Can readers/viewers be "wrong"?

CharacterInWhite · Apr 21, 2012

So I went to see The Hunger Games on the big screen. TL;DR version, a bunch of kids are roped into a free for all to the death as a symbol of oppression and defeat and the contest is televised for all to see.

One of the "villainous" participants (I prefer "non-sympathetic"--it's complicated) is smashed over the head with a rock in the books and choked instead on screen. When this occurred in the theatre, someone actually cheered.

This is a story where children murder each other. None of it is supposed to be glorious.

I've always been of the vocation that any reaction from the audience can't be construed as wrong, but when I heard that person cheering I couldn't help but think she was missing the point of the story. But am I entitled to make that call? Who's to say someone couldn't call me out for over-thinking it (even though I'm pretty sure about this one)?

So I have a question for you guys. As writers, do you worry about your audience missing the point? Do you take steps to reduce that? Do such steps even exist, or is this an inevitability for all art? Do you even write with "a point" in mind?

And the million dollar question: Am I just a pretentious twat if I frown at the cheering girl in the theatre (questionable theatre ettiquette notwithstanding)?

I speak of reactions to a work, and not technical aspects. Someone making an error in their recollection of a work is factually wrong. This isn't about facts. It's about the much softer, gooier side of knowledge, otherwise there would be no discussion!

cmi0616 · Apr 21, 2012

I'm not much of a philosopher, but I don't think there is an absolute wrong or right. Sure, although I'm not familiar with the book or movie, I think it would be morally wrong to cheer on the death of an innocent person. But who am I to decide?

juniper · Apr 21, 2012

CharacterInWhite said:
As writers, do you worry about your audience missing the point? Do you take steps to reduce that? Do such steps even exist, or is this an inevitability for all art? Do you even write with "a point" in mind?

As a *reader* I think that many times I don't get the larger picture that others say they get. I'm thinking of a discussion here at AW about magical realism that just went way over my head as far as dissecting the points being made in different books.

As a *writer* I think the only way to prevent that would be to spell everything out ("You get it? She's wearing the blue shirt because ...") and that would be annoying and awful writing.

I think the same about artwork - others see stuff I don't, and I see stuff they don't. Does it matter if what I see isn't what the artist intended? I dunno.

I guess if an artist were to make a piece specifically to advocate a certain viewpoint, and I came along and admired the piece but thought it was advocating the exact opposite viewpoint - yeah, that would piss off the artist.

But then again, how to make that viewpoint known without being too overt?

thothguard51 · Apr 21, 2012

Well archery lessons and sales of archery equipment has risen since the release of the movie...

I wonder what the gender break down is...

SomethingOrOther · Apr 21, 2012

CharacterInWhite said:
So I have a question for you guys. As writers, do you worry about your audience missing the point? Do you take steps to reduce that?

No. The possibility of many different reactions--some of which some might consider "wrong"--correlates with a high level of the sort of moral ambiguity that makes stories interesting imo.

CharacterInWhite said:
Do such steps even exist [...]?

Yes, you can create 2D morally-black-and-white tales with cackling, finger-tenting villains with the gene that forces them to spin off detailed monologues of how they intend to kill the hero for just long enough to let the hero escape / reverse his or her fate / etc.

CharacterInWhite said:
And the million dollar question: Am I just a pretentious twat if I frown at the cheering girl in the theatre (questionable theatre ettiquette notwithstanding)?

No. This is just one of those "many different reactions."

Some cheer and revel in it. Some cheer and question their character. Some cheer and laugh at those who frown. Some frown with disgust. Some frown and harangue those who cheer. Some laugh uneasily. Some cry and duck their heads and dab away their tears. Some cry and turn to their friends and ask for a hug. Some vomit. Some dance. Some go poopoo.

Everyone's experience is their own.

Gillhoughly · Apr 21, 2012

I think I'll go rewatch some Andy Hardy movies instead. Life made sense when Judge Hardy explained things to us.

veinglory · Apr 21, 2012

I wouldn't assume that any attitude about the death of a completely fictional character is objectively wrong or right.

James D. Macdonald · Apr 21, 2012

The author just supplies the blueprint. The readers are the ones constructing the stories in their heads.

rynthewin · Apr 21, 2012

To begin, I think he problem you're describing is a lack of maturity more than anything, but you still raise an interesting question. After reading Roland Barthes essay "The Death of the Author" I hold the opinion, as he states, that once we put it in words we lose control over how it's viewed. It becomes subjective to the reader's interpretation of the work because you can never be 100% of the author's intention--even the authors themselves, who are influenced by far more than their conscious thoughts.

People can see works in different ways and, honestly, that's a good thing. If we didn't interpret a text individually we wouldn't have varieties of literature or any sort of discussion regarding the interpretation of literature. I think of an example of where I made a point in an English class where I believed the wives of Ceasar and Antony (I'm pretty sure it was Antony, at least? It's been a long time) were the vocalizing the subconscious fears of their husbands. Would Shakespeare have agreed? I seriously doubt it. But that's how I saw it and some people could see it and agree.

readitnweep · Apr 21, 2012

Stories are two-person activities. One is telling, the other is interpreting. As a writer, I can't "manage" the reader's interpretation. I can write clearly, concisely but that's about it. Once you publish, you're releasing your story for interpretation.

Mr. Anonymous · Apr 21, 2012

Sure, I agree that to tell a story is to tell a story to an audience, and that the audience participates perhaps as much as the storyteller himself. But some readers aren't careful readers. If they reach an unwarranted conclusion due to their inattentiveness, then yes, they can be wrong. Some readers are also crazy, or irrational, or determined to see things only from a particular, myopic point of view. In which case, we might not say they're "wrong" but we might say they're not seeing the full picture. That there is something important which their interpretation doesn't capture. Not to open too much of a can of worms here, but we see this especially with religious texts like the bible. Yes, the bible says you shouldn't have homosexual relations. Really. It does. No discounting that, no matter whether you're gay or straight. The bible also says to "love one another, for love is of god, and he that loveth, knoweth God." The bible says "judge not and ye shall not be judged, condemn not and ye shall not be condemned." Someone who remembers the part about homosexuality being a sin but not the part about loving one another and not judging others is either being inattentive or is looking at the text from a very myopic perspective.

The beauty of storytelling is that it opens up dialogue, between the storyteller and past storytellers, between the storyteller and the audience, and also between members of the audience. When these members are open and willing to learn from each other, then everyone's perspective is broadened and challenged. When they're not, then I do think we can say that they're not getting it, and by "it," I mean not just the story in question, but the importance of the story, the importance of the very enterprise of storytelling.

absitinvidia · Apr 21, 2012

Has anyone here seen the people on Twitter who are up in arms that Rue in the movie is a young African American girl? And who apparently missed that in the book, Rue is clearly described as having dark brown skin?

In some cases, yes, absolutely, readers can be wrong.

Paul · Apr 21, 2012

can one control the universe?

yes.

yes, one can.

leahzero · Apr 21, 2012

CharacterInWhite said:
As writers, do you worry about your audience missing the point? Do you take steps to reduce that? Do such steps even exist, or is this an inevitability for all art? Do you even write with "a point" in mind?

Worry? Not really. I know what I consider morally right and wrong, but I don't pass judgments on my characters. Sometimes they profit by what I'd consider moral wrongness. Sometimes moral goodness is in vain. It makes for good tension.

I also think the possibility of multi-faceted interpretations is one of the best parts of having others read your work. You know what you think you put in it--but it's always fascinating when someone picks up on something you were oblivious to, or interprets something completely differently from the way you intended it.

As for authors trying to ensure readers don't "miss the point:" oh lord, don't do this. Preachiness in fiction is one of the worst sins. Leave the ambiguity. It's a strength, not a weakness.

thothguard51 · Apr 21, 2012

Paul said:
can one control the universe?

yes.

yes, one can.

Only if one has the secret decoder ring from Capt Crunch cereal...

Tex_Maam · Apr 21, 2012

leahzero said:
As for authors trying to ensure readers don't "miss the point:" oh lord, don't do this. Preachiness in fiction is one of the worst sins. Leave the ambiguity. It's a strength, not a weakness.

^Totally this. When you remove all possible ambiguity from a work, so that there is only one way for the audience to understand it, what you basically have is a propaganda piece - and that's not necessarily a bad thing (have you ever watched some montage video of your favorite sports team and gotten completely pumped, or choked up at the sound of your country's national anthem?) It's just that it only works when you're preaching to the choir - objective/impartial audiences are liable to be bored or offended.

And that's the problem with good fiction, I find: although your audience will enjoy a new coloring-book much more than one you've already filled in for them, there are always going to be folks out there who color outside your lines. C'est l'art!

Alpha Echo · Apr 21, 2012

James D. Macdonald said:
The author just supplies the blueprint. The readers are the ones constructing the stories in their heads.

I think this is it exactly.

My senior year of high school, I took the best class ever - Advanced Placement Literature.

I loved that class and the teacher for many reasons.

But in regards to the OP, I remember the poetry unit. All of us had to find a few poems from a list of authors and "teach" them to the class. I hated that because I hate speaking in front of people, but the entire unit was very interesting.

Because everyone interpreted the words of the poems differently.

Sure, the "teacher" could lead us in the direction he/she was led when reading the poem.

But the ideas we all had were different. One line meant something to each of us. Structure meant one thing to me and another to the kid sitting next to me. I saw symbolism from one line while the boy across from me saw no symbolism at all.

I think that, for fiction writers at least, we write a story. Sure, we can make the readers see or feel things if we want, but the main point is the story. The main goal is for the reader to feel fulfilled upon reading it. What they take from the words or from between the lines...that, to me is a bonus.

Non-fiction is different because we're dealing with truth. We're dealing in facts. Of course, those facts are always skewed, and we may see them differently than the next person, but the fact (no pun intended) remains that the purpose of an autobiography is to tell the story of someone's life. A manual on dealing with PTSD is...a manual dealing with PTSD. The history of the Roman Empire is just that.

quicklime · Apr 21, 2012

veinglory said:
I wouldn't assume that any attitude about the death of a completely fictional character is objectively wrong or right.

this.

the question reminds me of a bit of a Tosh monologue where he was talking about fucking a Beckham.Pitt baby, and he said he realized some people were bound to say he "went a bit far, when he pretended to suggest he would imaginarily fornicate with a hypothetical child."

not everyone's idea of good taste, but it IS utterly make-believe; I doubt the cheering twit goes to teen brick-fights in their spare time.

Lady Goddess · Apr 21, 2012

CharacterInWhite said:
One of the "villainous" participants (I prefer "non-sympathetic"--it's complicated) is smashed over the head with a rock in the books and choked instead on screen. When this occurred in the theatre, someone actually cheered.

This is a story where children murder each other. None of it is supposed to be glorious.

What's horrible to you is always hilarious to someone else. It's how humor works.

Speaking from the perspective of someone with dark humor, I have laughed at plenty of death scenes in movies, including Brad Pitt getting hit by a car in Meet Joe Black. I'm not being obnoxious or cruel or unfeeling. I just happen to find some of those scenes funny depending on the scenario.

Maybe that person was like me, in that being choked was funny to them. Maybe they were dared to cheer by a friend. Maybe they just read a text message and got some exciting news. Maybe they didn't like the character and wanted them to die. I've done that too. Maybe she was drunk. None of those things means she missed the point of the story or that her reaction to the character death was wrong.

jjdebenedictis · Apr 21, 2012

There is a lot of physical comedy that relies on the audience knowing that the person on screen is make-believe. If you really bought into their reality, you couldn't laugh at the injuries they withstand.

I suspect the person who cheered during the choking scene was seeing the character as make-believe. Their sense of disbelief was not suspended enough for them to feel empathy for the character killed.

On a related note, when I went to see the movie Dogma, there was a rather bizarre thing that kept happening in the theatre. Just so you know, the movie is chock-a-block with humour about religion, and much of it is rather pointy, it's-funny-'cause-it's-true humour.

Here's the weird thing: After each joke, the audience would chuckle en masse, but I'd always hear one random person killing themselves laughing.

And it was always a different person. Sometimes the lone hysterical laugher would be in front of me; sometimes behind; sometimes off in a corner; and once, it was me.

You can't predict how powerfully something will resonate with a given audience member. You also can't ensure that they will feel anything at all.

Unimportant · Apr 21, 2012

Readers will read a given story at different levels. Some just read the surface "adventure". Others get both the adventure and the changes that the character undergoes mentally because of the adventure. Others still will see the adventure and character arcs, and will in addition extrapolate the story to their own world.

So some HG readers were just "yay Katniss! Win the games!" Not all of them would have parsed the internal issues Katniss had to deal with due to her killing other kids to save her own life. Even fewer will have extrapolated the Capitol/Districts to the 1%/99% parallel of their own world.

It's not really right/wrong. It's just the effect a particular book has on a particular reader. Perhaps the girl who cheered in the theatre would've taken a moral lesson from the Narnia books, while a different reader who understood HG at all its depths would've missed the Christian parallels in Narnia.

JSSchley · Apr 21, 2012

I agree with Unimportant. People read at different levels. For instance, Harry Potter 5 is a rather scathing commentary on government oversight into education (a little overdone, in my opinion, but hey), but I would wager many people don't read that, and that's okay.

Actually, I found the exact dynamic you mention to be one of the most fascinating parts of the movie, and something I was very much hoping for. That the audience would be drawn in to "root for" the killing of children, and then maybe have to step back and go, "Hmm, wait a minute, what just happened there?" By watching the Games, we the viewers become the Capitol...pampered, privileged, and there to be entertained.

I thought it was one of the neatest parts of the whole thing.

Jamesaritchie · Apr 21, 2012

CharacterInWhite said:
One of the "villainous" participants (I prefer "non-sympathetic"--it's complicated) is smashed over the head with a rock in the books and choked instead on screen. When this occurred in the theatre, someone actually cheered.

This is a story where children murder each other. None of it is supposed to be glorious.

I've always been of the vocation that any reaction from the audience can't be construed as wrong, but when I heard that person cheering I couldn't help but think she was missing the point of the story. But am I entitled to make that call? Who's to say someone couldn't call me out for over-thinking it (even though I'm pretty sure about this one)?

!

You can make that call for yourself, but not for anyone else. Frankly, I think you're dead wrong here, and the person who cheered was right.

I really don't mean offense, but you sound like someone with a head full of ideology, and the person who cheered sounds like some with real world experience, and he's the one who sees the point of the story.

Not villainous, but non-sympathetic? Really? You walked off into the Twilight Zone with this call. None of it is supposed to be glorious? Are you kidding?

Cheering had nothing to do with making anything glorious, it had to do with expressing a completely appropriate reaction to the right kind of person getting choked. In a theater, cheering or booing is about all you can do. Good for him. He cheered properly, and didn't sit back trying to see a point that you seem to have missed. He reacted with good, perfectly reasonable emotion.

Children, eight and nine year old children, murder each other every damned day in every damned part of the world. Not that most of those in Hunger Games are children, except by a legal definition that hasn't really been part of life for very long.

Forget all about the the fact that they're "children" and you may get the real point.

RobJ · Apr 22, 2012

CharacterInWhite said:
So I have a question for you guys. As writers, do you worry about your audience missing the point?

No.

CharacterInWhite said:
Do you take steps to reduce that?

No.

CharacterInWhite said:
Do such steps even exist, or is this an inevitability for all art?

Not applicable (see above).

CharacterInWhite said:
Do you even write with "a point" in mind?

Yes.

CharacterInWhite said:
And the million dollar question: Am I just a pretentious twat if I frown at the cheering girl in the theatre (questionable theatre ettiquette notwithstanding)?

No, obviously. People are complex. You're someone's son, brother, maybe father - I don't know. You're also a biologist turned microbiologist turned virologist turned immunologist turned mystery writer. So you're clearly a complex human being and not just a pretentious twat.

RichardGarfinkle · Apr 22, 2012

The high minded death of the author, all interpretations theory is interesting, but I think it's an overreaction to the author is god theories that came before it. Let's back up for a second and consider a few different cases before jumping into the hard case here.

1. If I tell someone something and they respond as if I had said something else. Am I wrong to correct their interpretation (e.g. "No, I said we were going to dinner on Friday, not to jail on Tuesday). Communication is a process with error correction capability and sometimes error correction is necessary.

2. If I write a math textbook and someone misreads it or misunderstands it so that they cannot correctly do the problems and cannot apply the concepts this is an error in need of correction.

3. If I write a science popularization and someone comes away from it with a misinterpretation that gives them an erroneous view of the universe, this interpretation is still in need of correction.

All of these involve communications that have reference to some external thing (facts or standard theories) that can be used as a guide against which to measure interpretations.

Things get blurrier in the matter of fiction. We can start with a sort of mixed example. In historical fiction the historical background and events have an outside source to refer to and therefore misinterpretation is still possible.

On the matter of pure fiction, the current theory is that all views and interpretations are equal because each person is creating that view in their minds. I tend to think that the author's view is different but not authoritative. The author sees the work from the inside out and cannot avoid doing so. There will be things seen from this perspective that cannot be seen from the outside in. By the same token the readers can see things from the outisde in that the author has trouble with. That's why beta readers are so useful.

To return to the OP, it seems that the problem stated was not so much one of wrong interprtetation as it was one of moral objection to the reaction. Never mind the purpose of the Hunger Games as a story, it depicts kids killing each other for the amusement of an audience. Culturally, we, at least in theory, are meant to regard this as morally repugnant, and in effect not take sides because all the kids are in a morally horrible situation.
So the wrong here seems to be not internal to the book but external to the culture.

A book can have a point and can keep to that point without being preachy and it can play on audience reaction for the purposes of that point. Some of these are subtle, some are over the top, and some hit you on the head without any preaching at all, relying only on what's in your mind.

Let me throw out an example. There's a book by Norman Spinrad called The Iron Dream. The premise of this book is that in the 1920s Adolf Hitler emigrated to the US and became an SF writer. Most of the book is a pulp science fiction novel that Spinrad imagines Hitler would write. The point of the book is how standard a pulp novel this is, whilst containing just enough Hitlerisms to make the reader conscious of who the author is meant to be.

Using this, Spinrad exposes the common fascist elements of some pulp fiction without ever saying it.

He is relying on an external judgement on the reader's part based on measuring the book in front of them against an external idea of right and wrong.

And that sounds like the sense of right and wrong in the OP.

If I'm wrong, correct me.

Can readers/viewers be "wrong"?

Kind of a big deal

Always curious.

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