I’m saying that ‘it’s just people’s opinions so who cares’ doesn’t get very far. What’s the point of discussing anything then? Henry James is a better writer than Stephen King no matter how many people prefer the latter to the former. An uninformed opinion is exactly that. Bad taste is bad taste.
And in America, last i checked we were permitted to have bad taste. Again, literature vs. entertainment. If one wants to feel smug that he/she won’t stoop to reading anything less than literature, he/she can go ahead and feel superior and most people won’t be bothered by it. It says more about the one feeling the need to feel superior than anyone else, IMO. I am saying that there is room for dreck, always has been and always will be. if this book/movie series had pretensions claiming to be literature or cinema, i’d say it was open to criticism. It doesn’t. it is what it is, and IT IS, if nothing else, financially SUCCESSFUL.
Except of course if nobody is reading Henry James then it’s not really part of the shared culture. By the very nature of the beast the shared culture tends towards the lowest common denominator. So the more approachable authors like King are going to be more of a part of our shared culture than the “artistically superior” authors like Henry James. Now 90 odd years after his death King will probably be completely forgotten, and James will probably still have the same level of following then as he does now (ie the literati), but there will be a new shared culture then, and it will be ruled by a new version of King not a new version of James.
What is the upshot of your lament? you are wishing everyone had better taste? that these type of movies weren’t successful, weren’t MADE, because you don’t consider them up to your standards? how does this square up with freedom? yeah i know, NO ONE’s talking about censorship, that’s been said here repeatedly, so what ARE you talking about then? just a general moaning about the degradation of the popular culture?