The Escapist vindicates snobbery

[kuronosan]

Wait, I'm confused. Are you arguing with yourself?

[Rocl]

Unrelated, I was being a nancy boy and ordered a macchiato. I called the cashier pussycat and I received raised eyebrows.

I, on the other hand, laughed at my inside joke. I am a high-brow humorist with a high Gunning-Fox Index

[Max™]

Wait, I'm confused. Are you arguing with yourself?

No, I'm the opposite of that guy.


I never said high brow, btw, I merely said it was information dense, no comment supplied regarding it being better or worse, simply how difficult it was to comprehend everything going on.


The Simpsons is constantly pointing out what you should be "getting", as is later Family Guy. Futurama generally makes the joke and moves on.


The actual value of the information doesn't matter, it's simply a question of it how it is encoded. Hence why I mentioned Frisky Dingo, was it high art? Was the humor high-brow? Is it actually a good show? Unlikely, but it was a constant barrage of references, jokes, in-jokes about in-jokes, and warped humor that didn't appeal broadly enough, and didn't point out what you should be laughing at well enough, apparently.

[BRP]

Family Guy was the same way when it first started, because everything was a subtle reference and filled with high-brow humor that you had to be intelligent to "get". Now it's just one-liners and jokes littered with 80s and 90s pop culture so that your average 'dumbass' can get it.

Family Guy has basically been at the same poor level since the start. All the negative things you mentioned were always true(the "subtly" being that most of the audience wouldn't get 80s joke). Though honestly, there probably has been a drop in quality due to recycled jokes or copypasta from the internet or Brian becoming the author's voice. (Not to say I didn't like it at some point, I am just a different person now. Though Family Guy has the problem of making me nauseous(like say, McDonalds), as opposed to many shows which just are less funny/unfunny.)


Anyway, to get on point...

My biggest beef with the article is that it talks about comprehension well enough, but it never mentions that plenty of concepts are simply beyond being comprehended by the (relatively) uneducated. I mean the rating systems are broken down in the links(first I've read of them in-depth) and it is only related to writing format. Then the writer does something stupid and applies this to a comic like Watchmen. Comics use a mixture of words and pictures to tell the narrative. (Watchmen itself is a pretty funny example because of how well it does this, you simply can't get half the story without paying a lot of attention to what is happening in the panels.) The system itself doesn't measure concepts or even the narrative, it just judges "big words" vs "small words" from perspective of some standard. So basically: What the hell is this guy trying to do?

Anyway, at the time that Gunning and Flesch did their seminal work, they limited it to reading (and, by extension, listening to spoken words over the radio), as those were the leading media of communication in their day.

Of course they limited it to reading because that's basically the only thing it could possibly work on.

And is it not the concepts(the meaning) which are the most important part of something written? Sure, several works about the same thing could have many levels of being comprehensible, but the subject itself is going play as big(or bigger) of a role as the writing does.

Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has a Gunning-Fog Index of 19.2, suggesting that while it may be the most masterful work of historical analysis ever written

It doesn't suggest that at all! The system doesn't measure the depth or mastery of historical analysis.

Cad, is this what you thought I would be bitching about if this was posted in the videogame forum(or did I betray your expectations)? The majority of videogames writers(critics and essayist, mainly) only know how to write well, but are basically worse than children when it comes to an understanding of games. Which is why when it comes to analysis of specific games or series, places like 4gafFAQs-Gartr can consistently provide a handful of posts which simply blow away reviews in print or found in places like Gamespot or IGN, even though they are comparatively poorly written.

But I guess all this was to set up the second page. He is trying point out that there is a spectrum of complexity which dumber or smarter individuals can only enjoy above and below certain points right? Yes levels of "comprehension", but incomprehension(I guess the opposite of that would be like boredom) comes more from the complexity of the essence than how it is presented. As for how people can make complicated things more welcoming: you can only change presentation so much until you begin to noticeably distort what it was to begin with. This is why snobs/elitists(assuming these two are the same) hate it.

If Flesch and Gunning are right, Zero Punctuation should be reserved for the cognitive elite. Yet everyone knows that ZP is our most popular content with mainstream consumers.

So basically there isn't much reason to think they are right, man. By "mainstream consumers" I suppose they mean his extremely idiotic forums which are bad even by gamefaqs standards.

EDIT: But I am always up for vindicating elitism and snobbery. (Unless it leads to poseurs, which videogame writing is all about.)

[Plow]

It doesn't suggest that at all! The system doesn't measure the depth or mastery of historical analysis.

Cad, is this what you thought I would be bitching about if this was posted in the videogame forum(or did I betray your expectations)?

Funny-- this is exactly the crap I expect from you.

He doesn't say that it suggests that.

He says it suggests that *while* it *may* be, it is _____.


Epic time for reading comprehension fail, btw.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to point out how epic your sig is given that you're like 3 years out of junior high.

[archibaldcrane]

He doesn't say that it suggests that.

He says it suggests that *while* it *may* be, it is _____.

Damnit, plow beat me.

[Cadsuane]

Family Guy has basically been at the same poor level since the start. All the negative things you mentioned were always true(the "subtly" being that most of the audience wouldn't get 80s joke). Though honestly, there probably has been a drop in quality due to recycled jokes or copypasta from the internet or Brian becoming the author's voice. (Not to say I didn't like it at some point, I am just a different person now. Though Family Guy has the problem of making me nauseous(like say, McDonalds), as opposed to many shows which just are less funny/unfunny.)


Anyway, to get on point...

My biggest beef with the article is that it talks about comprehension well enough, but it never mentions that plenty of concepts are simply beyond being comprehended by the (relatively) uneducated. I mean the rating systems are broken down in the links(first I've read of them in-depth) and it is only related to writing format. Then the writer does something stupid and applies this to a comic like Watchmen. Comics use a mixture of words and pictures to tell the narrative. (Watchmen itself is a pretty funny example because of how well it does this, you simply can't get half the story without paying a lot of attention to what is happening in the panels.) The system itself doesn't measure concepts or even the narrative, it just judges "big words" vs "small words" from perspective of some standard. So basically: What the hell is this guy trying to do?



Of course they limited it to reading because that's basically the only thing it could possibly work on.

And is it not the concepts(the meaning) which are the most important part of something written? Sure, several works about the same thing could have many levels of being comprehensible, but the subject itself is going play as big(or bigger) of a role as the writing does.



It doesn't suggest that at all! The system doesn't measure the depth or mastery of historical analysis.

Cad, is this what you thought I would be bitching about if this was posted in the videogame forum(or did I betray your expectations)? The majority of videogames writers(critics and essayist, mainly) only know how to write well, but are basically worse than children when it comes to an understanding of games. Which is why when it comes to analysis of specific games or series, places like 4gafFAQs-Gartr can consistently provide a handful of posts which simply blow away reviews in print or found in places like Gamespot or IGN, even though they are comparatively poorly written.

But I guess all this was to set up the second page. He is trying point out that there is a spectrum of complexity which dumber or smarter individuals can only enjoy above and below certain points right? Yes levels of "comprehension", but incomprehension(I guess the opposite of that would be like boredom) comes more from the complexity of the essence than how it is presented. As for how people can make complicated things more welcoming: you can only change presentation so much until you begin to noticeably distort what it was to begin with. This is why snobs/elitists(assuming these two are the same) hate it.



So basically there isn't much reason to think they are right, man. By "mainstream consumers" I suppose they mean his extremely idiotic forums which are bad even by gamefaqs standards.

EDIT: But I am always up for vindicating elitism and snobbery. (Unless it leads to poseurs, which videogame writing is all about.)

Oh, well, I wouldn't be that critical of it. In particular the gunning-fox index only suggests that the work (Decline and fall of the Roman Empire) is incomprehensible to laypeople and fools, not necessarily that it's good. I think that it being good is just a premise taken from the literary community, and that the sentence in question can be taken to mean just that. At any rate, you're certainly correct that all those indices do is measure the unwieldiness of diction and style in a particular work, but I think that's okay.

The main points that can be extricated from this are as follows I think:

There are smart people and stupid people

Smart people need a greater degree of complexity (narrative, aesthetic, auditive, etc.) in their art and entertainment, which makes it incomprehensible to stupid people

Smart and stupid people can still enjoy the same art and entertainment if it contains complex and simple elements for both audiences

And I think as corrolaries:

If a piece of art is enjoyed only by stupid people, it must be simple art (however the converse is not necessarily true)

If a piece of art is enjoyed only by smart people, it must be complex art (however the converse is not necessarily true)

ie. maybe art can be complex and still be shit. This is all fairly reasonable, and it takes away part of the subjective opinion card played by people who insist on defending their shitty tastes with it. But anyway.

Honestly I was expecting you to hack on a high brow suggestion that criticizing games as narrative, philosophical, or otherwise artistic objects, particularly after that XIII review thread and the spam thread it spawned.

[BRP]

Damnit, plow beat me.

I'll just reply to you, because Plow is ineffectual. The author quote continues...

...most college graduates (16th grade) can't even comprehend it. It will never be an Amazon best-seller, because there aren't enough people able to appreciate it.

I don't see how this changes what he meant. Basically he is saying it is so "masterful"(suggested by the Gunning-Fog Index) that no one can understand it, and it will never be popular! That is his message for most of the article.

The way Cad explains it sort of makes it sound like the guy isn't talking about its "historical analysis" quality. If that the case then I misunderstood him, but it wasn't unfair to since that's basically exactly what he wrote down there. If he had said "masterly written" or he didn't mention that the rating suggested it to be the "most masterful work of historical analysis" I wouldn't have made the mistake. (Still not convinced though, seems like the reasonable interpretation.)

Oh, well, I wouldn't be that critical of it.

I don't know if I am being that critical. A lot of what he says I can agree, I basically don't like how he got there. I mean I agree with your summery for the most part.

Honestly I was expecting you to hack on a high brow suggestion that criticizing games as narrative, philosophical, or otherwise artistic objects, particularly after that XIII review thread and the spam thread it spawned.

I am sure if he went into specifics there I would have found something to bash. The way he explained it made it seem like each artform had its own ways of being complex.

[Cadsuane]

Well, take the watchmen for example. Its dialogue is not stylistically brilliant or difficult to understand, so if it's good art (and I think it is), it's worth must come from something besides the raw words on the page, like the narrative, artwork, characterization, or the interaction between these and other elements. If you view that as an analogy for video games...

[Bikpik]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...eBellCurve.gif

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

The Bell Curve is never wrong.

[BRP]

The problem he had with Watchmen is that he was talking about its narrative, but only looked at what was in the boxes and bubbles. The art is vital to telling the narrative in comics(especially so in Watchmen). His system of measuring complexity simply doesn't work for comics. (Actually since the meaning is the most important part, it doesn't work for a lot of literature either). All of Watchmen's worth doesn't come from the quality of its art. As well as it is drawn it certainly isn't "beautiful". It comes from how it uses art and words together to tell a narrative. This is the imperative of comics.

As for your analogy I am taking a guess in thinking you are trying to say people can enjoy storylines and graphics in videogames? Sure, why not. Hell some games are only good for their graphics(and so on), but then again those games are complete trash.

[Cadsuane]

And there's the pay off

[Meresgi]

There is nothing sophisticated or highbrow about any of those anime shows.



Aesthetically great. Not even close to high brow.

Tell me what the anime Big O was really about. Or the first season of Darker then Black. Samurai Jack was a great cartoon and ahead of its time/behind its time as most cartoons now have just degraded into Bleach/Naruto or Chowder. The fact that Jack didn't even need much dialogue and could portray an entire episode by mere action is enough to say it was sophisticated.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Tell me what the anime Big O was really about. Or the first season of Darker then Black. Samurai Jack was a great cartoon and ahead of its time/behind its time as most cartoons now have just degraded into Bleach/Naruto or Chowder. The fact that Jack didn't even need much dialogue and could portray an entire episode by mere action is enough to say it was sophisticated.

lol I'm not going to watch that shit

Samurai Jack didn't have much of a story to tell. Without a sophisticated story you don't need sophisticated dialogue. It "portrayed an entire episode by mere action" because the entire show was about servicing that action.

And BRP, by using my amazing powers of English Reading, I can tell you, the masterfulness is written as separate from its index of 19.2. The word 'while' is important BRosePh.

[Shade]

There's more to storytelling than the storyline, especially when we're talking about moving pictures. Samurai Jack painted things in broad strokes, allowing the feeling of each scene to carry the story. It's not complicated, but its well designed. There's been a lot of thought put into each shot's composition and use of color, as well as how one shot follows the next.

One of the big failings of popular cartoons or sitcom style shows in general (Family Guy, etc.) is that they don't utilize any of this. The dialogue carries everything; characters stand around and talk at eachother. This is done on purpose, because the people who made it know that viewers are likely to get up and move around during the show, or not be paying attention... they're aiming low. You can probably follow most of an episode without even looking at the screen.

For great dialogue free storytelling see:
The first twenty minutes of Wall-E.
The opening scene to Once Upon a Time in the West.

[Max™]

Wait, can I claim that the nine inch nails remix halo's weren't as popular due to being too smart, rather than being too obscurely complex, and weird?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfPeG1Wd_NM

Uncorrelated noise, or a completely rebuilt deconstruction of Happiness in Slavery, who knows?

[Meresgi]

lol I'm not going to watch that shit

Samurai Jack didn't have much of a story to tell. Without a sophisticated story you don't need sophisticated dialogue. It "portrayed an entire episode by mere action" because the entire show was about servicing that action.

It has as much a story as Odysseus' story had. Most cartoons lack any overall storyarc, it wasn't just the action scenes but the facial expressions of the show that portrayed what was going on more then dialogue could. And what shit arn't you going to watch? Big O or Darker then Black? You have no room to comment on Big O if that's the case, if you're talking about Darker then Black the first season was a great anime, the second season could have been just as good but they decided to fuck over the viewers with more questions the answers and no clues.

[Shade]

Wait, can I claim that the nine inch nails remix halo's weren't as popular due to being too smart, rather than being too obscurely complex, and weird?

[ video ]
Uncorrelated noise, or a completely rebuilt deconstruction of Happiness in Slavery, who knows?

Maybe! My musical "reading level" is not high enough to tell you.

Though if we're talking obscurely complex we should probably pick different films to compare to. Citizen Kane at the very least, which, while technically brilliant and well executed, I found dry as toast and feel no need to ever watch again. Although that still doesn't feel equivalent, because it follows film making rules rather than deconstructing them...

I'm sure there are some comparably crazy art films out there though. Probably not any more enjoyable for most people to watch, but I'm sure people with the right background/context appreciate them.

[Max™]

Just off the top of my head, I can think of references to Jewish mythology, computer in-jokes, the "world in a book" tropes, conflict, self-discovery, redemption, death, rebirth, God, Satan, and whatnot from Big O.

Yes it was hard to figure out what the fuck was going on, but it probably wasn't for the same reason this article mentioned, which I personally don't think is quite accurate. Using big words is one thing, I'd say a better measure is information density. Big O is very densely packed, there's so much shit going on I notice new things each time I catch an episode. Sometimes I get the feeling it is an epic attempt to appear deeper than it really is which succeeded... but I'm never quite sure.

That's a good show, whether you're a fag who hates cartoons or a fag who loves cartoons, if you read the story in a book, you'd be thinking about it later on, and you'd probably reread it later.

As for Samurai Jack, you mad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwcVXilR2fw

[Plow]

I'll just reply to you, because Plow is ineffectual. The author quote continues...



I don't see how this changes what he meant. Basically he is saying it is so "masterful"(suggested by the Gunning-Fog Index) that no one can understand it, and it will never be popular! That is his message for most of the article.

The way Cad explains it sort of makes it sound like the guy isn't talking about its "historical analysis" quality. If that the case then I misunderstood him, but it wasn't unfair to since that's basically exactly what he wrote down there. If he had said "masterly written" or he didn't mention that the rating suggested it to be the "most masterful work of historical analysis" I wouldn't have made the mistake. (Still not convinced though, seems like the reasonable interpretation.)

Again, he did not. You simply failed at comprehending what you were reading.


Here, let me simplify.

Pretend he's talking about a car. Let's say a 69 GTO.

Say he's examining suspension and how it affects handling. He goes into how the suspension is very soft, and the car is relatively high off the ground (for a sports car), as well as being heavy, and not particularly well balanced.

Eventually, he makes this statement:

"This implies that, while it may be one of the best accelerating cars there are, it's not going to handle nearly as well as a modern sports car like a GTR."


Can you grasp that? He's not saying anything at all about what makes it fast, and he's not saying that the suspension tells us it's fast. "It may be one of the best accelerating cars there are," is a presumed understanding between the author and reader going into the article.


In the same way, "Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has a Gunning-Fog Index of 19.2, suggesting that while it may be the most masterful work of historical analysis ever written, most college graduates (16th grade) can't even comprehend it," is using a presumed understanding to stress a point.

He's saying that even if we consider it the greatest work ever, it's at a 19.2 level, meaning it's going to require a masters+ level reading capability to even get it.


This is not complex, and you're making yourself look really dumb by trying to save face on the point.

I don't know if I am being that critical. A lot of what he says I can agree, I basically don't like how he got there. I mean I agree with your summery for the most part.



I am sure if he went into specifics there I would have found something to bash. The way he explained it made it seem like each artform had its own ways of being complex.

lolol... wait a minute... you're saying all art forms have the exact same kinds of complexity?

And then following that up in the next post by explaining how you can't measure complexity in the same ways between even 2 very similar forms?

lol...


The flaw with this system as you're understanding it would be the fact that it doesn't require the same level of intricacy to read as it does to write.

Sure, HDFRE is written at a 19.2 grade level. This means it has extremely expansive vocabulary, near flawless structure, etc. That doesn't necessarily mean it's hard to understand, outside vocabulary issues.


But, that's not what it's gauging. It measures things like average length of sentences, length and complexity of words, and rather the difficulty comes from combined simplicity or raw complexity.


Literally all these systems are designed to do is gauge how hard things are to understand. It's got absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the content, or even, technically, rather the whole thing is readable or a pile of words that don't even form real sentences or actual writing.


You're just obsessed with the idea that quality of X is contained entirely in "measurable" descriptors like complexity and depth.

It's not.