Judging All Art by the Standards of Twentieth-Century Realism Was Never Insightful (and Is No Longer Funny)

First, some examples, all of which I’ve encountered in the last twenty years:

• The scene in Friday the 13th where [spoiler alert] Kevin Bacon is stabbed from underneath the bed is ridiculous because the killer would have had to spend hours and hours waiting for him there. Um, even serial killers need to use the bathroom, lol.

• Jafar is the good guy in Aladdin. The Sultan lives in a palace and plays with trinkets while his people are mired in poverty. Aladdin uses his wishes to trick Princess Jasmine into loving him. But Jafar wishes to become Sultan. He has to wish for it! The outdated, classist laws dictate he can’t hold power! He was probably going to use his wishes to solve all of Agrabah’s problems!

• A cottage made of candy would be terrible bait for children because it would quickly deteriorate due to weather and pests. Candy canes aren’t load-bearing, ya’ dum-dum.

• Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything… is a total creep. Everyone thinks that famous boombox scene is romantic, but it’s actually harassment. Guy’s practically a stalker.

• As a matter of fact, all male characters from all romantic comedies are creeps. That guy with the cue cards at the end of Love, Actually? Keira Knightly is married to your best friend, dude. Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire? “You complete me,” is an obvious sign of codependency. Richard Gere in Pretty Woman? Ummm, pretty sure there are some fucked up power dynamics between a wealthy businessman and a prostitute. Heck, it’s not even limited to men. Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding is a narcissist. Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a gas-lighter. Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping is a rape culture-er.

I call this phenomenon “judging all art by the standards of twentieth century realism.” The earliest example I know is from the 1994 movie Clerks, where Randal argues the Rebel Alliance wasn’t morally justified in blowing up the second Death Star because building such a massive object so quickly must have required independent contractors—you know, “plumbers, aluminum-siders, roofers”:

By 1998 we have this classic Wizard of Oz listing from Rick Polito:

And by 2001 Donnie Darko is pontificating on the sex lives of smurfs:

But my impression is that the phenomenon got supercharged in 2010s with the rise of Cracked. To see why, look no further than their video series “After Hours,” which ran from 2010 to 2017. Here are some typical episodes:

• “Why ‘Back to the Future’ Is Secretly Horrifying”

• “5 Classic Movie High Schools That Would Suck to Attend”

• “Why The Harry Potter Universe Is Secretly Terrifying”

• “Why Star Wars Is Terrifying for Women”

• “Why Batman Is Secretly Terrible for Gotham”

• “Why Mario is Secretly a Douchebag”

• “The 6 Most Unintentionally Creepy Sitcom Characters”

• “3 Popular Children’s Characters Who Secretly Hate Animals”

• “Why Indiana Jones Secretly Sucks at His Job”

• “5 Reasons James Bond Might Be the Worst Spy Ever”

You get the picture. The only caveat—and this is massively important—is that Clerks, that Rick Polito description, Donnie Darko, and classic Cracked¹ are all fucking hilarious. Especially classic Cracked. Good God did I love that site. For roughly a decade it was the first thing I read every day, and more than a few articles are permanently lodged in my brain.

That’s the thing about a shtick: if you do it well, it doesn’t matter that it’s a shtick.

But I think the joke has run its course. It just feels pedantic now. I mean, it was always pedantic, but it just feels tired and humorless and silly now too.

And much less forgivable is believing this sort of analysis is actually insightful. I swear some psychic message went out to every college professor around the year 2000 saying, “All students must write an essay arguing Romeo and Juliet aren’t really in love.”² And it’s an easy essay to write! They’re teenagers. Romeo was just “in love” with Rosaline. Families getting along is really important in relationships.

My response to those arguments is to point out that the first time Romeo and Juliet meet, their dialogue creates an English sonnet:

ROMEO
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray—grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.

I don’t know, call me crazy, but if your characters co-create an English sonnet when talking, I have a sneaking suspicion we’re not in a Raymond Carver story. In real life this is probably not a case of true love. But in real life people don’t speak in sonnets! This isn’t real life!

I guess my own reaction can also be taken too far. You don’t just get to say “Sorry, genre convention” whenever someone calls out an issue in your writing. But characters and events exist within a genre, and those genres have rules. You can play with those rules, subvert them or intermix them or bend them, but you can’t throw them out just because they’re different than the rules of real life and realism. Cottages can be made out of candy, smurfs don’t have sex, and romantic comedies are romantic.

…Jafar might have been the good guy, though.

1. From it’s launch is 2005 to the exit of founder Jack O’Brien in 2017.

2. That’s one of the problems with college professors, by the way. You can’t get tenure arguing Romeo loves Juliet or Huckleberry Finn is anti-racist or The Great Gatsby is about the American dream, so you write an essay claiming Romeo doesn’t love Juliet or Huck and Jim are secretly boning or Nick is in love with Gatsby. It’s a classic perverse incentive.