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From: rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: news.groups,rec.arts.movies
Subject: Re: renewed Call for Discussion: rec.arts.cinema
Keywords: the preferred name
Message-ID: <50414@bbn.COM>
Date: 4 Jan 90 16:14:54 GMT
References: <50326@bbn.COM> <6861@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
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In article <6861@lindy.Stanford.EDU> jon@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis) writes:
>In article <50326@bbn.COM> rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) writes:
>>
>>REC.ARTS.CINEMA
>>
>>A moderated group for the serious discussion of movies. Any movie,
>>regardless of its artistic stature, is fair game for discussion, as is
>>any substantive approach to the subject [etc]
>
>   I like the charter, but I'd suggest a slight revision as follows:
>
>   "A moderated group for the serious discussion of cinema.  Any film,
>    regardless of its genre, is fair game for discussion . . ."
>
>   I think the use of the words "cinema" and "film," rather than
>"movies," would reinforce the seriousness of the group and its
>independence from rec.arts.movies.


Granted. Since the name of the group is relying on this same
distinction, your point makes sense.



>  And the use of "genre" instead of
>"artistic stature" would make the same point without raising a
>potentially contentious value judgement.


What I was getting at by using the phrase "artistic stature" is that
neither artistry nor high status should be considered necessary
prerequisites. Regardless of how a film is generally perceived, it
should be considered acceptable to discuss it if the discussion is
serious. In fact, someone may very well have interesting and serious
things to say about a mediocre, low-status movie without any artistic
merit. For example, the movie may be an excellent example of how
sexism works in classical Hollywood. It's not "art", it's not a high
point in the history of cinema, and no one is arguing otherwise; but
nonetheless it's an interesting example. This is the kind of thing I
was getting at. There may also be arguments of this kind: "X is not
generally considered to have artistic merit, but I think it does for
the following reasons:". And that's fine too. We can have arguments
like that without degenerating into flame-fests (I hope). There's
always the risk you refer to, that value judgements can become
pointlessly contentious. But we do have a moderator to keep things in
line before we reach that point.

Genre doesn't quite get at the same thing. In general, I think "genre"
has become a somewhat over-used and over-generalized term. We should
discuss genre in the group, but it's use in this particular context
seems unenlightening, or even misleading, to me. I'd prefer to keep
"artistic merit" (which I think subsumes what you're trying to get at
anyway).