Nuance is something I think the collective society has really lost the ability to accommodate.

As an avid reader and literature student, I have encountered dozens of novels and pieces of art that have given me incredibly mixed reactions.

There are stories that I think are written objectively well, with clever language and good pacing that makes sense for the novel. But I hated them. I hated the characters and the reading experience consisted of me groaning, sighing, or just rolling my eyes. Does that mean the book was bad?

No.

What? How can this be? Well, I shall tell you.

Because art is not one size fits all, and we’re all going to react to it in different ways. The particular book I just described was absolutely adored by the online reading community, and I can understand why. It doesn’t change the fact that even though people thought it was a decent book, I didn’t like it.

The same goes for the other side of the debate. I have read book and seen movies (films often fall into this category) that were not made super well. I think we can all agree that the interesting dialogue choices in some of the Star Wars movies were not always great, however I still love the movies, for all their flaws. The action and emotional impact hits in all the right ways that the dialogue missed. Does that mean the movie is still bad?

No. But also yes. But also no.

Once again, art is subjective, and far more nuanced than simply being good or bad. I can say that the pacing in A New Hope was too slow for me, or that the dialogue in Revenge of the Sith was clunky and awkward, but I can also say that I adore those films.

There is certainly value in judging art like books and movies as a whole, they are meant to be viewed that way after all. But I fear that the inability to examine the different parts that make up these pieces of art has resulted in a society of viewers who are unable to think in-depth about the content they are consuming.

By labelling an entire film as ‘terrible’ you may deter millions of people from watching it who might have come to love it Further, it could affect the hundreds of people who worked so hard on it by stopping them from getting work in future or worse, cause them to doubt their ability to create (a cardinal sin in my humble opinion).

The same goes for books. With the rise of self-publishing, more and more people are able to create novels and put them out into the world. Social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have enabled authors to go viral, and their works to be shared around the world. However, there can be drawbacks too, as misconceptions around the books arise. I’ve seen books go from the latest viral sensation to being absolutely vilified because people associated it with another popular book or trope, only for readers to later declare that it wasn’t anything like what they were promised, and therefore they hated it.

Both of those examples are oversimplifications, and I am aware that there are plenty of people in the world who are capable of critical thinking already. However, I am concerned for the younger generations of people who have grown up in this online world of exaggeration and cancel culture.

I can only warn people about this, hope that they will exercise their critical thinking skills, and perhaps be brave enough to present more balanced understandings of art. Rather than constantly choosing sides or clinging to extremes, let’s look at art for what it is. Let’s allow ourselves to enjoy things and recognise their faults. Let’s allow good pieces of art to be critically examined, so we can identify the potentially negative ideas they portray, and stop them from entering into our lives.

Let art be art, so we can be better audiences.