this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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Art is cool and taking art seriously is cool, this post is just anti-intellectualism of which we certainly don't need any more
I don't think what theyre talking about is anti-intetellectual at all. They're talking about the commodification of "taste." They're talking about the affectation of being intellectual about film, as opposed to the genuine affection for the art of film.
I saw a meme once that really resonated with me about this, it went something like this -
Person who's seen 100 films: 2001 a Space Odyssey is the greatest film, it opened my eyes to what film can be etc.
Person who's seen 1000 films: you really need to get on this Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengence.
The idea isn't that people shouldn't watch film seriously and enjoy it seriously. Art deserves that, and its fun to engage with art that way, as you said. But the performitive "taking art seriously" is not people opening themselves up and embracing art or building their own taste or ideas about it as a medium. They're cutting themselves off by believing that there's "correct" films to watch and "correct" opinions to have about them.
My proper non-bit thoughts on this are that the same thing is happening to movie fans as it is with video game fans desperately clammering and overcompensating to be considered one of the big boys of art (though to a lesser degree). Film is an art form but terms like "cinephile" are just ridiculous, when did you last hear an avid reader call themself a "literatophile" or a lover of paintings all themselves a "paintophile"?
The increasing approach to the enjoyment of art as if it's an identity, combined with all these checklists of the most important films to see "to be a cinephile" has led us to a point where there's a million people who've seen almost all the (easier) films on the list and have a familiarity with the single most popular film of an art movement / genre and might not even know the names of more than a couple of its bedfellows, it's a symptom of trying to fill out letterboxd lists and get the green completion bar rather than organically engaging with the number 1 film because of name recognition, then checking out a load of other films by director and their contemporaries.
I was being a bit hyperbolic with my example of a film to watch, but i was mainly referring to like all the corbucci films that arent quite django or the great silence but are still a blast like navajo joe, specialists, or hellraisers - they're like perfect examples of good, well made films that are really enjoyable but barely anybody watches them bcs they're not the absolute peak of their genre. The point is to learn to engage with art for the reason of loving art (even if its not the absolute peak of human creation), not for conferring the label of "high brow art appreciator" to the viewer.
Bibliophile is what book lovers call themselves. I’m not sure about painting, but it’s probably also something in Latin or Greek.
What repulses me is that these social identity things are actually intrinsic to our psychology and are pretty much what healthy humans do naturally, but while the impulse is natural, the mechanics and focal points around which groups form is, I think, mostly inorganic and the product of marketing and consumer culture.
Not to just boil it down to a low brow critique of the "consoomer" but it feels like I'm seeing people being exploited for their money but are paying with their minds and sense of self and belonging.
Mind you, this pursuit of social identity is, in my opinion, orthogonal to a genuine pursuit of a love of art. Possibly antithetical. So this consumption of media commodities (encouraged by capitalism and exploiting the social identity drive) is actually wearing the skin and appropriating the symbols of art appreciation, but it's a obviously not the authentic thing.
Ehh, sometimes candy does not hold up to review