thefeelofavideogame:

I’mma be blunt.

A lot of people are very insecure, too insecure to attempt to find meaning in something that wasn’t effectively forced down their throats as being meaningful in high school by their english teacher. The idea that something weird, and eccentric, or even outright goofy and fun can evoke deep emotion or even have a deep and beautiful message that isn’t obvious at first escapes them. 

They’re too afraid of being seen as foolish to treat things that break the mold of ‘people are sad and miserable and it’s important’ as anything other than goofy schlock, lest they be mocked by other people.

They’re also trained to be hyperfixated on the text, rather than looking at a work in whole. As an example, there are many people who may as well just read scripts rather than see movies, but they totally ignore music, shot composition, lightning, cinematography, choreography, and performances. There’s this really intolerable thread of WRITING! STORY! ONLY THESE MATTER AND THESE ARE ONLY CONVEYED THROUGH THE TEXT AND NOTHING ELSE that has rendered a huge amount of people entirely incapable of parsing most works of art.

There’s also the hyperfixation on the idea of a highly relevant moral, completely ignoring the idea that a work of art can just be meant to be beautiful and evoke emotion, or a more general meaning or lesson than what they want.

Anyway the answer is that the education system in all english speaking countries sucks ass and cripples the ability of students to understand or appreciate art