The thing about media analysis is that yes, things really can be that deep even if the artist didn’t put the thought into it intentionally.
Little cultural references, personal artist quirks, broad societal influences, unacknowledged biases…there are countless things in a piece of media that can betray subconscious beliefs and values held by the artist, even if the artist wasn’t doing it on purpose. Even bad art can be picked apart for its themes, even shallow art can reflect something about the world and the person viewing it.
Any given piece of art has the potential to be however deep you’re willing to dig for it, even if the artist didn’t dig that deep on their own.
this is true, however we will still clown on the school system for asking why the curtains were blue
You have badly misunderstood both the point of this post and the point of discussing why the curtains were blue.
You’ve also picked the wrong person’s post on which to be a snarky little shit about literary analysis, because my current field of work is built on discussing the curtains and why they’re blue.
Once again, my blog header is relevant:
[Image description: An edited screenshot of Squidward Tentacles from SpongeBob SquarePants. In the show his dialogue is, “We serve food here, sir,” but this version is captioned with, “We analyze media here, sir.” End description.]
Maybe the curtains were blue because it symbolizes something. Maybe the curtains were blue for no real reason. The point of discussing the curtains is to teach you how to analyze media, and how to decide whether the color of the curtains is important. You are being taught to think critically about details, their relevance, and their possible significance. You are being taught to research curtains, blueness, and whether curtains being blue has some greater meaning you hadn’t previously considered. You are being taught to learn other perspectives about what it means for something to be a curtain, or to be blue. Did you know that the color blue isn’t even universal?
If you weren’t taught all of this, you should have been, and it really sucks that you weren’t. Because you need to know how to tell when the curtains are just blue, and when the curtains mean something deeper. You need to know how to tell when the curtains are blue even when someone really, really wants you to believe that the curtains are green. You need to know how to tell when the color of the curtains doesn’t matter because it’s only being used to obstruct a different detail. You need to know how to tell when the curtains aren’t blue, actually–they’re polka-dot.
These skills apply to art, but they also apply to news media and propaganda. You need to know how to tell when the curtains are being used to cover up injustice. You need to know how to tell when the curtains are blue because blue is a dogwhistle. You need to know how to tell when the curtains are bright neon blue because the propagandist wants you to focus on that while ignoring the pile of dead bodies in the corner.
But, to go back to the entire point of my original post:
Sometimes in a piece of art, the artist didn’t make the curtains blue for any particular reason, but it’s still fun, interesting, and mentally stimulating to discuss, hey…what if, hypothetically,the curtains were blue for a reason? Would it change anything? Would it add anything? Is it possible the curtains are blue because the author is subconsciously biased against yellow? Could they be blue because blue was really, really popular the year the art was made, and is thus part of a broader cultural trend? What if everything was the same, but the curtains were orange?
Being able to discuss whether the curtains are blue, and if there’s a reason for them being blue, is an important part of general media literacy. You may not care why the curtains are blue, but that doesn’t stop the blue from meaning something.
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