finding the good

Is trying to find the good in anything just some lame justification for bad movies, books, and pop culture or is there something to this?

I hate the “Harry Potter” series of books.  I’ve made no secret about it as I find them poorly executed and extremely warmed over fiction that I’ve previously read.  All that being said, most people would agree that as far as encouraging young people to read or to expand their minds to greater concepts that they serve a useful purpose.

Similarly on television we have the “edutainment” phenomena.  Basically trying to mix the qualities of education and learning with the appeal of entertainment to try to engage a wider audience, spread knowledge, and hopefully spark some curiosity about the wider world.

The problem with these efforts is that they have largely become focused on providing the lowest common denominator of entertainment and really have little to nothing to do with engaging curiosity of the public or the more analytical part of the mind.  They are really nothing more than distractions for the population as a whole than anything worthwhile.

Now, I have faced similar arguments in my life with regards to some things that I like such as “Star wars”, “Star trek”, all the writings of Tolkien and Heinlein.  I’ve heard all these same arguments applied to these.  But the thing is that these people may have been derivative in some of their work but they derived straight from the source material.

Tolkien and Lucas drew from most of the world;s mythologies to create their works.  They retell old stories in new ways and spread the original messages told in those stories in ways that the modern mind can comprehend.

Heinlein and Roddenberry’s works are more modern social commentaries disguised as science fiction stories than they are works of entertainment.  They draw heavily from the progressive and modernism movements of the early to mid 20th century.

These works are much closer to the idea of edutainment than anything we have that’s being produced today.  They provide something for the mind to chew over and don’t just distract.

So is there something redeeming in these new works?  They can at least be said to be keeping literature and film going for another generation.  Hopefully time enough for the next crop of great writers and directors to come along and create something worthwhile.