Comics are awesome.

[Onslaught Six]

Then that's a problem with the Beastie Boys as artists--they failed to convey the message they intended. (This is a debatable point, and I'd much rather say that the general public are morons.) But that doesn't take away from the fact that they had an idea--People who do nothing but party are generally idiots. And they expressed this idea through an ironic song that was all about partying. If, in your opinion, that doesn't come across in the song, then a basic assessment of it would be "I see what they were going for, but it doesn't work."

When Wolverine Fights Magneto For No Real Reason? That's when you don't see what they're going for, because there isn't anything going on.

I dunno.

Anyway! Main reason I'm not into current IDW as a TF book is that it's...well, it's different! And I applaud Costa for sticking to his guns this far (and IDW and Hasbro for allowing him to do so, no less) but how long until someone else is on the book, and Prime is the leader again and Megatron looks how he always did and nothing changes again? It is arguably inevitable.

[Shockwave]

They don't perform it anymore because it just doesn't send the message they intended it to, not because the audience is wrong.

Bingo. That right there is why the audience is wrong. It's perfectly fine to gain ADDITIONAL meanings from a work as long as the original intent is acknowledged. In the case of the Beastie Boys that didn't happen which is why the audience is wrong. You're basically saying that it's perfectly ok for me to live in my own happy little world where the Chronicles of Narnia is a fun adventure story with no referrences to Jesus or Christianity at all. I'm wrong. Period. C.S. Lewis intended it as an allegory for Christianity. Now, I CAN legitimately claim that, while that may be what he was going for that he didn't pull it off very well.

This is also the problem I have with nonverbal communication in general. I have an exgirlfriend who would only communicate with me via text messaging and on facebook. There was no verbal communication at all (she lives in another state so in person contact wasn't available) and this lead to a few misunderstandings. Heck, you and I have had debates here on these very forums where we misinterpreted what the other was saying. When I misunderstood your point, you corrected me, but that doesn't mean that my original interpretation is correct. Author intent has to be acknowledged.

[Dominic]

If the writer is talking about one thing, (say "red"), and the audience thinks it is about something else ("cyan"), the audience is wrong. That is not open to debate. One cannot honestly or legitimately extract meaning from a piece that was not put in by the writer.

Like I've said, you have to consider your audience with a piece. They aren't necessarily going to see it the same way the author does and thus have different interpretations of the work.

It is important to consider an audience in terms of presenting subject matter in a way that they will understand. If I am trying to talk to a kid, I keep my vocabulary and statements simple. If I am trying to talk to a dog, I use short, simple words/commands. (This varies a bit by dog, or even breed.)

But, there is no meaning that the writer does not put in to a story.

If the audience does not "get it", then something went wrong. It might be a flaw in the content.
It might be a flaw in the presentation. It might be that the audience is not mature or intelligent enough
to "get it".

There is more than one theory in which authorial intent is irrelevant to understanding a work of literature, as is there more than one theory of how to look at author intent as well as audience interpretation.

Deconstructionalism is the big one though. Either way, more than one school of thought agreeing with an idea does not make it right.

Very good example here: Beastie Boys. Fight For Your Right To Party.

That song is a parody of the subjects of the song. Loser highschoolers who only care about partying.

The song, when released, found audience with the very people it was intended to lampoon.

Those people are wrong, and Beastie Boys now refuse to play that song. Ever.

I actually have a new respect for the Beastie Boys. I was never actually a fan of them.

Funny thing is that I would have been guilty of mis-reading the song by virtue of looking at the
people who were fans of it. (The ironic message eluded me.)

In this case, I was wrong about the meaning of the song. There is no way around it. My "reading"
of "Fight For Your Right to Party" is wrong. My interpretation was completely and wholly invalid.
I would argue that I had good reason for making the mistake I did. However, that does not make my
interpretation any less *wrong*. In this case, the fault was mine. I looked at the audience, and a
popular misreading of the song, and went with it. Had I been more rigorous, I would not have made the
mistake I did. But, the fact is that I would have been wrong about that song if anyone had asked
me about it before I read O6's post.

Now, Beastie Boys could've done what you did, and gone,
"Oh hey! All these people now love our thing we made. Let's run with that.
FUCK YEAH FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO PARTY."
But they didn't, because those people were wrong.

The Beastie Boys' actions have less to do with their audience being wrong,
and more to do with their ethics being honest. Rather than perpetuate a lie
about their intentions, they just stopped playing the damned song.

The thing is, how is the audience wrong when that song doesn't really work as a parody?

The audience is wrong because they are missing the point of the song as a parody.

One might reasonably argue that the Beastie Boys screwed up and did not make their intentions clear,
thus giving the audience credible reason for being WRONG IN THEIR READING of "Fight For Your Right To Party".
But, anybody who "reads" the song as an endorsement of adolescent hedonism is factually *wrong*,
and possibly dishonestly self-indulgent.

It's perfectly fine to gain ADDITIONAL meanings from a work
as long as the original intent is acknowledged.
[\quote]

I would even dispute this. Adding to the author's intent is as bad as ignoring it.

I'm wrong. Period. C.S. Lewis intended it as an allegory for Christianity.
Now, I CAN legitimately claim that, while that may be what he was going for
that he didn't pull it off very well.

IN defense of Lewis, at the time the story was written, most anyone picking it up
would have had a strong religious background.

You, (and I for that matter), would be wrong if we said that there was no
religious imagery in the story. But, it would go under the heading of
"honest mistake" rather than "self-indulgently childish reading".

reason I'm not into current IDW as a TF book is that it's...well, it's different!

Wait, do you like it or not? This sentence is unclear.

You might be right about the book going back to "stasis quo". But, right now, it is
a friggin' great read. And, maybe IDW will suprise you.

This is also the problem I have with nonverbal communication in general.
I have an exgirlfriend who would only communicate with me via text messaging and on facebook.
There was no verbal communication at all (she lives in another state
so in person contact wasn't available)
and this lead to a few misunderstandings.

It sounds like you need extra-verbal communication actually. Texting is all verbal, (word-based).
But, inflection (which is extra-verbal) is lost.


Dom
-finds typing this much into notepad to be tiresome.

[Onslaught Six]

Another good example is recentish film The Book of Eli. I wanted to see it when it came out because it was Badass Denzel Washington In Post-Apocalyptic Land. Towards the end of the film it's revealed that Denzel's character Eli

Spoiler

was blind the entire time.

Now, for one thing, it's only ever alluded to

Spoiler

The titular 'book' is a braille copy of the Bible, the ending shows Eli with his sunglasses off staring blankly into space

and for another, there's certain times during the film where this doesn't seem believable or possible due to bad acting or other things. But

Spoiler

Eli's blindness

is the intent, as stated by the screenplay.

My girlfriend and I watched it the first time, got to the end, and were like, "...That's it? I don't get it." We didn't get the reveal because we'd seen some of those cases of bad acting or other moments in the film. I mentioned this to my father, and he goes, "Didn't you get it?

Spoiler

Motherfucker was blind the whole time. He did all that shit without SEEING.

" (My father has a penchant for the profane.) That's a case of an audience member finding flaw within the execution of the idea--but the idea is there to begin with. (I also wasn't fond of the idea itself, once I understood it, but that's another matter entirely.)

And it's not just me, there's actually entire talk pages on Wikis debating whether or not

Spoiler

Eli is supposed to be blind

. For example, there's one scene where Eli opens a cupboard and moves out of the way of something, which

Spoiler

he shouldn't have been able to see coming, because he's blind

. That's just one of many minor moments in the film where things got messed up.

But yeah. Author intent?

Spoiler

Eli is blind, and he was led the way he went because he followed God.

Incidentally, I found this!
http://www.cracked.com/article_18787_6- ... wrong.html
EDIT: And this!
http://www.cracked.com/article/18367_6- ... es-better/

[Shockwave]

I would even dispute this. Adding to the author's intent is as bad as ignoring it.

It sounds like you need extra-verbal communication actually. Texting is all verbal, (word-based).
But, inflection (which is extra-verbal) is lost.

No it isn't. How is it just as bad if you're acknowledging author intent as the primary intent. It isn't wrong to say "it COULD also mean this". That isn't adding to author intent, that's just saying that you can get more out of it than what the author intended.

I should probably clarify my terms, I meant verbal meaning vocal voicebased communication. Text is text based communication.

[Sparky Prime]

When Wolverine Fights Magneto For No Real Reason? That's when you don't see what they're going for, because there isn't anything going on.

I'd say that's more of an issue of the writer being to lazy to develop a reason, and thus not very good story telling.

Bingo. That right there is why the audience is wrong. It's perfectly fine to gain ADDITIONAL meanings from a work as long as the original intent is acknowledged. In the case of the Beastie Boys that didn't happen which is why the audience is wrong.

But again, the song doesn't send the message they intended it to. It reinforced the idea to "fight for your right to party" rather than parodies it. It's not a situation of the audience being wrong, it's a situation of the Beastie Boys not making a very good parody in the first place.

But, there is no meaning that the writer does not put in to a story.

No, again, an author cannot anticipate how their audience might interpret the piece and as a result the audience could find meaning the author didn't intend.

If the audience does not "get it", then something went wrong. It might be a flaw in the content. It might be a flaw in the presentation. It might be that the audience is not mature or intelligent enough to "get it".

Or it could simply be that the audience finds a different interpretation from the same set of facts as presented in the story. That's not to say the audience doesn't "get it". They just find a meaning besides what the author intended.

Deconstructionalism is the big one though. Either way, more than one school of thought agreeing with an idea does not make it right.

It, and other theories, are legitimately recognized in literary theory. You can't just dismiss it.

No it isn't. How is it just as bad if you're acknowledging author intent as the primary intent. It isn't wrong to say "it COULD also mean this". That isn't adding to author intent, that's just saying that you can get more out of it than what the author intended.

EXACTLY!!

[Sparky Prime]

Oops, didn't mean to post this here.

[Shockwave]

Bingo. That right there is why the audience is wrong. It's perfectly fine to gain ADDITIONAL meanings from a work as long as the original intent is acknowledged. In the case of the Beastie Boys that didn't happen which is why the audience is wrong.

But again, the song doesn't send the message they intended it to. It reinforced the idea to "fight for your right to party" rather than parodies it. It's not a situation of the audience being wrong, it's a situation of the Beastie Boys not making a very good parody in the first place.

That only works if the audience in question had an attitude of "We know you wrote this to make fun of us, but now we're using it as our anthem". In that case they would be acknowledging the original intent while being able to derive more out of it. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. The audience regarded it as their anthem when they were actually being made fun of. Ignorance is not bliss and does not change the fact that they are wrong. Geeks have basically done the same thing. I'm old enough to remember a time when the word geek was a valid hurtful insult. But over time, geeks everywhere have taken the word and made it our own. We now wear the word with pride, but as little as 15 years ago it was insulting enough to incite a violent response. Bottom line I (and Dom and the others) am driving at here is that you can't just ignore author's intent in favor of your own interpretation. In fact, I believe that's the definition of self indulgence.

[andersonh1]

Why?

To what are you referring to specifically? Why is it arrogant to dismiss how an audience might interpret a piece? Because that's like saying the author is above criticism. No one is above criticism.

Criticism and interpretation are two different things. Interpretation is looking for some sort of meaning in a work that may or may not be what the author intended. Criticism should involve trying to determine what the author is saying or doing, and whether or not the author was successful. In other words, interpretation essentially leaves the audience with their own criteria, while criticism judges a work by the author's criteria. Or at least, that's how I'd define the two.

Why is the author's view point the only acceptable one? Sure they crafted the story, perhaps with the intent for the audience to find certain meanings in it but a story is a complex thing. Just because they wrote it with some intent in mind doesn't mean the audience can't or wont find other interpretations, just as people would have varying criticisms of the work. It's absurd to think they wouldn't.

Any honest evaluation of a work must take the creator's intent into account, or else it's just the reader/viewer projecting his own thoughts and feelings onto something. And if that's the case, why even bother with someone else's work in the first place?

Again, you have to keep the audience in mind with a piece. It's something presented by the author for an audience. Who really "owns" the story when it's meant to be read and interpreted by an audience?

Meant to be read, certainly. Meant to be interpreted? Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn't assume that every work or art or literature is open to audience interpretation.

If I write a short story, for example, and my reason for writing it was x, and then I say that the story means y, then someone who came along and read it and said it means z would be wrong. Now if I had written it and left it open to interpretation by the reader, then the varying points of view could possibly be valid, because I as the author had no set meaning in mind.

I have an example of short story I wrote in one of my classes (and read to the class) that goes against this very idea... The subject matter was something that caused me to be hurt and angry and that's what I wanted to convey with the piece. I know I even read it with anger in my voice. However, that isn't how the class interpreted it. Instead, I was surprised to find they thought it was funny. You see, as the audience, they weren't looking at it from my point of view, they were looking at the situation as an audience would, as the story happened to me. It wasn't until that point, until I actually saw my audiences reaction, that I could see the humor of the situation in my story myself. Does that mean they interpreted it wrong just because they hadn't interpreted it as I intended or even anticipated? No, not all. They just saw something in it that I couldn't until I realized their point of view of it.

I'm not sure that's the same thing. In the example you cite, the audience reaction altered your view. If you, as the author, have no problem with that, I certainly don't.

In either case, the author is the person who came up with the idea, sat down to write the story, put thought and reason into it, and did all the work to bring his work of imagination to life on the page. What right does any reader have to disregard all of that and put their own meaning into the story? There's an utter lack of respect for the author inherent in that approach. Creative works don't exist in a vacuum, and they didn't spring independently to life so that anyone can do what they like with them. They were created for a reason, and that reason must be acknowledged and respected.

The problem here is that you seem to be under the impression the audience would be putting their own meaning into the story. That's not what interpretation is. Rather, interpreting would be pulling meaning out of the story, it just wouldn't necessarily be what the author intended.

I addressed this earlier in the post. I think any interpretation that begins with the reader's assumptions being more important than the author's intent is, by definition, the audience putting their own meaning into the story.

If a writer makes a clear statement about their intent, then it is folly to argue what their intent is.

Even then, I don't see anything wrong with an audience seeing other interpretations in the work. Sure, it may not be what the author intended,

Then it's wrong.

but how is it wrong if the piece could be interpreted in other ways? The author cannot anticipate every possible interpretation their audience might have.

It's primarily the audience's job to try and understand what the author is trying to communicate, not necessarily the other way around.

[Sparky Prime]

Criticism and interpretation are two different things.

I know they are two different things. That's why I said "like", it's a simile. I was pointing out that a work is going to be subject to criticism just as it'd also be subject to interpretation.

Any honest evaluation of a work must take the creator's intent into account, or else it's just the reader/viewer projecting his own thoughts and feelings onto something. And if that's the case, why even bother with someone else's work in the first place?

Again, why are you assuming that I'm saying the creator's intent (assuming you even know what that may be) wouldn't be taken into account to fairly evaluate it? The point I'm making is more that honestly evaluating something shouldn't stop there. To honestly evaluate something you also need to look at other possible interpretations as well. And again, interpreting something doesn't mean projecting thought/feelings into a story, it means pulling something out of the story.

I wouldn't assume that every work or art or literature is open to audience interpretation.

Why not? Even in high school English, with stories where it's clear what the authors intent was, the teachers will still always push for students to figure out what else it could mean. To find their own interpretations. You mentioned the same concept with your art class. Why do that at all if the audiences interpretation isn't important?

I'm not sure that's the same thing. In the example you cite, the audience reaction altered your view. If you, as the author, have no problem with that, I certainly don't.

You're missing the point of the example... It's not that the audience altered my view, it's that they allowed me to look at it in a way I hadn't even considered before because their interpretation opened my view of it to other possibilities beyond my own narrow intent.

I addressed this earlier in the post. I think any interpretation that begins with the reader's assumptions being more important than the author's intent is, by definition, the audience putting their own meaning into the story.

Again, interpretation, by definition, is "to bring out the meaning, or to indicate one's particular conception of it." It is not putting their own meaning into the story, it's getting meaning out of it regardless of who you'd consider the more important point.

Then it's wrong.

Why?

It's primarily the audience's job to try and understand what the author is trying to communicate, not necessarily the other way around.

I don't agree with that at all. It's the audience's primary job to enjoy the story. What the author tries to communicate is secondary, along with the audiences interpretation(s).

That only works if the audience in question had an attitude of "We know you wrote this to make fun of us, but now we're using it as our anthem".

How is that the only way it works? If it's poorly constructed in the first place to convey the meaning the artist intended, it isn't going to matter.