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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:02:49 GMT -8
Odi et Amo:
[EDIT - he jumped back in while I was typing.]
Noah's view that art is transformative can explain why he is so enamored with Buffy and believes it to be worthy of consideration as art and as one of the greatest shows ever. Buffy's philosophical basis is a mixture of absurdism and existentialism, and, as such, favors the notion that the nature of the universe is unknowable, human agency is the only factor shaping essence, and that humans are radically free to construct their own notions of meaning, as long as they accept consequences for their agency and (the absurdist aspect) do not attempt arbitrarily to change the nature of the universe. It took Buffy Summers 7 seasons to understand this, but, based on the parameters of the universe constructed by Joss and Mutant Enemy, she has the ability to break the artificial Slayer construct and achieve a moment of transformation.
The other shows being discussed employ very different ontological and societal construction. The Sopranos slants towards a notion of unchanging people; the Wire does the same vis-à-vis society. The Shield, I gather, employs facets of both of these worldviews, although I have not yet watched it. Mad Men is constructed like past science fiction, addressing more intimate but less wide-ranging issues grounded in interpersonal and societal relationships, while Breaking Bad, more limited in its scope, largely ignores the issue.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:03:02 GMT -8
Noah:
Quote: I'm not looking for others to validate or agree with this position at all, but I would at least hope for it to be respected more than what I'm sensing in this thread. People are far too casually throwing it out of the discussion entirely -- heck, the notion is "laughable" to FV -- acting as if this conclusion is "objective" and obvious, thus creating an implied slight on those who see it differently. Quite disappointing.
In argument, laughing is the ultimate concession because it reflects on the arguer and not the merits. In any case, I agree with you, about art and about Buffy. And as I pointed out in the Chosen comment debate, so do a long list of great artists. And they're really the ones who would know, I would think.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:03:12 GMT -8
Scott:
Noah, what are you doing on this site? You should find someone who will pay you for this stuff. Seriously.
You write in a way that explores such deep and prevalent themes, but you do it in a very accessible and interesting way that everyone can understand. Do you have any idea how difficult that is to do? It's one thing to be able to think as deeply as you clearly do, but it's another to be able to clearly relay it using language.
I'm not necessarily in agreement with everything you said, because I do think Buffy is about growing up and pain makes up only a portion of that, and to ignore the other aspects of life present in Buffy is to ignore a good half the show, but I'm too much in awe at the quality of the writing to really expand right now.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:03:24 GMT -8
Mike: Hey now, think of Noah's unpaid contributions to this site as offering him more visibility so that he will eventually get paid, hopefully very well! Nonetheless, I'm thrilled he's come on board here. He's, indeed, a talented dude.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:03:50 GMT -8
Keith:
[Freudian Vampire wrote: Although this might put me at odds with the rest of the CriticallyTouched community, I think the notion of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the best TV show ever is laughable.
When I spoke of 'objectivity' on the "Chosen" comments, I was referring to a weighing of the elements; character, plot, acting, continuity, writing, tone, structure, consistency of quality, coherency, theme, relevance to the viewer, cinematography, music, graphical design and all the other buzzwords that television critics like to throw around. It is easy to name something your personal favourite. I would hope that the people here are capable of engaging with something with a little more substance.]
This is an important point to make. I greatly enjoyed Noah's comment on the "Chosen" comments as to what gives Buffy artistic merit, and particularly, artistic merit greater than that of other shows. Simply put, and I think this is a point you, FV, are making, is that this is TV, not art. That isn't to say we can't comment on the artistic merit of it, or that its standing as art is unimportant. What it DOES mean, is that there is far more on which TV should be judged than simply its transformative value.
The point which I was (poorly) making in the "Chosen" comments, was that I think Buffy does a better job of characterization than most other shows, at least in terms of providing a cast that is more than simply a rich main character surrounded by a two-dimensional supporting cast. Breaking Bad is particularly deficient in this arena - every character besides Walt can be summed up in a couple of words, and Jesse's intelligence seems to change as needed to move the story forward. Upon further reflection, The Sopranos paints a better portrait of its supporting cast, in particular Carmela, than I was really giving it credit for, although I stand by my statement that Christopher isn't a complete enough character to make his episodes and arcs interesting, and the show spends an awful lot of time with him.
That doesn't mean I think it is a better overall show, and I agree 100% that there are plenty of objective criteria upon which to base a conclusion that Buffy is not as good as either of those other two shows. I will admit, though, that I think it's fair to grade Buffy on a bit of a curve, if for no other reason than a season of Buffy fills several more hours of screen time. This may seem like a cop-out, but The Sopranos struggled to maintain high quality throughout each season while filling far less screen time. It's why we have such gems as "A Hit is a Hit," "D-Girl," "Christopher," "In Camelot," and an inordinate amount of time spent with Vito and Johnny Cakes.
In other words, The Sopranos has some very weak episodes, and some poorly thought out storylines, and quite a few problems that always seem to get glossed over when it comes time to look at the show critically. It doesn't matter that plots were ethereal, or that the writers more or less made characters come and go as needed to make a point, or that they twice repeated the Richie Aprile story line in the next 2 seasons, or that tertiary characters were used to make points that would have been meaningful and impactful if we'd gotten to know them as people, and not simply known them as nondescript, anonymous henchmen. The point being that a show can have a lot of flaws and still be great. It's more important to look at the highs, at the best of a show when ultimately judging its quality, than it is to pick it apart at its worst. How frequently and consistently it hits its highs is ultimately what it should be judged on, in my opinion.
This is why Breaking Bad belongs in the conversation, as it has no equal in consistently creating dramatic tension, or in stylistic achievement in furtherance of creating drama. But I think there is simply too much of Buffy that is of poor quality, even when grading it on a curve, to put it in the same class as these shows. I think its highs in Season 5 are as good as anything I've seen on television, but that alone is not quite enough to say it's in the running for best show ever. Seasons 1, 4, 6, and 7 drag it down too much to sustain an argument that it was consistently a high quality show, due to problems with plot and character that are surely well-known to the people reading this.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:04:05 GMT -8
Freudian:
Noah, I will respond to your post when I have more time. It's very well argued, although I do of course wholly disagree with it.
The word 'laughable' was perhaps a little harsh, but it illustrates my point; that I do, genuinely, believe that Buffy is so far down on the totem pole in comparison that the notion of it as the best is one I simply cannot understand or agree with. I'm not intending to demean your opinion, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. I'm sure you would use the word 'laughable' to describe the notion of, say, Dexter as the best show ever, or "Where the Wild Things Are" as better than "The Gift". It's a question of degree, and admittedly I just chose extreme examples. Buffy has many excellent qualities, but as a whole package I don't think it merits inclusion in a best show ever debate.
I know my opinion on 'art' is strange. It came about largely due to my involvement in a series of debates which spanned months (!) on a gaming forum as to whether a video game could ever constitute art. I have come to believe that the broadening of the definition of the word has caused it to lose all meaning, and so I refer it specifically to paintings and drawings and images and, yes, sculptures, but to that only. I judge TV shows as TV shows and films as films. I do not have a universal term for all of them, except perhaps 'fiction', and even then that's not a descriptor you would typically describe to the sort of thing you'd see in the Rijks Museum.
As for great episodes, I think all the shows I list as brilliant are equal in this category to Buffy. Breaking Bad has "Crawl Space" and "Ozymandias", both of which match the best of Whedon's work, and "One Minute" and "Half Measures" and "Salud" and "Face Off" and so many more. The Wire's second to last episodes of each season are famed for their brilliance, with "Middle Ground" a standout. Six Feet Under's finale "Everyone's Waiting" is simply stunning, and a magnificent finish to the show. The Sopranos has "College" and "I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano" and "Funhouse" and "Pine Barrens" and "Whitecaps" and "Long Term Parking". The Shield's "Family Meeting" might just be the best episode of television ever.
I must say I don't think that excluding the possibility of an argument that convincingly puts Harry Potter as the best film ever is a sign of close-mindedness. There's such an enormous bridge to gap that it's pretty much impossible for us. What if I asked you whether there was any chance someone could persuade you that Megashark vs Giant Octopus was a superior artistic achievement to Donnie Darko?
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:04:20 GMT -8
Boscalyn:
Oh nooooooo. This wasn't supposed to get thirty posts in half a day.
Reading all the comments and replying to the direct responses to my own post now; sorry if this sort of derails whatever you're going on about.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:04:33 GMT -8
Freudian:
Wow. I have really riled people, haven't I? :oops: The posts are coming thick and fast and I can't keep up with them.
Keith makes a vitally important point and it's the reason that I don't really have a long winded, well thought out response to Noah's comment; I consider TV to be TV first, and an artistic achievement second.
I like The Sopranos more than Keith does, but I agree completely, 100% with the spirit of his post. It's exactly the idea I've been miserably trying to communicate this whole time.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:04:48 GMT -8
Mike: Quote: What if I asked you whether there was any chance someone could persuade you that Megashark vs Giant Octopus was a superior artistic achievement to Donnie Darko? I'll repeat myself: Yes. I would find that likelihood highly, highly improbable, but I would still open to hearing out what would probably have to be the best argument of the last century.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:05:02 GMT -8
Mike:
Quote: I'm sure you would use the word 'laughable' to describe the notion of, say, Dexter as the best show ever, or "Where the Wild Things Are" as better than "The Gift".
If these comments were thrown out there with absolutely no explanation or argument to support them, yeah I probably would. But I think we both know that I've gone into painstaking detail explaining why Buffy stands out (to me) as one of the very best. I've done the work and provided the argument. You can disagree with that argument -- it's totally fine that we don't place the same value on what makes for quality television -- but I think I've backed up my claims enough to not be laughed out of the room. That's essentially the only thing I take issue with.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:05:14 GMT -8
Scott:
Have we reached the point where we're all just sitting on this thread hitting refresh while we wait for others to respond? Because that's what I'm doing.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:05:26 GMT -8
Freudian:
I want to clarify/apologise for that 'laughable' comment, which was poor phrasing on my behalf. What I meant was that the idea of Buffy as the best show ever is something I'm just not ever going to seriously consider. This thread has made me think a lot about TV in general, but it's not swayed me in the slightest about any specific shows.
I know you'd like to see more respect for the idea of Buffy as the B.S.E, but isn't this whole thread about why some of us don't have that? Otherwise we wouldn't really have a discussion.
(Apologies for any mistakes. I'm typing on an iPod and about to turn in for the night.)
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:33:35 GMT -8
Noah:
Quote: This is an important point to make. I greatly enjoyed Noah's comment on the "Chosen" comments as to what gives Buffy artistic merit, and particularly, artistic merit greater than that of other shows. Simply put, and I think this is a point you, FV, are making, is that this is TV, not art. That isn't to say we can't comment on the artistic merit of it, or that its standing as art is unimportant. What it DOES mean, is that there is far more on which TV should be judged than simply its transformative value.
Thanks! I think a full response to your point would be repetitive to my forum post, but I will make one other point here. I conceded in my chosen comment that you could design a rubric in which Buffy would be objectively worse than other shows. To me, it's a question of deciding what's really important in life. To quote George Sand (sorry about quoting a lot, but I'm getting sore fingers):
“Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.”
Another way of saying it is, I guess we just don't care about the same things.
Quote: I have come to believe that the broadening of the definition of the word has caused it to lose all meaning, and so I refer it specifically to paintings and drawings and images and, yes, sculptures, but to that only. I judge TV shows as TV shows and films as films.
People have the same reaction to art in all media.
Mike and Other Scott, thank you, though I will say that I'm here primarily out of my respect for Mike and his reviews, as well as his notion of what it means to review (which is something that we are fighting over right now, albeit obliquely). And to share The Inside with you guys, who are quite perceptive yourselves.
And as for your point about comedy, Scott, I agree with most of it, and it's something that I left out because of the specific point I was trying to make. It does go back to Boscalyn's original post. What I would add is that a lot of the comedy comes out of the absurdity of such a world as I described. Have things ever gotten so bad that you just laughed at it because it's ridiculous? And I shouldn't have said "marginally", rather "not only" or "not primarily" w/r to growing up as being what the show is about. In "real" life, growing up is the impetus for the kind of pain that Buffy experiences and what that brings about. The loss of innocence really does change everything.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:33:45 GMT -8
Mike:
FV: It's not about Buffy being the best show ever. It's about it being in the discussion for it. There is a difference.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 19, 2017 14:34:01 GMT -8
Iguana:
If, on the other hand, we had to discuss the greatest thread ever on this forum, this one would be a serious contender. Damn, Noah.
Mike: I think that at this point you and FV are pretty much arguing semantics on what constitutes open-mindedness. The only difference in opinion that I see is that FV rounds a 0.01% chance down to 0, whilst you say "It is still a chance!"
FV: I'll grant you that there is a vast difference between a Paulus Potter painting and a Bach cantate and a Fitzgerald novel when it comes to experiencing them. I do think Noah has a point in that there is a similarity in the mindset needed to -create- them. From a -creative- perspective I can see the merits of putting all these things under one common denominator. We-the-public experience them differently, though.
But I think this argument is immaterial. Whether or not you call everything art, the debate persists. Be it paintings, be it film, be it books: we'll still be arguing that painting A is art whilst painting B is just a pretty picture, that novel A is literature and novel B is just an exciting story, that sonata A is great music and Britney Spears B is just a catchy song, that film A is a serious work of, yes, art and film B is just a series of explosions. The only difficulty with TV is that we do not have two separate words for "high-brow" and "low-brow" television.
The system breaks down when we start to compare across media and try to make the forms equivalent to one another. But the term "Art" is mainly used to distinguish within a genre between that which merely pleases and entertains, and that which transcends. I don't care if the argument is about paintings or computer games or, hell, cooking. It's a discussion that's as old as time, and one that is as necessary as it is sometimes tiresome.
So in this regard, I don't think it's really helpful to say that "TV is just TV." I do think we need to make a distinction between the craftmanship aspects (to use Noah's term) and the overarching message a production has.
Edit: Three responses while I wrote this. Okay, maybe I'll start hitting refresh too. Boscalyn, you have my sympathies. The thought alone of having to catch up to all this and somehow respond coherently would probably drive me into hiding.
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