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Bourdieu's theory of taste: a grumbling abrégé (2023)

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Re: Bourdieu's theory of taste: a grumbling abrégé (2023)

#11

Post by [deleted] »

thundergolfer wrote: post #5
BalinKing wrote: post #2

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)…

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 childis…

[deleted]

Re: Bourdieu's theory of taste: a grumbling abrégé (2023)

#12

Post by canjobear »

BalinKing wrote: post #2

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!)

Re: Bourdieu's theory of taste: a grumbling abrégé (2023)

#14

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #13
sfpotter wrote: post #3

He sees through his beer purchases but he doesn't see through his seeing through them.

Meaning what? That true enlightenment is to affirm openly all your likes and dislikes with no care for what anyone else thinks of them?

That's what Virgina Woolf said.

To be highbrow, you can like whatever you like as long as other people don't like it too.

(She didn't say that last part out loud, but it's strongly implied.)

Re: Bourdieu's theory of taste: a grumbling abrégé (2023)

#15

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

thundergolfer wrote: post #9
mordechai9000 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Globe is full of tourists, so it's multibrow at best.

Bourdieu's take was that the working classes like simple sentimental art, the middle classes like aspirational, middlebrow art because they feel they have something to prove, and the upper classes often prefer kitsch.

Although sometimes it's high status middlebrow kitsch, such as a lot of opera and light classical music, which is more sentimental than technical.

Most opera lovers have no idea who Luigi Nono was, and would care less if they did know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joteZTLpHdE

Highbrow art is the exclusive niche domain of intellectuals and academics UNLESS it's been commodified into a Veblen good, like contemporary art.

Re: Bourdieu's theory of taste: a grumbling abrégé (2023)

#16

Post by oa335 »

sfpotter wrote: post #3

He sees through his beer purchases but he doesn't see through his seeing through them.

Did you read the rest of his series? He addresses this in part 3:

> You’ve probably noticed this theory is hard to falsify: You think you’re not playing taste games? You think you “actually like” things because of the properties of those things? That’s because you’re playing higher-level games! And it’s rather convenient that this is all supposed to be unconscious. There’s also this weird sense of guilt. If you consciously change your tastes so you can fit in, that’s bad. If you unconsciously do that, that’s worse. If you unconsciously don’t try to fit in, you’re scum.

Re: Bourdieu's theory of taste: a grumbling abrégé (2023)

#17

Post by ggm »

BalinKing wrote: post #2

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)…

The film is by Peter Weir, who is capable of being quite highbrow. But, it stars Rusty, who is capable of being quite low brow. It depends. Are you not entertained?

The books are a bit highbrow and lowbrow. OBrien did a fantastic highbrow biography of Joseph Banks and another of Picasso, but this series is lowbrow. Not as lowbrow as his translation of "Papillon". He was in his youth feed as a quite highbrow up and coming thing. He wasn't Irish, he was an astute fake who left his first wife and reinvented himself in France under an assumed name he came to personify. John Le Carre is similar.

The books are more highbrow than CS Forester. I upset a Hornblower fan(atic) by averring Bush has a homoerotic fixation on Hornblower.

De gustibus...

Re: Bourdieu's theory of taste: a grumbling abrégé (2023)

#19

Post by jancsika »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #15
thundergolfer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Globe is full of tourists, so it's multibrow at best. Bourdieu's take was that the working classes like simple sentimental art, the middle classes like aspirational, middlebrow art because they feel they have something to prove, and the upper classes often prefer kitsch. Although sometimes it's high status middlebrow kitsch, such as a lot of opera and light classical music, which is more sentimental than technica…

> Although sometimes it's high status middlebrow kitsch, such as a lot of opera and light classical music, which is more sentimental than technical.

Are you sure it's more sentimental than technical? Like, with-your-ears sure?

Note that it took something like 140 years for someone to write a tempo fugue using a piano technique in Chopin's 4th Ballade. That is to say-- sentimental composers are as good at hiding their technique as audiences are at missing it.

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