeare has heavily influenced and affected the way love stories are done in the modern era.
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MorwenLaicoriel
Posts: 1617 Location: Colorado |
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Her point, actually.  But yeah, that's what I mean. The 'tragic love story' was around before Shakespeare was, but it was he who popularized the idea of "star-crossed lovers tragically meant to never be because sociaty goes against them" type stories.
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