Monday, August 31, 2009

Stars; Entertainment vs. Art


Between goodreads and netflix, I am always battling the dreaded "2, 3, or 4 star?" dilemma. (the one or five star books and movies are usually less problematic). The minor issue is binning your feelings about a work into only 5 states, but the bigger issue for me is one that I have been battling since before the 1-5 star rating system of the internet: Is it Art or is it Entertainment?

Without getting into the nuances, what I mean by "Art" in this context is a work that inspires, provokes, stretches, or raises questions that stay with me beyond the experience of the book, movie, painting, etc. itself. "Entertainment" is a work that is like a roller coaster ride: I had fun while in its embrace, but am left unchanged (except for maybe being happier) after the experience.

Lately I have been reading some definite
"entertainment"-only books, and wound up giving it 3 stars on goodreads. I felt I had to give it three stars because I read two of the books cover to cover, was turning the pages like a harry potter novel (another entertainment only series), and had trouble putting it down. The guilt of putting three stars on such non literary writing brought back a scathing indictment from a friend of mine who saw that I had only given three stars to formative books to us both like The Hitchhiker's Guide and Fahrenheit 451.



The solution might be to have two side by side 5-star ratings: "as entertainment" and "as art". Then I could go back and give the an unqualified "5 stars as entertainment" while only "3 stars as art" for the Star Wars movies. Hiroshima Mon Amour and The Magic Mountain could get the rare "1 star as entertainment while 5 star art" from me. (whereas the recent fantasy escapist books I've been reading could get the opposite rating from me - with perhaps an optional "check this box if you are embarrassed by this rating" under the entertainment stars)

The two 5 star ratings now gives me 25 bins to put my ratings into so the minor problem of squeezing feelings into only 5 states is alleviated as well.

Now, I am considering, which books or movies would get the coveted double five-star rating? Can't put it down and changes my outlook on life at the same time...


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