Media Literacy And Why It’s Crucial In Understanding Art

When I started my podcast Can I Say Something I discovered something: not everyone had an interest in examining and exploring why we like what we like when it comes to mass media. And I want to be clear, I don’t think the lack of desire to engage with media on a critical level is an indication of a lack of intelligence. I think what it shows is a lack of curiosity and true empathy, as I wrote about a few posts back.

The reason I’m writing about this today is because of the series on Netflix called Voir, a six-part video essay exploring specific movies or types of movies. The entry that sparked this blogpost was the third episode, “But I Don’t Like Him”, narrated and written by Ain’t It Cool News’ Drew McWeeny. From the episode McWeeny says, “And so what? If I don’t like T.E. Lawrence as a character, does that even matter? We’re going to argue that drama has very little to do with what we like or what makes us comfortable, and that’s part of the purpose of drama. Storytelling cannot start at “happily ever after.” And art is not just hanging out with your friends on the couch. Art’s where we confront the things that terrify or upset or traumatize us. It’s not just okay to tell stories about characters we don’t like. It’s crucial.”

Art has always reflected life, and vice versa. There’s terrible, awful people in world right now, doing objectively terrible, awful things. But there are much more people doing what they believe is right or just, and being able to discern and differentiate between what is right and just and what crosses the line is crucial in our ever-greyer world.