Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Quote-Unquote

''I think it's like a cultural slur. When someone is from outside a culture, they'll say "all that music sounds alike," or "all those people from that culture LOOK alike," because they're not tuned in to all those subtleties. To a lot of people blues all sounds alike. I'm not tuned into the subtleties of reggae. I know there's a lot of it there, but it's just not my world. Or hip-hop. It's just all different for different people, and they should at least acknowledge that maybe they just don't know instead of criticizing. Maybe it's better just to back off and say "I don't know that."
-Poison Ivy Rorschach.

I like this point. I've noticed the same thing. People will say that all country music sounds the same, or all science fiction is the same, or all horror movies are the same- because they're not familiar with the genres. I'm trying to get better at saying 'I don't know that' whenever it applies.

3 comments:

Holly said...

How strange, that admitting you don't know a thing is unpopular in a world where cultivating ignorance is actually pretty popular. Go figure.

And, to be fair, there are loads of formulaic genre examples out there. There IS all-the-same reggae, or sci fi, or whatever. Because recognizing the fundamental components of a genre is a good step in knowing which genre to participate in, as a creator. But sometimes that's the only step taken... so there really is generic genre.

About people though... that's crap. People so rarely look alike, this is one of the reasons twins are so fascinating.

Greg von Winckel said...

You look alike and you're not even a twin or any of those thing that end with -let, such as a quadruplet or epaulet.

Anonymous said...

That's when you share your shoulders with a sibling?