Having just reread Gaut's article to refresh my memory for Monday's class, I would like to take a brief moment to examine his thesis.
Gaut's argument essentially comes out to the following: the so-called "negative" emotions are only unpleasant in their typical applications. Under atypical circumstances, they are not necessarily unpleasant, and even enjoyable. Thus, for example, we may legitimately find fear unpleasant when we are being robbed at gunpoint, when our lives are in very real danger, but we may enjoy fear when watching a horror movie, which is presented in a context in which no real danger, the "typical" circumstance of the emotion being felt, exists.
I feel that this argument not only provides a very powerful response to Carroll's article, but rings true to human emotions and mentality. This thesis can clearly apply not only to horror, but to tragedy. It successfully removes the seeming paradox of the enjoyment of these "negative" emotions by a critical evaluation of the circumstances under which these emotions are felt.
To end with a question: Gaut casually throws out, on page 320, that "the majority of horror works lack any serious artistic worth. They are pure entertainment." This seems to suggest that art does not entertain, or, at the very least, that something that is meant purely to entertain cannot have any artistic merit. Is this the case? Or have I misinterpreted this passage?
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2 comments:
He does qualify what's missing as "serious" artistic merit. Pure entertainment, I gather, might still be "nonseriously" artistic; and serious art may or may not be entertaining.
I didn't get that Gaut that was saying that art does not or cannot entertain anymore than something that is meant only to entertain cannot have artistic merit. I believe that the point that he was trying to make was that, while in a majority of cases this may be true, it is not true in every case.
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