Hey everyone, pokematic here with another installment of "why I hate lit analysis class." This time it's after I watched "it's not that deep, blue curtains, and the death of critical thinking." Well, half of it because it just got too frustrating and it basically kept going back to the same points of "but looking for deeper meaning is a good thing, you're a pleb if you can only enjoy media at a surface level." I'll summarize the points, you can find them if you want.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the meme, here is one variant.
Basically it's a criticism of over analyzing the meaning of a detail of a written work and your teacher telling you "this is what the author truly means by the curtains being blue," when it doesn't seem all that deep. The first time I saw this meme it resonated with me so much because I absolutely hated "what did the author mean in this symbol" and I never saw any deeper meaning, which meant that I didn't get a good grade "because I wasn't paying attention enough," and every time I had it explained I'm like "are we reading the same book?"
The first criticism this video levy's against the blue curtains meme is "this isn't even based on a real example, I looked hard and couldn't find one, if this is such a problem with lit analysis you should be able to give a real example, how can I tell what this is actually about if I don't know what the context is." Well now, isn't this ironic, the lit analysis guy who is all about "what does the author mean" can't interpret what the author of this meme means. The author of the meme uses blue curtains to represent ANY seemingly mundane detail that lit teachers fixate on and write entire lessons around. It's a symbol that anyone familiar with lit analysis classes would be able to pick up on. But you want a real example, Holden's red hunting hat. I'm from a region where hunting is pretty common so I'm familiar with the clothing, and hunting hats basically come in either red, orange, or yellow because hunters need to make themselves visible to other hunters; sometimes a more earthy tone for camouflage, but normally it's one of those bright colors I listed. Sure, one could argue that there is a reason Salinger specifies "RED hunting hat" instead of just "hunting hat," but given how the hat is just kind of the only time red is ever brought up (it's not like "red is my favorite color" or "I like this other red article of clothing," or "he was also wearing red," or anything like that to where red would seem to have a real significance to Holden), someone not as invested in the work is going to say "I dunno, hunting hats tend to be red" and then say "how in the world did you get that from 'the hunting hat is red.'" Taking a step back, one might even say "but why was it a hunting hat as opposed to something else." Again, because I'm from an area that has a winter climate similar to New York, where everyone wears clothes like that in the winter, my first thought was "New York is stupid cold in the winter and a hunting hat keeps you warm," and when asked "but what are the times he wears it and when he doesn't," yes one can point out that he wears it when he's alone and it's a security blanket, but Occam's Razor says "he's wearing it when he's outside in the New York winter, he's trying not to freeze to death, just like me when I or anyone around me wears their hunting hat in the winter." This is what "blue curtains" means and what people think about with "so true, upvote."
The next big thing is "what's the context of the blue curtains, that explains the reason for it's importance." In my experience there are 2 ways this can generally play out, first is "missing the forest for the trees." Allow me to write you an example passage for "blue curtains." The reading is as follows.
Jack stormed in from the long day of being berated at work. His boss is a total twit who just couldn't help himself from micromanaging and criticizing everything Jack did. Just looking for some peace and rest, he went to the kitchen for a beer. Just then, Margaret [his wife] came in on one of her usual nag sessions. "Jack the sink is still leaking, I told you to call the plumber or fix it a million times already, why is it still leaking. We also got a call from the telephone company, we're late on the bill and they're going to shut off service in 2 days. You know my mother wouldn't let my father get away with how much of a lazy bum you are. You just go off to your little so called job every day where I bet you don't do anything at all...." Jack tried to drown it out with a sip from his beer, but Margaret wasn't having that. She swatted the beer out of Jacks hand and it spilled on the blue curtains. At that point, Jack snapped. He looked dead eye at Margaret as she nagged "oh look what you made me do, you'd better clean that up mister before-" CRACK! Jack couldn't take any more abuse, and punched Margaret in the head as hard as he could. Margaret then went limp and fell to the ground. Once Jack had realized what he had done, he got down and tried to get Margaret to wake up. "Marge, Margie, honey bun, wake up, come on wake up darling." It was no use, that punch of pent up rage had shattered Margaret's skull and sent bone fragments into her spinal cord, she was dead. In a panic Jack started trying to figure out what to do. "I could confess and plead insanity, no they'll never believe me, I just have to hide the body, yeah that's it, drive her far away and burry it, no that's not enough someone will find it, maybe take it to bear country and try to make it look like an animal attack, yeah that'll work." So Jack grabbed the bed sheet from their bedroom, wrapped Margaret up in it, and headed off to bear country."
Pretty intense stuff, a lot is happening there. You have an otherwise good man pushed too far where he commits murder, and now he tries to cover it up. Oh man, what will the assignment about the reading be in class the next day; how when someone is denied their last coping mechanism that's the last straw, how even good people have their limits, how Jack is probably self medicating with alcohol instead of facing his problems. None of the above, the assignment the next day is "what is the significance of the curtains being blue," to which I and others like me who enjoy the meme would say "there were blue curtains!?" Like, sure on reread after knowing what happens one could say "the staining of the calm color that is blue is symbolic of Jack no longer being calm," but when you have 3 hours of other homework assignments on top of everything else you have to do after school, it's perfectly reasonable to say "are we just going to gloss over the fact that Jack killed his wife, because that's all I got from this?"
"Are you saying that kind of thing happens" yes I am, 100%. In 10th grade we were given a choice between like 8 quotes from Julius Caesar to write a paper on and how they're significant to the overall story, and from my perspective none of them had much of anything to do with conspiracy for political assassination, loyalty and betrayal, and the confusion between justice and revenge (you know, the main themes in Julius Caesar). I ended up picking the one about Julius saying "give my wife the fertility touch" because I thought I could somehow link that back to "he was right to be suspicious of danger," but it ended up being a pretty terrible paper. Why not "et tu brute," or one of the lines about Portia stabbing her thigh as a sign of devotion, or "hang him for his poems" or anything else that is actually really significant to the overall story? That line is mostly there to set-up Caesar as a little bit of a jerk ("hey everyone, my wife can't do the one thing women are good at" sort of a thing), but it's not exactly make or break in terms of the overall story. In 11th grade every "reading comprehension" assignment to make sure you read the assigned section from the last class was "here's a seemingly insignificant line, explain the meaning" and I'm like "I don't even remember reading that, I don't know the context of it." It got so bad that I was conditioned to read everything with the paranoia of "is this going to be the line, or is this going to be the line" to where I was missing the actual point of the chapters because I was so worried about not remembering a specific line that seemed not super important. It was so bad that when I read Tom Sawyer for my summer reading assignment between 11th and 12th grade, and during the climax when Tom's kite string broke my brain said "seemingly mundane detail, this is the important thing, lock it in memory" to the point where I don't even remember the climax of Tom Sawyer all that well and what was going on, because I spent a year where all it was was "it's the brush strokes not the big picture."
Slight tangent, the assignment for the 12th grade summer reading was "and how did the book you read make you want to be more like the characters in the book," because I guess the main theme from all the options was "coming of age." I was like "it...didn't, it was an entertaining story about a turn of the century southern boy getting into mischief and not ruining his life through sheer dumb luck, and if I as an almost legal adult model my life around him in any way I have serious problems." I then wrote my report on why Tom is an idiot not to be emulated, and did as well as one can do when basically saying "this prompt is stupid, here's why I'm not answering it."
The second way this plays out is "I don't care about the stupid symbols because I don't care about the book." A lot of the books we read were dull as a bowling ball and dry as a new kitchen sponge to where reading them was an absolute slog, and the symbolism came off as a desperate attempt to make a stupid book more interesting. Here's the blue curtains in this contest.
It's 6 AM, the buzzing of the alarm pulls me from my slumber. I'm greeted by my blue curtains like I am every morning. I pull myself out of bed and shower. The water starts out cold but gradually gets warm enough to tolerate. Once I'm clean I dry myself off with my navy towel before going out to the kitchen to have my poptarts. I watch an episode of home renovators on the DIY channel like I do every morning. It's one I've seen a million times but it's a good one. I put on my Burger Hut uniform and drive to Burger Hut. I clock in on time, no one notices my punctuality. "Man the grill" I tell myself, it makes it sound more interesting. I get a fresh set of 20 patties going, no orders yet but they'll be coming soon and we need to be ready in the warming tray. "Sizzle sizzle sputter" as they sing their song of cooking. Time to flip, and flip I do; nothing fancy, just a simple "up and down." We got some orders, 6 double cheese burgers and 6 single burgers. It's a good thing I made 20 because that used up 18 of them. After my shift at Burger Hut I come home and shower a day's worth of grease off, this time drying off with my brown towel. For dinner I have spaghetti as I watch some more of the DIY channel. It's now time to go to bed. I brush my teeth and before I drift away to dream land I say goodnight to my blue curtains.
Additional context, this except is from a book written in the 1970s when interior design was becoming a career option. The blue curtains symbolize the author's depression and desire to be an interior designer as showcased by always watching the DIY channel, and how color is only ever mentioned for interior decorating. Sure, it's full of symbolism and not just the blue curtains (the navy towel like the blue curtains is also depression, whereas the brown towel is the grease of the Burger Hut). But here's the problem, nothing of substance is happening. "I work a boring job and subtly dream of doing more," who cares? "This was a new concept in the 1970s," well it's not the 1970s anymore, interior design is a well known industry with no real barrier to entry, do more than just hang some curtains, go thrifting or to IKEA or go on pintrest to see how people do creative things with garbage. I don't want to hear about someone's boring life because if I wanted that I could just look in the mirror.
"Did that really happen though," again yes, 100%. I didn't like The Great Gatsby. At first I thought I was "just missing the forest for the trees, because all we do is talk about that stupid green light," and got kind of excited to watch the 2013 adaptation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby Maguire earlier this year "because maybe now I can see what the big deal is." All it was was rich people tabloid nonsense. Gatsby is a newly rich person who wants the love of a gold digging woman who married old money, and the "love triangle" and "prejudice of rich people with other rich people," and nothing that I care about. Yes, I now see the importance of the green light (it's Gatsby's longing and inability to have Daisy), but it's in a story that I have absolutely no interest in; if I don't care about actual rich people and their drama, why would I care about fictional rich people with the same drama? Same thing with Catcher in the Rye; sure there's a lot of symbolism and such in it, but it's a story about a spoiled rich kid who flunked out of a prep school bumming around New York for a couple days completely oblivious to the fact that HE is the problem. Like, if I don't care that Gatsby is lusting over Daisy but Daisy is a married woman, why then would I be interested in the deeper meaning of Gatsby reaching for the green light and not being able to grab it representing that unobtainable lust? Or if I don't care about the self inflicted problems Holden causes for himself, why would I care about the meaning of the ducks? Click here to learn more about my Catcher in the Rye thoughts, and here for my Great Gatsby thoughts.
Here's where the frustration REALLY comes in, rarely if ever was it "it's an interesting story and the symbols amplify it." Symbolism is a spice, like garlic powder, and it was always "a bad dish where the cook tries to cover it up with garlic powder" or "there's a hint of garlic, but why are we not talking about the seer or cut?" I'm going to blend the stories to basically what would be a good use of symbols in the classroom setting.
Jack sulked in from another soul crushing day at Burger Hut. His boss didn't appreciate the extra effort he put into crafting the burgers, saying it took too long and if he does it again he's fired. As much as Jack would love to quit that job and do something with his life, he just can't do that because he's already struggling as is; the phone bill is overdue, the rent is late, dinner is always spaghetti because that's all he can afford, and overall he just can't get past his life. At least for now the day is over and he can watch the DIY channel next to the blue curtains he installed 4 years ago. Unfortunately, Margaret had other plans. Just as Jack was about to settle in for a night of DIY shows with a beer, Margaret got between him and his chair to berate him. "Jack the sink is still leaking, I told you to call the plumber or fix it a million times already, why is it still leaking. We also got a call from the telephone company, we're late on the bill and they're going to shut off service in 2 days. You know my mother wouldn't let my father get away with how much of a lazy bum you are. You just go off to your little so called job every day where I bet you don't do anything at all...." In an effort to drown it out, Jack began to take a sip of his beer. Margaret wasn't having any of that, she knocked the beer out of his hands and put a big brown stain on his blue curtains. "Oh look what you made me do, you'd better clean that up mister before-" CRACK! Jack punched Margaret in the head just as hard as he could. He could take the lack of appreciation at his dead end job, he could take the nagging from his wife, but he couldn't bear anyone hurting his blue curtains. Once Jack had realized what he had done, he got down and tried to get Margaret to wake up. "Marge, Margie, honey bun, wake up, come on wake up darling." It was no use, that punch of pent up rage had shattered Margaret's skull and sent bone fragments into her spinal cord, she was dead. In a panic Jack started trying to figure out what to do. "I could confess and plead insanity, no they'll never believe me, I just have to hide the body, yeah that's it, drive her far away and burry it, no that's not enough someone will find it, maybe take it to bear country and try to make it look like an animal attack, yeah that'll work." So Jack grabbed the bed sheet from their bedroom, wrapped Margaret up in it, and headed off to bear country."
Why do I say that this works when the others don't? Because there's actually stuff happening and it's pretty clear that this is important. In the first example the blue curtains are a blink and you miss it detail, where in this one it's a recurring theme, one that is pretty clearly centered on Jack wanting to be an interior designer as seen by his love of the DIY channel and his prized blue curtains, which them being blue emphasizes his dislike for his role in life, and the spilling of the beer in changing the color of the curtains shows how his entire perspective changed just enough to cause him to do a terrible thing. Then there's the fact that something of substance happens, a heat of the moment murder, and like his curtains now being changed forever thanks to the beer stain, Jack's life is changed forever thanks to his hot blooded killing. This isn't boring like the wanna-be interior designer describing her dull day at the burger restaurant and nightly routine. Even if someone isn't super media literate, it's obvious that the blue curtains are pretty important.
"So what are some real world examples of this," I'm going to do the unthinkable and give you examples from "simple media." When watching The Big Bang Theory, have you ever paid attention to Sheldon's shirt color? Have you ever noticed that in episodes where Sheldon is angry he's wearing red, and when he's scared he's wearing yellow, and when he's determined he's wearing green, and other colors depending on what his story is? That's not by accident, the costume department picks Sheldon's shirt color to line up with the meaning from the Green Lantern color variations. As a fan of The Big Bang Theory, I find that detail pretty neat and look for it when watching episodes. There's also the episode of We Bear Bears where Griz becomes over protective of a foil wrapped burrito, where the burrito is his friend that he hugs and wants to be close to, to the detriment of everyone else as the burrito goes bad after being "left out" for days. All the while we as the viewer are wondering "why is Griz so attached to this burrito, I gotta know why," and it's revealed at the end of the episode that when he was a cub he got stuck in a tree, and a firefighter with a foil like material on his fire coat came and rescued him. The burrito is a symbol of security, and when that security is threatened he gets defensive, and as a fan of We Bear Bears I find that back story interesting. You might be saying "but I don't like The Big Bang Theory or We Bear Bears, I find it boring and low brow," congratulations, you now know how I and others like me feel about The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye among other books. The difference is I'm not forcing you to watch these shows while telling you "this is some of the greatest works ever made."
Another criticism of symbolism and the books from English class is how dated they are and the level of external knowledge one must have to "truly appreciate the writing." A good example here is Animal Farm and The Crucible, 2 books that are all about communism, the communist revolution, and the climate of the time. Animal Farm in particular REALLY needed one to be knowledgeable about the Russian communist revolution for it to make sense. Old Major is Marx, Napoleon is Lenin, the animals are the citizens, the pigs are the party leaders, and the slow decent of "the people's party" becoming just as bad as the corrupt leaders they overthrew. This isn't to say Animal Farm is a bad story, but it doesn't really "stand on it's own 4 legs" if you catch my drift. Without knowing about Russian communism, it's just a weird fantasy book about talking farm animals, and you don't really know why the animals put up with the hypocrisy except for the fact that they're dumb animals. Then, as much as it pains me to say something positive about the pinko rag that makes you sympathize with a sex offender who if he just kept it in his pants none of this would have happened, at least The Crucible can stand on it's own as an interpretation of the Salem Witch Trials and hysteria of mob rule, and one doesn't NEED to know about the red scare to be able to understand it. It's the difference between the Mel Brooks style of spoof writing and the Friedberg-Seltzer style of spoof writing. Mel Brooks writes his references so that if you aren't familiar with the source it still works but is much better if you know the source; when Lone Star and crew meet Yogurt for the first time and it's this big imposing talking statue that then is revealed to be a little man with a golden face, on a surface level it's funny because of the absurdity and contrast, but if you know the wizard of oz you'll recognize that it's a nod to when Dorothy and crew meet the wizard and the reveal of the man behind the curtain. Friedberg-Seltzer on the other hand write their references so that you must be familiar with the source or else it won't make sense; there is nothing inherently funny about young women physically fighting each other to the death over if Edward or Jacob is better, but if you're very familiar with the Twilight fandom and know how rabid the rivalry between Team Edward and Team Jacob is, you'll find that hilarious. A lot of books that we read seemed to require a large amount of seemingly unrelated background knowledge to understand the Friedberg-Seltzer level symbolism, maybe not a lot of the time in reality but a lot of the time we had to do a bunch of background learning about "this is the culture of the time, this is what the book is referencing, pay attention because you're expected to talk about it like you know all of this."
Now for the kicker, the part where the pro-deeper meaning people always admit the problem without recognizing the problem. Every single time they always say something to the effect of "if you had a good English Lit teacher like I had, you'd know the value of finding the symbolism and the joy that thinking critically about a work can bring." Say that first part again, "if you had a good English Lit teacher," what if I didn't? What if my English teachers found a way to suck all the fun out of reading and story telling? What if all we ever did was talk about symbols and the current events of the time the book was written, and never about character arcs and seen setting among other basic elements of a story? What if we had teachers that said "this author is a genius because he breaks all the writing rules, now here are the rules for your paper and if you deviate from them you're going to get a bad grade?" What if I didn't know how to articulate why something seemed bad in media until I started watching the Nostalgia Critic in college where he said "here's a poorly written action, at no point until now was there any hint that the character had these feelings, and now they're coming out of nowhere like it was always there to begin with?" You question why we can't articulate our displeasure for finding deeper meaning, has it ever occurred to you that we were never TAUGHT how to articulate our displeasures because all we were ever told was "you're wrong, this book is good because I say it's good, now repeat after me or else you fail the class?" Because guess what, a lot of us had lit teachers like that. If someone was regularly attacked by their aunt's dog when they were young and that's the only dog they've ever really known, then as an adult when they say "I don't like dogs, they just want to attack me" are you going to condescendingly say "if you had a good dog like mine you would recognize that dogs are great animals" while implying that there's something wrong with them? Because that's how you come off when you dismiss our dislike for finding deeper meaning in a work of fiction. "It's not that deep, the curtains are just blue, stop trying to ruin my enjoyment with your school stuff" is the best way they can articulate their dislike with media analysis because they were never taught how to explain their feelings due to basically an abusive feedback loop. You keep asking "why won't Johnny read," but did you ever stop to ask if Johnny can read or what caused Johnny to hate reading?
Once again, I've made the 16 year old kid who started a youtube channel in his parent's dining room happy as I've said the things he wishes he could say. I have been making online content where I speak my mind for 16 years now, you can go through my archive and find cringy videos of me trying to explain my frustrations but not really being able to because I didn't know how to explain myself since I never saw anyone explain themselves like how I wanted to. The original english class rant I made back when I was still in high school got lost when dailymotion deleted my account, but it was the whole "the curtains are blue, I don't get why it has to mean more" without explaining it like I have here, because I didn't know why I was so frustrated since I didn't have the comparisons to pull from. It also deeply inspired my own writing. When I was a junior I wrote a spoof of the crucible, and it was the Friedberg-Seltzer style of reference comedy of "it's funny because of this other thing" because all I knew was "because of this other thing." It wasn't until I was 29 and had learned "what is good writing" from the likes of Nostalgia Critic did I revisit the story and say "the idea is good, but the execution is terrible, the so called jokes only make sense if you know the thing I'm referencing, how about I make this more subtle, make this more exaggerated, change this so it makes enough sense on its own but is better if you know the reference," and thus The Forge as it is published today came to be. I also recently made a video on the Great Gatsby and why I think it's boring, a video I wish I could have made when I was in high school but didn't know the words for it. So please, have a little compassion for the people who say "the curtains were just blue" and don't want to look further into it. Chances are, they were never allowed to enjoy media just for surface entertainment. I know they can be a bit brash in saying "it's not that deep," but chances are it's because they were forced to drown back in school and as such they have a strong aversion to depth. And if you'd like to know more about why I hated lit analysis class, you can always check out my Mona Lisa Smile Review, AKA Why I Hate Lit Analysis Class. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Oh, and here's a little video about why I still care 16 years later.
