Does Knowledge Kill Enjoyment?

I will be the first to tell you I’m pretentious. Not with everything, of course. Then I’d be completely insufferable and you’d have to ship off condolences to anyone who’s ever had a conversation with me. You really want to steer clear of mentioning movies, shows, and books, around me, though. I might start talking about plot devices and send you running. 

I wasn’t always such a critic, I used to be able to turn my brain off watching or reading almost everything. I’ve always loved stories, and learning the mechanics of how they’re told, and I had an itch to learn more about what went into making the books and movies that shaped me. 

Then I went to art school. People tend to undervalue an arts or humanities education. But it teaches a certain level of media analysis that, to me, is a gap in the curriculum of most other majors. They’ve helped add to what I’ve learned in my own internet rabbit holes. I’m fortunate enough to have classes that take me behind the curtain of the magic show and see how all the tricks turn into stories. The more I know, the more irritated the itch in my brain becomes, cynically poking holes through the pages and screen. It’s like sitting in the grass with a magnifying glass, suddenly able to see every spot in a flower where it’s decaying, or where some bug took a chomp out of a petal. Then, imagine someone sprinkling pixie dust on the flower and it slowly becomes the size of a bear and all the innate issues are truly inescapable. Once you start noticing it, you never stop. 

On the one hand, I love being able to see how a story works. I love puzzles, and stories are really just puzzles that change shape. However, the more I know, the more I can see when the puzzle arrived at the store with pieces missing. The issues aren’t always the same, of course. Sometimes your dog chews on the pieces, or your little brother runs away with five of them thinking he’s funny. 

Now, when an element of a book or movie isn’t working, it’s glaringly obvious. I notice passive voice, too much exposition, or dialogue between characters where they tell each other things that they should already know just so the audience has the information. Lazy storytelling, lazy writing, lazy character work. Before, I could tune it out, if I even noticed it at all. Now, that cynical voice in my head returns with every error, asking if I’ll ever enjoy anything to the same extent as I used to. 

Alternatively, and forgive me for getting a little too committed to the puzzle metaphor, sometimes you open the box and encounter the most high quality pieces, that you know will click together clearly, with that crispy woodsy scent. Now, when I read a book or watch a movie and the story is really working, it’s clearer than looking at something through the most polished piece of glass possible. I can appreciate certain elements of the visuals or the way an author constructed their sentences with the terminology to explain it. 

I do think the ability to truly turn my brain off when reading or watching something new is gone forever, but I honestly don’t know if I’d take it back. My prior ability has simply been replaced with a different kind of joy: being a critic. 

• arts and humanities
• knowledge
• media
• media analysis
• opinion piece