The Most Popular Way to Watch a TV Show Is Wrong
What does C.S. Lewis say about art and criticism? Part 2
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In An Experiment on Criticism, C.S. Lewis describes how we can engage with a work of art, including a movie or TV show. Last week, we were clear that you always have the prerogative of not watching or engaging, but in doing so you forfeit the ability to criticize (or champion) the work.
Once we do engage, Lewis says we have two options: receive or use. Those who receive the art do so according to the artist’s intentions, while those who use view the art as a tool for their own interests.
While the user of a show has more standing to critique than the one who has not watched, Lewis still says that “we must receive it first and then evaluate it. Otherwise, we have nothing to evaluate.” Proper evaluation depends on receiving.
With that in mind, let’s answer two questions. If, as Lewis argues, most people engage with art by using it, why is that the case? And if it is so prevalent, why should we try to avoid it?
What makes using popular?
If you’ve heard or read people discussing art, they were probably using the art. In Lewis’ mind, it is the wide path that many travel. In one sense this is a natural reaction to watching a show. You filter it through your experiences and how it speaks to you.
“It is very natural that when we have gone through the ordered movements which a great play or narrative excites in us—when we have danced that dance or enacted that ritual or submitted to that patter—it should suggest to us many interesting reflections,” Lewis writes.
Those reflections aren’t wrong in and of themselves. Often, when I “review” a movie or a show, I’ll instead call it a reflection because I’m not reviewing the work based on its inherent worth. Rather, I’m sharing how this work reveals or rejects some truth about God and His creation. That revelation may often exist without the knowledge or intent of the artist, so I’m using their art to speak to something else.
When we do that, we should be careful about what we credit to (or blame on) the artist. Lewis says, “We may thank Shakespeare or Dante for that muscle, but we had better not father on them the philosophical or ethical use we make of it.”
Often, however, that’s what happens and what generates additional engagement. To put it into our time, clickbait works. People would rather watch or read some rant about the message behind a movie than a balanced engagement with the work. We father on the artists the ethical points we derive from their art.
But when it comes to engaging with art, extreme opinions dominate the conversation. In this way, writers and YouTubers quite literally use art. They use what’s on the screen to build their own platform.
Unfortunately, we can see how the two ideological extremes operate in a dysfunctional symbiotic relationship. Both can only use art. The far left and far right, be they creators or critics, view art merely based on the type of lesson it teaches. Creators only want to develop a show if they can use it as a vehicle to advance their agenda. Critics only want to talk about a show in terms of whether or not it agrees with their perspective.
If most viewers and commentators only want to use art, why should we seek to be any different?
Why should we try to avoid using?
For starters, we mistreat the artist and their art when we use it. “To formulate it as a philosophy and regard the actual play as primarily a vehicle for that philosophy is an outrage to the thing the poet has made for us,” Lewis says.
The Golden Rule also applies to how we treat art. If we created something, how would we like people to engage with it? That doesn’t mean there can never be pointed criticism. But we’d want others to engage fairly and avoid reading into our art something that wasn’t there.
For Lewis, however, the primary reason we shouldn’t use art is that we cheat ourselves. Those who use “rush hastily forward to do things with the work of art instead of waiting for it to do something to them.” Users are like the people who never really hear what you’re saying because they’re just waiting to talk. They aren’t listening; they’re only concerned with sharing their thoughts.
When we treat art merely as a vehicle to share our opinions, we miss out on any potential growth that could happen. “We are too busy doing things with the work that we give it too little chance to work on us,” Lewis says. “Thus increasingly we meet only ourselves. But one of the chief operations of art is to remove our gaze from that mirrored face, to deliver us from that solitude.”
One of the chief operations of art is to remove our gaze from that mirrored face, to deliver us from that solitude. — C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism
Engaging with something made by someone different from myself is why Lewis says we receive art. Only in that way can we see through the eyes of others. That doesn’t mean we necessarily agree with those eyes, but we can gain new insight into how someone else views the world.
We may leave that interaction more convinced of our perspective after finding a new deficiency in the viewpoint of others. Or we may discover a blind spot we never realized we had. It’s why Lewis tells us to read old books, not that we should assume they are perfect but that their cultural mistakes tend to be in different areas than our own.
We are poorer when we only use art and never allow art the opportunity to help us grow. Next week, we’ll discuss one of the most significant hindrances to receiving art—skepticism.
Not Safe But Good
C.S. Lewis quote of the week
Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed Him.
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