Bourdieu's theory of taste: a grumbling abrégé (2023)
dynomight.net32 points by sebg 3 days ago
32 points by sebg 3 days ago
> lower-class people are in a sort of local maxima
If the writer knew that the correct term is “maximum” (singular) and misused the Latin on purpose, this is brilliant. Failing that, it’s still a wonderful inadvertent enactment of the thesis. Well done either way.
Slightly surprised to learn Master and Commander is “lowbrow”—is it just because it’s not an art film or whatever? Usually I’d expect Marvel films to be described that way (unfairly imo, when it comes to the Phase One batch at least)…
It's clearly in a different category from the "highbrow" examples like Solaris, just by virtue of being entertaining to a broad audience. In contrast Solaris is the kind of movie where there's a five minute unbroken scene that's just a guy driving in traffic and thinking about his life. (Like the author, I like them both!)
The ‘brow’ standards have dropped significantly, in a process Fussell has described as the general proletarianization of culture.
For a long time films that would be considered niche and arthouse were middlebrow, because film itself was at best a middlebrow medium.
To people still concerned with the various brows, Marvel films are below low. They are sign of a debased and infantile film culture that caters to childish tastes and merchandising, not art.
Years ago I was surprised to read a critic that described Branagh's Hamlet as middlebrow. I mean, Henry V, sure - that only even qualifies as middlebrow because it's Shakespeare. I would assume it was lowbrow at the time it was written. I love the prologue, though.
Yeah I'd say the critic was most likely affirming the idea that film is a middlebrow medium. Seeing Hamlet at the Globe is high brow, but seeing Hamlet as the cinema is middlebrow.
Marvel films are commercial tripe. Pure commodity fetishism and cheap spectacle. Utterly without literary merit.
Master and Commander is pretentious pulp. Real, quality media is obscure, and largely unpalatable to our debased modern sensibilities.
He sees through his beer purchases but he doesn't see through his seeing through them.