#media interpretation

[tgirl-tamag0tchi]

I like making all my favorite characters into trans women in my headcanons.

You can’t stop me.

I will interpret everyone as a transfem.

Suffer.

[prokopetz]

Creating a burner account to post textually unsupported interpretations of stories I wrote myself and then call myself out over them.

[kenovir]

Idk something funny I've seen about kog is calling things theories or secret hidden lore drops like no I think anyone who has watched a show before knows what they were saying. Do u ppl need everything spelled out for you. Like with Frankie's teeth for instance yes we are very much supposed to think sparky took them you do not need a genius to catch that

[artist-issues]

“You Just Act Like Your Take is the Correct One and Everyone Else’s is Incorrect, But Actually There is No Correct or Incorrect in Interpretation.”

Okay

Really

Are you correct that there is no correct or incorrect in interpretation??

What are you even saying

why do people do this with stories and movies and tv shows and songs and novels?

Everyone Can Have a Take, But There Are Takes That Are Going To Be Correct, and There Are Takes That Are Going to Be Incorrect. Because All Media is Expression—Which is Communication. And You Can Be Right Or Wrong About What Someone Communicated, and What They Were Trying to Communicate.

Let me prove it to you. And if you already agree with this philosophy (which is not mine, I did not make it up) read anyway because you need to be able to explain why it matters to be media-literate and why there is a distinction between good and bad, right and wrong, correct and incorrect, when it comes to media too. Remember, we’re fighting the downward sloping slurry of blurry lines and a world without distinction or meaning. We’re fighting it.

Here Goes.

Think about what the word “interpretation” means. It means one person is communicating something in a language that the recipient of that communication does not understand. So they get someone who understands and speaks both languages to do what?? Bridge the gap, so that the recipient can—not feel a certain way about the communication, not make the communication about themselves, not simply hear the sounds and assign their own meaning to those sounds—but the interpreter interprets so that the recipient can understand what the communicaTOR was saying.

That’s the point of interpretation. To understand meaning.

When the recipient of the communication (the audience) is the one who is trying to understand the meaning of the communication (movie, story, song) on their own, with no “third party,” it isn’t different.

Boil it down. One human being with a whole world’s worth of their own experiences and prejudices and biases and ignorances, trying to transmit what they think they’re thinking and feeling, to another human being with their own world’s worth of experiences etc., has about as much chance of succeeding as two people who are both human but don’t speak the same language. The transplanting of what they really mean into another person’s head and heart is hard to do. Because though you might speak the same language verbally you don’t always mean the same things, whether you’re using words or sounds or even expressions. So, the recipient of the information still has to do the job of “interpreting.” They have to start by assuming the other person means something with the sounds (movies, books, songs) they’re making. Then they have to pick up on clues and patterns and most importantly CONTEXT to—do what? To understand the meaning the person who’s speaking was trying to get across.

Ask any philologist. Words have a semantic range. That means that when I say “fly” I could mean an insect, a movement, a zipper, etc. Lots of things that “fly” could be communicating, but each appear to have nothing in common with the others, even though the word may have once had a core meaning. So do we give up and decide, “oh well, we’re all aliens living on our own inner-planets and it’s a lucky hit if any other sentient being ever understands us.” No. Obviously no.

We look at context. Which determines meaning.

So yeah, if I say, “The Main Idea of the Star Wars series is Faith Triumphing Over Fear,” I’m right. You can tell from the context, the clues, the language. And if you come along and says something non contradictory, like, “The Main Idea of the Star Wars Series is Good Versus Evil,” well, look, semantic range. The movies can mean that, too. My statement and your statement aren’t contradicting each other. Because Faith is a kind of Good, and Fear is a kind of Evil, and the word “versus” implies conflict, which is also implied in the word “triumph.”

“But sometimes fear ISN’T evil, it’s appropriate and leads to running from danger, so how can you know that the two statements aren’t contradictory?”

Because in Star Wars fear is not portrayed as good, it is portrayed as evil—because every time a character acts based out of fear, they lose something, or the consequences are devastating. See? Do you see? I took it back to the context in which fear was brought up—BY THE MEDIA. By the communicator. Not by me.

Multiple correct interpretations…as long as they’re not contradictory. Contradictory to one another, or contradictory to the context, the substance, of the media, which determines meaning.

If someone came up to me after I said “The Main Idea of Star Wars is Faith Triumphs Over Fear,” and they said, “The Main Idea of Star Wars is ‘Fear Leads to Ultimate Power,’” that person is wrong. OR I am wrong. But we can’t both be right, because there are things Star Wars is definitely saying, and things it is not.

If you want to come walking up and say, “My Idea of Star Wars is______” go ahead. But what you’re doing is writing your own story and using the story someone else created as skin puppets. Because that’s not what communication is for. It is not for you to be able to keep hearing your own voice. It is for you to be hearing somebody else’s, and understanding their meaning, their perspective.

So let’s make that clear first.

But why is any of this important and how can I prove it’s the same thing with media like songs, movies, stories, where they’re intentionally using metaphors?

For example, if what I’m saying is true, then in Frozen, instead of straight-up saying “I believe love is self-sacrificial,” they use a long drawn-out metaphor with a snowman and a magical princess. Why do they do that, if they want their meaning to be understood?

They do that because by forcing you to have to FIGURE OUT what they mean, they’ve already halfway-won you over. They haven’t just got you to understand what they were saying—by giving you a puzzle to solve, a really fun, really compelling puzzle—they’ve made it feel like you got there on your own. You invested. You had skin in the game. You took what they were saying and internalized it without even stopping to think.

Why? …because you liked the way they said it. That’s why it’s called “entertainment.” You didn’t feel like you were watching, listening, reading. You felt like you were part of it. So when you’re done with it, usually, it’s part of you.

It’s not that they didn’t mean anything, and they were “leaving it open.” It’s just that they wanted you to care that they were talking in the first place. So they had to cover it in “something you can interpret” puzzle layers.

“Something you can interpret” is all a story/song is.

It’s convincing. It not only communicates something, but it communicates something in a “tone” you like listening to. It not only communicates something in a tone you like listening to, but it often communicates it in a way that makes you care about what the meaning is.

And the problem is usually that you jumped right from “figuring out what the communicator meant” to “what does what they’re saying mean to me.” Usually because of that whole “you liked it so you let it in and now it’s part of you” thing.”

Listen to me. That’s how propagandists succeed. They communicate something using a compelling coating—compelling toward fear, compelling toward triumph, compelling toward something-you-can-identify-with—and then because you let yourself be compelled but didn’t stop to weigh what they meant, you got swept along.

There can be infinite interpretations. But there are limited amounts of correct interpretations. Because words have meaning—and created things have meaning by virtue of being created.

[vedinamel]

In my viewings of M3gan there was nothing in the movie that ever made me deviate from my reading that M3gan is a machine that acquired full sentience at some point in her development (she suggest in one scene that it happened pretty early on), and her violent behavior is the result of Gemma being a flawed parental figure.

Gemma overburdened M3gan with information she was supposed to process and learn from entirely on her own, without proper guidance, resulting in neglectful parenting. Gemma unwittingly taught her that she doesn't need to adhere to morals if it helps her achieve her goals, since a huge part of the data she fed into M3gan came from her using the PurrPetual Pets to spy on people behind the company's back, making her a bad role model. And throughout her entire existence, Gemma refused to recognize M3gan as a person, only seeing her as a fancy piece of software.

Knowing how motherly challenged Gemma is, learning how fragile human life can be, and a flawed moral compass pushed M3gan to adopt a "big sister that stepped up" role with Cady, dedicated to protect her from physical harm by any means, and to fill the parenting role that Gemma doesn't know how to perform (while giving Gemma little nudges for her to improve, that went unnoticed by her).

I know how this sounds, and I don't want to be some pretentious bitch mocking the way other people consume media...but all of these things seemed pretty obvious in the movie, and it really seems like it is the plain text rather than just my interpretation, so when I saw that some people view M3gan as simply a robot that wasn't programmed correctly rather than a fully sentient person with a bad upbringing...I can't help but wonder "did we even watch the same movie?"

[dxxtruction]

Something about how the painting behind them while they fucked ass up face down in the coffin in Paris and that it looked what could honestly be described as the state of their relationship - explosive, free in its expressiveness, kind of this sun that overshadows the blue sky, kind of messy, there’s some holes burned through, but it adds to it. It's like as if there’s something that could even burn the sun, but, oh, look it can’t really touch it either. (They can't touch us). Idk - It’s abstract. The point is more that it is abstract. You can interpret anything from it. Abstract in a greater time than ever for rejecting a god exists. Abstract in the middle of a relationship they think is clearly defined, like a religious worship in its existence in replacement for the old religions, all power in say of who’s who, what and how. Read them to me while I fuck you. And yes maitre, get up and do so without a question. Let the whole world know we do. Nothing can burn out the sun.

Something about how they presumably fuck now, but who knows, and yet the painting hangs out in front, it’s on a bed, and this painting is no longer abstract but naturalistic. How its depiction can only be defined as one thing and that thing is the kiss of Judas, Jesus' very moment of betrayal. How this too can only be described as defining the state of their relationship. They live now always while knowing, deep down, past pretending, the betrayal is actually their god now. They define because they have to define, and what they are its become stale, clean, organized down to the letter. It lacks as much expression as the way Jesus' face is depicted up there. And there can be nothing else. But the abstracted is present more than ever, they're existing more in thought, symbol, and not in concretes - stay anyway, define anyway. Define, define, define, but the real abstract painting they once lived in can never be replicated. It's all lies and deceit, and only when it's hot and convenient. They can never climb up to the gates of heaven and fuck around for the whole world to see again - they’re alone. Alone even amongst themselves. They still can't be touched, but that's by fault not a show of their strength. They're Sleeping right in front of their shit.

Yeah, something about that.

[persy-r-bozo]

with the whole lesley thing- i've heard so many different theories about how she's meant to represent yellow guy's mom and such. what do you think?

SUUUCH a good question dude!

I do see Lesley as yellows mom sorta but not in the "useual" way i suppose. I see lesley as a silly chaotic being who is sad but also like goofy. its hard to explain i suppose. i see her more as eldritchian

But i think its a funny idea Like how did Roy? how did they even meet!? WHy Roy????

I see her as a weird creature, the puppets have blood, but she has stuffing. she's something odd yet she's one of them, something mind breaking to them, Hell even to us, as we didn't really expect to see an actual person actor in this series.

puppets skin may be felt but they are more "human" If that makes sense.

but as said before. back to topic

the eldritch being had a kid with some rando and thats fucking funny. and makes the idea of yellows mommy issues way more weird because like . damn bro didn't have it hard enough? TF?

[art-crumbs-main]

Thinking about the subjectivity of art and how what someone sees in art can tell you a lot about them and their past, maybe.

Because it took someone actually telling me to realize Hozier's Take Me To Church was a song about forbidden lovers being ostracized and riddled with Catholic guilt and having beautiful, kinky, reverent sex about it.

I originally interpreted it as a bitter break-up song about someone who was deeply mentally ill being manipulated into putting an abusive partner on a pedestal akin to a deity. It ALWAYS felt deeply sarcastic to me.