The case for an objective evaluation of art

Well, since we are supposed to post on here regularly and I cannot think of anything else to write or post I will instead write down a few personal objections to the idea that art is completely subjective. My argument is not that art is completely objective, that would be absurd, my argument is that art has a value independent of one’s personal “sentiment” for that piece of art. In other words, you cannot be wrong when you say you like or enjoy a piece of artwork. That part of the experience is definitely subjective and I would be a fool to argue otherwise. My argument is that when comparing art works, we can make an objective statement about the value of one artwork over another.
Before I begin I’d like to say that I am aware that such an argument cannot be “proven” in the sense that all debate can be resolved. My only support of my argument can be given by my own introspection and personal observation. Also, because of my background ( I was enrolled in the Wright State motion picture program between 2001-2003 before leaving for personal reasons) the best comparisons I am able to make are by using cinema and film history as examples. I’m aware of the possibility that my criteria may not hold true to all forms of art but it is part of my argument that it does not necessary have to. If anybody would like to post objections to my argument I would love to read and address them and I am pretty thick skinned so they need not attempt diplomacy though if you do please read the WHOLE thing before making objections.
#1: A question of value
It seems to me that a claim of subjective criteria of evaluation is very popular in our society. I have taken three ethics classes and in each one there has been a student who has claimed to be a nihilist. Nihilism is a claim that no moral value exists and the normal objection to nihilism is that it is “unlivable.” I say that nihilism is unlivable because even if somebody says that they don’t believe in value they contradict it with their actions. In the most recent ethics class I took Dr. Wilson refuted a student’s claim of nihilism by asking him to write a paper on the subject. “…and I’ll fail you. No matter how good your argument is. Isn’t that bad? Isn’t that wrong?”
This is one of the reasons that I think that David Hume’s comparison between artistic evaluation and ethical evaluation is apt. We care about art regardless of whether we say that it is a “matter of opinion.” When we experience a work of art we want to share that experience with others and when people share our views we feel vindicated even if it is a complete stranger and we are sometimes angry at other people for “not getting it” when they hate something that we think is great. This suggests that people react to art as if it were objective while at the same time we say intellectually that it is not. Our actions contradict the argument that art is subjective and in order to come to terms with that we must at least entertain the idea that there might be something objective about the artistic experience.
If we accepted the argument that all art is equal than we would essentially created a valueless universe and have robbed ourselves of something that is uniquely human. I have an example from pop culture that I think might illustrate what I’m getting at. I have never really watched the show American Idol but I’ve seen enough of it to be amused by how the contestants react to Simon Cowell. When the show first aired the press and public constantly labeled Cowell as “mean”, a complete “bastard” for the simple fact he told people that could not sing that they could not sing. I have no doubt that there were people who auditioned for American Idol who knew that they were tone deaf but just wanted to be on television, but there are some people who seem genuinely shocked when they are told that their “singing” sounds like a dying cat. On the other side of the coin, I’ve seen contestants who will nod politely and smile when the other judges pay them a compliment reduced to tears when Simon tells them that they are good.
The reason that Simon gets that reaction is because he is hard to please and has high standards. This creates a value to his opinion. This is also the same reason that a scholar or critic has authority. Their opinion's value is based on both their extensive knowledge and rigorous standards. The artist needs the critic, the “hard man”, to help him evolve and to be bluntly honest everybody else refuses to tell them the truth. In fact, I don’t think just artists need that, I think we all do. We need that good friend who tells us when we’re making an ass of ourselves. That is part of what friends are for.

#2: Consensus? What consensus?
One of the arguments against an objective standard for art that I commonly hear is that there is no consensus, therefore there is no standard. What I would say to the skeptic is: “how can you explain films that break box office records, wow the critics and win all the Oscars.” There have been plenty of them. (Gone With the Wind, Forrest Gump, The Godfather etc.) In fact, Avatar is going to probably be the latest film to do this. I ask the skeptic to explain Avatar’s massive appeal if it is not objectively good. Well, I think what the skeptic would say is that films like Avatar are a fluke and they happen by chance. “If a film becomes the highest grossing film ever, is critically celebrated and wins all the awards from peers in the film industry it is just by chance.”
Well, the skeptic is wrong or else some guys are just extremely lucky. Avatar was directed by James Cameron and this is the second time he has made a movie that has done this. How can a director make a movie that is as universally celebrated as Titanic and then turn around and do it again unless he has some kind of objective knowledge about the kind of cinematic experience that gets that reaction? What makes this even more mind boggling is that Cameron predicted his films success both times he made them. If you read interviews prior to each films release, the always modest Cameron tells interviewers that he expects his films to be massively successful.
Now I sense a straw man coming. I’m not arguing that only a film that is universally praised is objectively good. That would make the standard really narrow and it would serve no purpose. I’m just saying that it was James Cameron’s goal to make a film that had this kind of effect on people and he set out to do it by implying objective criteria about how cinema works and how people typically react to it. Steven Spielberg did something similar in the late 70’s and early 80’s when he made Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E. T.: The Extraterrestrial, in the span of a few years. During this period of his career it was his intent that these films reach a mass audience. When you watch a darker Spielberg film like Munich, you see a different intent. This film is political and controversial. It has a totally different effect then a film like Jaws does. This brings me to my next point.

#3: Apples and Oranges
I went to see Titanic the first day it came out with very little knowledge of what kind of a film I was going to see. When the film ended something really strange happened and as I remember it, it was completely spontaneous. The entire audience, which was packed, stood up and applauded. I don’t know about other people but that just doesn’t happen when I go to the movies. People don’t applaud but they did this time and the experience was something profound, collective and seemingly objective. We weren’t individuals responding to something in our own way with all our various shades of opinion we were responding collectively as if we had just shared something that had meaning and was of an objective value.
I have never been to another movie where people applauded but I did have another strange experience when I went to see Being John Malkovich. Instead of applauding at the end of that movie, when the credits rolled nobody moved. Every single person in the theater sat and watched the entire credits roll until every grip and best boy was accounted for and some people stayed in their seats even after the screen went dark and the lights went up. Collectively, we were bewildered by the movie. What did it mean? What was everybody else thinking? It was a completely different experience then the one with Titanic but in the same way it seemed both collective and as if the film had objectively influenced us all in some way.
I bring up these two examples because I think part of the reasons that we often view art as purely subjective is because we are comparing things that have so little in common. I could say that Being John Malkovich was a failure because it did not do to me what Titanic did or vice versa but I feel that judgment would be wrong somehow. If I am going to compare them with anything I should compare them against films that attempt to create a similar feeling and were made with a similar audience in mind.
I have another example from my life that I think illustrates what I am talking about. I took a horror film class some years ago and while screening a German horror film, Der Todesking, by Jorg Buttgereit a student got up and walked out. The next class he apologized to the professor by saying, “I’ve never walked out of a comedy because it was too funny.” This implies that he walked out of the horror film because of a subjective element but he was ashamed of this because he knew that the film was effective at what it was supposed to be doing, which was scare the crap out of him. In his book of criticism, Danse Macabre, Stephen King argues that horror films and novels are often criticized for being disturbing, morally subversive and using unpleasant subject matter. King thinks saying that these elements are objectively bad when evaluating a horror film is like saying a comedy is too funny. The objective way to evaluate horror is to look at it within the context of the effect the work is trying to achieve and whether it has that effect on people.
Some people hate horror films precisely because they do what they are supposed to do. I hate roller coasters. Some people love them. Despite the fact that I hate roller coasters is a subjective claim, and one I can’t be wrong about, I do not think the objective experience of a roller coaster is different for me than it is for somebody who likes it. We experience the exact same experience I just don’t like it and they do. I love horror films. I love them because they are cathartic and subversive and disturbing. I really don’t think the reasons given by people who hate them would be much different. The fact that horror films are disturbing or are at least supposed to be is an objective claim. If a horror film successfully unnerves a viewer it is a good one. If I enjoy a horror film but instead of enjoying it because it is scary I like it because it is cheesy and funny then it is a failure and objectively bad regardless of my subjective enjoyment.