Taste and Decency

There is a difference between something you don’t like, and something that’s horseshit. You can dislike something because it’s both, but they are not synonymous.

A  film that you didn’t like isn’t necessarily bad. The works of Chekhov, Shakespeare and Beckett are NOT to everyone’s taste, but that doesn’t mean they are a weakly written.

Performance and contemporary art often suffer from immediately being dismissed because they are not to the traditionalist’s tastes, but it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily a waste of time, a waste of money, or somehow poor quality.

You may not enjoy Shakespeare’s King Lear, there may be a dozen reasons why you didn’t enjoy it, but you cannot really argue that it lacks quality. The production company may have ruined it in your opinion, and that perspective is worthy, and a separate judgment.

Do not confuse something you didn’t like, with something that was poor quality. It’s easy to write something off because of a basic misunderstanding of the difference. Saying something is shite because you didn’t enjoy it, is casual, shallow and capricious.

You can appreciate something even if it isn’t your thing.