TV Tropes's preference of entertainment over art

DonZabu

The page for True Art implicitly mocks the concept, and the subpages go even further, painting anything that requires even a moment's intellectual comprehension to appreciate as worthless and dull. Didacticism is openly dismissed, and the general attitude seems to be that anything that even tries to have actual artisticness to it is pretentious swill. You're likely to never see pages dedicated to paintings, even though those are bound to have plenty of tropes to them in their own right. The only page I've seen that even comes close to appreciating a work for its artistic merits is the page for Revolutionary Girl Utena. I'm probably the only one who thinks this is a problem.

GuyInWhite

I personally think that most "interpretations" of art are just people making stuff up.

ClockworkUniverse

The "True Art" pages are more about stuff like people writing something incomprehensible because they think that'll make it "true art."

Trash_Vortex

@DonZabu: Now you mention it, I know what you mean. Probably because my appreciation for art's sort of increased recently, but also I think that's probably one of the things that makes TV Tropes come across as so cynical.

RedEyedAbyss

Works have a tendency to disguise bullshit under the pretence of being deep and meaningful. It's interesting you bring up intellectual comprehension, because it's precisely the application of it that exposes bullshit underneath the artistic-seeming face. Not that the wiki itself is immune to bullshit (in this case, also masquerading as humour).

As for the supposed anti-art attitude, I am biased, but the last people I'd trust to make an artistic judgement are a bunch of teenagers and 20-somethings who aren't even out of school yet. I constantly see posts from such people trying to be "edgy" by claiming some mainstream TV show or video game is more "artistic" than classic literature on the sole merit of liking it better and wanting to add pretentious cred to that. I suppose denying the notion of art itself is overly reactionary, but I strongly dislike psuedo-art (which admittedly is itself a subjective concept).

Glowsquid

don't expect a site that links to Power Rangers on 1500+ page to have highbrow tastes.

Tnophelia

I could fix them. I am artsy. I also plan on fixing the Jersey Shore page, because unlike most of the assholes who edit the page, I actually like the show.

DonZabu

High brow gets a bum rap in general, in my opinion.

Tnophelia

Anything that isn't anime, or first come first serve.

Longfellow

I think lots of Tropers would be happy with high-brow art if it weren't considered high-brow.

Nyktos

Why Power Rangers is inherently inferior to paintings and such?

Why is entertainment value deemed so unworthy as an artistic goal that works which primarily seek it aren't considered to be art at all?

Trash_Vortex

Power Rangers isn't very entertaining, that's why. /serious

Some stuff created solely for entertainment turned out to BE art later, at least in my opinion. Things created for entertainment aren't inferior at all, it all comes down to what they're worth to any individual. (That's what I think anyway). Most "art" as we know it today was probably never made to be that way (see: Shakespeare) , and a lot of stuff that is turns out not to be (see: Avatar)

Tnophelia

Art is the simplest form of entertainment. Which is why people enjoyed looking at cave paintings so much.