What's Up With The Modern Audience?

Once upon a time, the majority of books were well-written, at least in the basics, before they made it into the bookstores and the majority of movies at least kind of made sense, unless they were intended to be avantgarde.

And if they weren’t done well, they did not do well.

This is the particular point I wish to make. There was a general tendency, not every time, of course, for quality to tell and dreck to fail.

There were always a few bestsellers that the literati did not care for but which sold anyway. Usually, though, if one gave them a fair chance, one could see what was likable about them, even if it was not one’s own cup of tea.

Then, around 2017, it was as if the world went mad.

Books and movies that objectively do not make sense or fail to accomplish the basics of what they are supposed to accomplish are not only released, they are lauded.

In the last year, I have read a number of books, often recommended by some actual human being as a favorite, that have had something seriously wrong with them—but no one seemed to care.

Why?

Are they looking at something I’m not seeing and ignoring the mess that is the rest of it? I do have books I love even though they are weak in some areas.

For example, think of The Last Jedi and how little sense it makes. If you are not sure why it doesn’t make sense, I recommend this rather funny and insightful book. There’s even a lovely audio version read in a lovely posh accent.

Now with a story like The Last Jedi, some love the pazazz and special effects, and some laud it because they get a rush from the kick in the teeth the movie provides to the long-time Star Wars fans.

But with some of these other books I have read, they don’t seem to have any Woke adgenda making them more appealing to a certain audience.

They just don’t make sense or they fail to do what books of that genre are supposed to do.

Or Frozen. Frozen has great music and parts of it are sweet, but there are some major plot holes—as if they just changed their mind about a number of things halfway through and didn’t bother fixing the beginning.

I don’t have anything against anyone enjoying Frozen. I quite like the music myself.

But I expected people to at least complain about the parts that made no sense. (Why would a man who was trying to kill a queen rescue her? Why not just shoot her by mistake when pretending to rescue her? No reason is given for why Hans needs her alive—and that’s just one such hole.)

But Frozen is still a solid movie for the most part…some of these other things, not so much.

I just read the opening of a book where a woman is approached by a man she has good reason to distrust. He talks her into doing one task for him.

In the next scene, he is suddenly taking her on a long trip, showing her around the place he takes her to, and then kissing her…

…with NO moment in which the reader is told why she went from distrusting him to going along with all this.

When it got to them kissing, I put the book down. I’m a romantic. I like kissing just fine…but only when there seems to be real attraction between the characters. How could there be anything between the characters when this female did not seem to be the same one from the first few scenes of the book?

Do audiences really not notice terrible plot holes, characters acting out of character, motivations that make no sense, etc?

Or do they notice them and pretend they are okay for some reason not related to the story itself?

As the King of Siam would say: ‘Tis a puzzlement.*

What about you? Do you notice when stories don’t make sense? Do you complain? Or do you just suck it up, because that’s the way things are now?

Curious to hear your experiences.

*—full disclosure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen The King and I, but my son used to sing this song.