Pop-Culture Partisanship

Alyssa has grown tired of it:

As we have become more comfortable discussing the politics of culture, our discussions of art have become a lot more like our discussions of politics. We treat people whose interpretations differ from our own as if they are acting in bad faith. We focus on gaffes and supposed gaffes. And we demand that significant figures in cultural commentary have something to say about every big event so we can check their reactions against our sense of what they ought to feel to remain in good standing. …

The idea that enjoyment is tainted by argument shows up over and over again in our cultural conversations. There are fans of “Game of Thrones” who apparently cannot tolerate the idea that a show that ranges so broadly might not show the same deftness in all aspects of its production that it demonstrates when it is at its best. I regularly hear from readers of comic books who insist that the only way to judge superhero movies is to read them against their source material, which would surely change my feelings about the execution of a storyline or two. When I state an opinion – that the second paintball episode of the cult sitcom “Community” did not engage me as much as the first – that critical judgement is taken in some quarters as an error of fact.