Sometimes categories are helpful and sometimes they obscure more than they illuminate.
One set of categories that is often criticized is the division of art into "High Brow," "Middle Brow," and "Low Brow."
This set of categories is commonly met with three objections:
- It's unclear what the terms mean
- It can be difficult to place some works that straddle the line between categories
- Adjectives like "high" and "low" that carry elitist connotations
I like these terms, however, as I find them useful in placing a work into a general ballpark.
So here is what I make of the three criticisms.
1. It's unclear what the terms mean
So define them. Words are only as useful as are their definitions. Fortunately for you, their definitions are man-made. You can use terms in a slightly unusual way provided you define them first and your new definition isn't too confusing to be useful (which would be the case if say, I were to use the term "post-modernist" to refer to the object "table.")
Many people use the terms to refer to artistic quality, simply meaning "good," "bad," and "medium" quality art. I don't use them in this way.
I prefer to use them in a way that refers to the intentions of the artist. Was the artist trying to a profound and/or inspirational statement about life? If so, then the film probably belongs in the "high brow" category. It's trying to engage with an audience that takes art seriously as a vehicle for spirituality. Was the artist's highest goal to entertain an audience as thoroughly as possible? If so, the film is likely in a lower "class," probably in the low brow section. Was the artist making a drama for adults that pretty much regurgitates the status quo? This sounds like it belongs in the "middle brow" range. I think the middle brow class is broader than the other two and would include stylish post-modern "entertainment" movies that separate themselves from the typical Hollywood action blockbusters. I would also have the category include serious movies that are ultimately too safe to be placed in the high brow category.
This fuzzy definition of the categories leads directly into the second criticism.
2. It can be difficult to place some works that straddle the line between categories
Yes, it can. The lines between the categories are very vague. Does Sydney Lumet make high brow movies or middle brow movies? Is Takashi Miike middle brow or low brow?
My answer is that this is a good objection but that it isn't necessary to have a clearly defined line between categories in order for the categories to become useful. There is no clearly defined line between "bald" and "not bald," yet "baldness" remains a useful concept.
It isn't necessarily to have a system for which every film can be easily classified in order for a set of categories to be useful. There still remains a good deal of films that can be classified quite unambiguously.
High Brow:
Au hasard Balthasar, Andrei Rublev, Tokyo Story, Le trou, Husbands, The Garden, Red Desert...
Middle Brow:
Slumdog Millionaire, Doubt, A Beautiful Mind, I Am Sam, The Usual Suspects, Boogie Nights, Up...
Low Brow:
Transformers, Twilight, Fast and the Furious, Cloverfield, 2012, Clerks II, Elektra, CSI, Miami Vice...
It is often very easy to sort movies into one of these three categories. One just needs to remember to take such attempts at categorization with a grain of salt. There is no a priori category of middle brow movies containing trashy Oscar bait. I've simply decided to riff off a common understanding of the term that places such movies in such a category.
But it could be the terms themselves do more harm than good by re-enforcing unwanted assumptions about art.
3. Using adjectives like "high" and "low" that carry obvious connotations is elitist
To an extent, yes. It assumes we might have good grounds to assess the contents of movies beyond personal opinion. This idea could be offensive to some but to most people it isn't impossible. Even if we think judgments of artistic value ultimately come down to personal preference, that doesn't mean that some interpretations of a work aren't more legitimate than others. It would be hard to argue, for instance, that Clerks is a film promoting communist ideology.
Notice that my categories are based primarily on intent, not on judgments of artistic quality. The categorization process relies on interpretation, rather than on elements that are usually considered to be more subjective. If a movie is placed in the high brow category, that doesn't mean it is high artistic value. It means the movie's taking a particular path toward communicating its ideas that I happen to call high brow.
Why "high" and "low" instead of "Paths 1, 2, and 3?" Because I think the goals of high brow art are loftier than the goals of low brow art. Does this entail a degree of elitist thinking? Yes, it assumes we can accurately assess a degree of legitimacy to certain aims of an artwork over others. It doesn't mean that a film in the high brow category is necessarily perceived to be better than every movie in the middle brow category, but it means that the film has loftier aims, whether it succeeds in meeting those aims or not.
The legitimacy of artistic aims is something that I think can be derived from reason and evidence. I don't think a relativistic stance is satisfying in this situation.
This opens up a can of worms that is beyond the scope of this post, however.
Epistemology deserves it's own post, or even a series of posts. This one is only a humble defence of a decent set of categories that I think gets more hate than it deserves. Often I find these categories useful when having conversations about art.
