Popularity Contest

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This entry was posted at
23:41 GMT on 29 January 2003

Aaron Haspel has a good, if brief, post on popularity in relation to artistic value. His basic conclusion is that popularity has no bearing on the ultimate value of a work.

I know where he's coming from, but I don't fully agree. Popularity is an indication of something, but I think we should always be careful not to ascribe too much value to it. Granted, I'm tempted to write off the moviegoing public as a pack of morons for putting Just Married into the top spot at the box office, followed by the illustrious Kangaroo Jack -- and that one got it two weeks in a row!

But a work endures because it maintains a kind of popularity, does it not?

Of course, I need to think this through more and, of course, thinking is not coming easy to me right now. More later.

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