On objectivity in art
CONTENT WARNING: mentions of racism and various bigotries like transphobia, homophobia, fatphobia and ableism.
(GIF from Fullmetal Alchemist ending Tobira no mukou e)
Every so often you will come across the idea that there are two main ways of judging a piece of media, one: by looking at it in an "objective" sense, and two: by looking at how much you like it subjectively. For example people will say things like "I know that objectively this show isn't very good, but I liked it" or "objectively this song is amazing but I prefer this other song" and so on. While I understand the sentiment behind such statements I personally don't believe this to be a useful or even particularly accurate way of talking about art. I recognize this is ultimately just my opinion but I happen to be pretty anal about this particular opinion and I don't like ranting at my friends so I will rant about it here instead.
Let's start by first talking about language. A pretty important aspect of language is that it tends to be pretty diverse, not just in the differences between languages but within dialects of the same tongue and even within the same dialect as it evolves over the decades. People don't speak the same way they used to and many words have taken new meanings they didn't use to have.
Even things as simple as the word for "sibling" will have different nuances and connotations in different languages. For example some languages don't make a distinction based on gender, so instead of brother and sister they'd have words like "พี่ · pîi" (older sibling) and "น้อง · nɔ́ɔng" (younger sibling). This isn't because people who speak different languages live in different realities but simply because what we choose to focus on and our circumstances can color the way we perceive the world.
These changes exist in all sorts of different areas: the ways languages deal with the passage of time, how to represent different amounts of stuff, different levels of formality and politeness and so on. This makes sense, after all we're pretty complex beings and the universe we live in stubbornly refuses to be defined. It doesn't fit into our neat little boxes that we love so much as humans, edges are blurry and changing everywhere and things that are often perceived as straight-forward dichotomies are more often than not spectra.
Like, language gives us a way to convey lots of information to one another but that doesn't mean we can easily convey the complexity of a concept in its entirety. Things are not only lost in translation but even when speaking the same language. The world is so complex that our brains have to work off of assumptions that we don't even realize we're making which often leads to misunderstandings even when talking about purely objective fact.
There are certain things that we can convey in a relatively straight forward way. For example if we are counting the amount of objects that exist within a space it's usually not too complicated, "there are 5 chairs here" "there are 12 coins there". And even certain qualities of objects can be independently verified and very precisely determined using certain tools "this table is 2 meters wide" "that pot of water is 80 °C".
But you very quickly get to a point where the qualities you are describing start becoming blurrier and blurrier. "This bottle is cold" might be an accurate statement, but implicit in that statement is the subjectivity of it. The bit that's left unsaid is "this bottle is cold to me". We can assume the person who said that touched the bottle and felt the sensation that people would normally describe as "coldness". Or we might infer that based on the knowledge they possess they assume it would feel cold if they were to touch it. But that is not an absolute statement. The word "cold" only makes sense as long as there are other things to compare that temperature with. "Cold" can not exist in a vacuum.
To illustrate there's the experiment where you have two cups of water: one that is cold and one that is room temperature. If you first put your hand in the cold cup of water and let it sit a bit it will acclimate, our bodies are good at getting used to certain stimuli when they're prolonged enough. If you then take that hand and put it in the room temperature cup it won't feel room temperature, it will feel warm. The way we perceive temperature is at least partially affected by contrast, not by absolute values. You don't feel 10 °C, you feel a rise or a drop from whatever the previous temperature was to 10 °C.
Similarly, if you've ever traveled to different regions or know people who have, you will know that people can perceive the weather very differently. I was once visited by someone who remarked how cold it was where I live, despite the fact that the temperature didn't feel particularly cold to me. This perception was entirely shaped by previous experiences and expectations with the weather.
Many things work this way and people don't realize. An object can not be "big" or "small" without something to compare it to. After all Mount Everest might be gigantic next to a house, but is dwarfed when next to the moon. The size of the object didn't change, what changed was our point of reference. Many sensations work this way too. Color is basically entirely subjective as something that not only changes from entity to entity depending on how many types of cone cells they have in their eyes (or how advanced the sensors being used in a camera are), but also the amount of light in the space, the angle of said light, the light that bounces off of nearby objects, the wavelength of the light, the distance from the object in question and so on and so forth. In fact even the way color gets treated by different languages changes, and even different people within the same language will have different boundaries for what counts as a color and not a different one. As someone who knows a bit about art I can confidently say that color is entirely subjective.
Perhaps this is a good point for me to define what I mean by "objective" and "subjective". After all different people use words differently and so to avoid misunderstandings we should be a bit more precise with our vocabulary.
Something is objective if it is a quality of the object itself, like when I mentioned above that you can measure the temperature of a pot of water. That is something that exists physically in the world and can be measured. The temperature is very specifically defined by how fast the molecules of water are vibrating (and probably other factors I'm unfamiliar with since I'm not good at physics). A quality is objective when people's perceptions don't affect it. You can disagree all you want about the temperature of the water, and perhaps you can express it in different ways (Celsius vs Kelvin, in Japanese, Nahuatl, ASL, etc.) but at the end of the day the information is the same.
In contrast something is subjective when it is not a quality of the object itself but instead depends on the subject perceiving the object. If you say something like "soup is delicious" some people might disagree (me, I would disagree cause I don't like a lot of soups), and it's not like people are wrong for saying that they like or dislike soup. It is their subjective experience that they enjoy or don't enjoy it. It is a matter of opinion, a matter of taste. The terms "cold" and "warm" might seem objective at first glance but they don't describe specific temperatures, they are dependent on other factors as previously discussed, and so they are describing a subjective experience.
Of course, those might not be the definitions you use for those words but I find that to be a useful framework and one that aligns with how people seem to commonly use these terms. Is this a verifiable quality of the object itself? Unaffected by outside judgements, or is this more of a matter of opinion or perspective? Something perhaps resulting from emotions, intuition, our senses, and previous experiences.
And before we start talking about art quality I'd also like to put forward the thought that another function of language is simply to convey ideas for functional purposes, as in, you don't need your every sentence to be the most factually accurate and granular statement you can make. You only need it to convey something that is close enough to the reality of the situation and which lets other people know the information they need in order to interact with you better or carry out a task. The point here is that language is flexible and can be used pragmatically.
This can apply to queer labels. With all the nuances of trans identities this kind of stuff isn't super uncommon. I've heard the sentiment that when trans people talk amongst ourselves we can express what our gender means to us in more complex and esoteric terms, but when talking to cis people we often dumb it down quite a bit and perhaps even hide aspects of our gender that may seem more confusing to someone who hasn't explored their identity in that way.
So with all of that in mind I think we can get into my actual opinion: "objectively good" doesn't exist.
When you watch a series you can generally tell fairly quickly if you are enjoying it or not, if you're interested in watching more or not. But notice that ultimately that is coming from within you. Those are not inherent qualities of the work, they result from your personal interaction with it, your subjective experience.
People's tastes are different. Perhaps the media you consumed in your upbringing will have an influence on the type of story you prefer, what art styles you're drawn to, the genres of music that emotionally connect with you, how you feel about the subject matter being depicted, if you know the artists involved and have any opinions or preconceived notions about them. Even potentially the mood in which you were in when you first watched a show can affect how you perceive it.
And I think to a certain extent people are aware of this, you hear sometimes that art is subjective, that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, that it's a matter of taste. But sometimes – as I said at the beginning – there are people asserting that there is such a thing as "objectively" good or bad art.
When people try to determine the objective qualities of a work they come up with various parameters, like how engaging the writing is, how many frames were used in the animation, how original are the character designs, the effort that was put into the work, etc. But the thing that people don't seem to realize is that no matter what it is that you're using as your "objective" metric it still ultimately comes down to taste.
What makes a drawing good? Is it the use of line width variation? Is it the color choices? Is it realistic perspective? Stylized proportions? Expressiveness? You ask 10 different people you will get 14 different answers, I'm sure you can try to do an appeal to authority and say that "actually, according to this famous artist / art critic / philosopher, good art is defined by-" but it all boils down to the subjective experience of whoever came up with the rules for what makes good art. There is no "good-o-meter" that we can use to objectively measure the goodness of a work.
If art schools are saying that a good understanding of anatomy is necessary for good art to be made, but then I am emotionally moved by art that doesn't really take anatomy into account at all – to the point of being very loose scribbles, very weird and inconsistent proportions or incredibly abstract shapes – does that rule being broken somehow make my experience of the work any less real? The art any less impactful? Skilled? Good? No, I don't think it does.
Likewise, if a work of art follows all the technical guidelines and excels at composition, color theory, character design, etc. But I don't actually find the work to be appealing in any way – and perhaps even dislike it and find that I don't really get anything of value out of it – does the rules being followed somehow make my experience of the work any less real? The art any more impactful? Skilled? Good? No, it doesn't either.
What about a poem that moves me and feels like poetry to me despite it having no clear meter, theme, or rhyme scheme? What about a piece of music that moves me despite using "out of tune" instruments. Intentionally going out of its way to avoid the twelve-tone equal temperament system (and all the theory and rules behind it) that was developed in Europe and virtually all modern music uses nowadays? The adherence or breaking of any objective rules or parameters does not in fact correlate with any meaningful information such as the subjective enjoyment or value people may derive out of a work of art, its popularity, or its cultural impact; it's quality and worth.
It's important to point out that rules are made after the fact, i.e. Once a group of people collectively deem a work of art as "good" they can try to figure out how to replicate it through observing what qualities it has or what seemed to connect with people, and then they teach whatever rules they come up with. These may be useful guidelines, but it'd be a mistake to take these as absolute truths rather than subjective opinions on how to replicate the kinds of experiences that have been crafted before. These belong in textbooks and in classrooms, not as things we hold up as universal markers of quality.
It's also important to notice that art is a cultural thing with a cultural meaning. This means we came up with the definition of art, and we came up with art itself also, if we change its definition the way we make it changes with it. What even counts as art or what it's meant to accomplish is not something that has remained static throughout the entirety of human history, and I think that punctuates the fact that this is more complicated than something you can simply measure through a list of objective traits. Any time you see rules for what makes a certain work of art "objectvely" good ask yourself if this is something that even applies to works from different time periods and what presuppositions about art are being made by whoever made the rules.
Many works that are now seen as classics in all art mediums come from artists deliberately breaking rules and going against the grain. Van Gogh was not celebrated in his time. Edvard Munch's "The Scream" was criticized for looking like something "only a madman could paint" which was referenced by Munch himself in a scribble on the painting. Art doesn't move forward if it doesn't dare to go outside of what's already been established as "good". If you stick too long with what you know works things start to get stale and formulaic.
Among groups of people we do often have a consensus view on certain works. Some things will be seen as "good" by a majority of people and then we can analyze it and try our best to figure out why it was appealing to a large group of people, but that's all that is: consensus. As soon as some other work of art shows up which doesn't follow these rules but appeals to the masses the consensus has changed. The consensus is always changing and it is shaped by a collective of subjective experiences and opinions.
I think this is what some people are getting at when they say things like "I know it's objectively bad but I kind of liked it" they might be trying to convey their understanding of the consensus opinion, that a large amount of people find the work unappealing and they are aware of that. Perhaps this comes from insecurity, as a way to put down their own opinions or preempt criticism. But the moment you say "I enjoyed it" you are changing the consensus, you are part of the consensus. At the end of the day how much people like or praise a work isn't revealing the inherent "goodness" of the art itself as much as it is a mirror that says something about the audience experiencing it.
All it means for something to be "consensus good" or "consensus bad" is that it was appealing or unappealing to many people. It does not indicate that there is anything wrong with you for disagreeing. I think calling these "objectively good" or "objectively bad" is not doing justice to the fact that these are still very much based on opinion and subjective experience.
There is a bit of elitism going on as well. More experimental out-there stuff is often shunned or criticized for stepping too far out of the mainstream while stuff that more closely adheres to the norm does not rock the boat and so it is not challenging and doesn't get criticized as harshly. It is more comfortable, more palatable. When you consider the fact that a lot of mainstream media is predominantly made by white cishet abled-bodied skinny men you may start to see how things can turn ugly pretty fast.
An aspect that bothers me about the whole "there is objectively good/bad art" idea is that it allows people to elevate their personal opinions above others'. It lends this air of importance to their taste that then can be used to legitimize prejudice and biases. As Natalie Wynn points out in her video Opulence the ghostly white appearance of the Roman marble statues is a lie. They were originally painted – as she put it – the color of something a drag queen would wear to a quinceañera.
And you just know that when the news first broke some horrified WASP classicist turned to a colleague and said "Oh, Kingsley, it looks... it looks Mexican"
(Look, I hate that everything boils down to politics too but it's important to discuss it).
At the end of the day I think it is important to point out that there is a pattern as to which types of things are often seen as superior or inferior when it comes to art, what gets to be called "objectively good" and what doesn't. And I'm sure it's not done with malice – bigotry and prejudice don't often come from a place of malice – but a lot of the things that are seen as "cringe" "tacky" "camp" or "objectively bad" are things that take inspiration from or directly come from non-white cultures and queer art, representation of disabled and fat characters. Anything that steps outside of the comfortable norm. Anything that comes from different perspectives, from different voices than what is deemed proper.
I haven't watched it but I hear that the movie I Saw the TV Glow was deeply emotionally impactful to many trans people, to the point that many gave the advice "do not watch the movie alone" because of how much it could wreck you. Meanwhile cis folk often left the theater underwhelmed, confused, not understanding the point because they had never lived through anything like that. It can be harder to recognize things you haven't experienced yourself. This of course can be pretty frustrating for trans people because what do you MEAN you don't get it? Everything being expressed was in plain sight and somehow you come out of the movie having missed it entirely? Well, because the different personal contexts and perspectives we come in with literally alter what we experience.
Similarly a lot of non-Black people don't engage much with Black art, to the point where movies like Is God Is – despite being widely praised and having a lot of traits that are generally seen as good in other films – underperformed at the box office and is not as widely known as it would be if it wasn't Black. What I'm trying to get across here is that these are not things that come from the inherent qualities of these works of art. Trans or Black experiences and voices are not any harder to understand than cis and non-Black perspectives. The influence of each person's vantage point and subjective experience is not difficult to see at all. Prejudice and ignorance can absolutely color the way you experience art, and that applies everywhere and to everyone. There's no one that is informed on every single thing and will pick up on every single message directly stated or implied in all works of art. We all have blind spots.
And look, I don't want to do the thing where I assign morality to my subjective personal opinions. I'm not here to say "if you don't agree with me that this ice cream flavor is bad that means you're problematic and toxic!1!!". Me heavily disliking this whole "objective quality" thing is ultimately not coming from a place of concern about morality. I'm not even necessarily saying that this is a concept that can't intersect with more progressive worldviews, perhaps it can.
I bring this whole thing up because I think it might explain partially why it makes me so upset sometimes to come across that take. Not only is it irrational but it feels elitist and like it uplifts the status quo. At the end of the day it is the kind of rhetoric some people might use in an attempt to elevate their opinion above that of minorities and potentially even censor certain types of art that they don't deem to be "proper", which I don't like one bit.
But again, most people saying stuff like "I like this thing even though it's objectively bad" are not "doing a racism", just so we're clear. I don't think this is an inherently evil thing, I just wanted to point out how it can be damaging in certain circumstances considering the prevalent bigotry that already exists in art communities in general. If you were unaware of it it's important for you to become aware.
Moving on from that I would like to point out that art quality being a thing that is judged subjectively makes more sense when considering the passage of time. There's plenty of media that I've consumed in the past which I used to love but now does not impact me in the same way, and vice versa. Tastes change, evolve. As the context of our lives changes different things can take new meanings. A romance story would probably have been fine with me in the past but would currently give me a certain level of discomfort and sadness even if I did enjoy it, just due to the subject matter and the personal context of my life at the moment.
This also leads me to another important point: the way you interact with media also matters, the way I came across mlp:fim (my little pony friendship is magic) when I was a kid made it seem very cool and interesting. I found brony music before knowing anything about the show and happened to like a lot of the aesthetic and concepts behind it. Had I heard about it in a different context I'm not entirely sure I would've liked it as much or even had the same opinion of it. There's also the thing where if you associate a certain work with a person your opinion of that person can color the way you view it. Some people can't watch a thing anymore because they associate it too much with their ex for example.
I've even seen on Youtube comment sections people talking about how a certain video or song is very special to them because it reminds them of a loved one they lost. They now listen to the song and think back to the memories they have of that person. That is a very real aspect of how we consume art and something I believe shouldn't be discounted.
Some of the media I liked as a kid still resonates with me today but for entirely different reasons. I recently rewatched both iterations of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime (which I had originally watched when I was little) and I had this really raw experience when I first heard the ending theme "扉の向こうへ" (tobira no mukou e). A few seconds after it started playing I suddenly burst out into tears. I always liked the song but the nostalgia, the memories I had associated with that song and the fact that it had been more than a decade since I last listened to it gave me an overwhelming surge of emotions and it was a very impactful moment for me.
That is entirely subjective. No one else is going to have that experience because other people are not me. I think that is part of what makes art so beautiful to begin with. To try to obsess over what "objective" qualities we can find in art to me undermines experiences like these. It undermines the individuality of our tastes and how each person has a unique set of eyes with which to view art.
We are not beings of cold reasoning. We are emotional and messy and I think it only makes sense for us to allow ourselves to acknowledge that, to look within us to figure out how a work of art has affected us. When critics are expected to be objective they only talk about things as if they are looking to fulfill a checklist. Their reviews can end up being pretty dry and uninteresting. Instead when they allow themselves to show their subjectivity they can more effectively convey how the work has emotionally impacted them personally, or what kind of value they derived from it, which I find miles more interesting and appealing.
And at the end of the day having the understanding that your enjoyment of media ultimately comes from a subjective place, that differing tastes come from our upbringing and that there is no "right opinion" when it comes to art, helps to avoid tension or friction with people when you find yourself having differing tastes to others. You stop wondering if there's something wrong with you when you like a thing that others don't and you simply allow yourself to be the way you are and experience what you experience without judgement.
Ultimately I think that people should have the courage to simply say if they like a thing or not. They can point out if their opinion goes against the grain but I don't believe it is necessary to elevate the consensus and put your own subjective experience down in order to do that. Like what you like, make the art you want to make forever. As long as you aren't hurting people there's no reason not to allow yourself to be authentic in your subjectivity.
Oh, and I also want to preempt a potential criticism I could get, which is "but what about (insert harmful thing here), isn't that objectively bad?" Once again I don't think it is useful to think of it in terms of objective vs subjective. If a thing is harmful (like something that spreads misinformation or vitriol) then we should discuss the harm that it causes. We should look at it from an ethical and political lens. In that case whether the work is "good" or "bad" becomes irrelevant as the more important aspect to discuss is if it's causing harm and how we can stop or mitigate it.
I just generally think there is never a situation where it is useful to think of the "objective quality" of art, as if it exists in some sort of platonic ideal form. Art is ours to make and define and our subjective experience of it matters. There is no authority or superior view. There is just what we feel and what we feel is all that matters.