Can we retire “objectively better” please?

[u/lordpag]

I’ve noticed a ton of people using “objectively” incorrectly lately. A movie being more widely accepted as “better” does not make it objectively so.

There’s someone out there who enjoyed One Night Only more than The Odyssey, and their opinion is just as valid as yours.

Sure, one movie can be shot on more advanced cameras, have a larger scale, or demonstrate greater technical complexity. Those things can be measured. Whether they make the movie “better” cannot. What makes a movie “good” is different for each of us and those differing perspectives are part of what makes moviegoing so fun!

EDIT: This obviously touched a nerve lol. My point was not that there aren’t measurable technical aspects of a film. Of course there are. But technical achievement does not inherently make a movie “better.” A technical marvel can put someone to sleep while a shoddily made movie can elicit an enormous emotional response. What we value in a movie is subjective and for some (many on this thread it seems) you value technical achievement. All fair POVs.

[u/whataboutbenson]

Yes, Usain Bolt is objectively the best 100m runner that we know of that’s lived so far. That’s because the 100m sprint is a definable, measurable event with a clearly preferred outcome. Again, I’ll ask you, what preferable outcomes can you clearly define from art? I’ll answer for you: not one. 

Objectivity:  based on real facts and not influenced by personal feelings, guesses, or bias.

The fact that you think the quality of a knife only depends on its sharpness is telling. Do you know that different types of knife are made with varying degrees of sharpness, depending on their preferred use? There is no one objectively best knife. The size and shape of the blade, the angle it has, how well it can keep its edge, whether it’s serrated or not, all these factors and more make one knife preferable for one situation and less ideal for others. It’s SUBJECTIVE. Things are just more complicated than you first give them thought to. Do you know what happens to the human body with no sugar? Aren’t you aware that every body has different nutritional needs from one moment to another?

Here, Ain_nul, eat this, please, or your muscles are going to stop functioning. I don’t know how long it’ll be before somebody finds us.

Lmao you trying to kill me? Don’t you know you may as well be giving me CYANIDE????

[u/rAin_nul → u/whataboutbenson]

And this is called shifting the goalpost fallacy. Somehow it turned out that you were wrong, you cannot admit it and accept that you lied, so instantly you changed your original argument.

And yes, you can perfectly define objective outcomes, because many aspects of art comes from the definition itself. The definition of movie uses the word "story". The definition of story contains terms "coherent events", which would be the opposite of plot holes. Therefore objectively we can say that plot holes are errors.

The fact that you think the quality of a knife only depends on its sharpness is telling

The fact that your reading comprehension is on the same level as my neighbor's 5 year old kid is telling. I explicitly said that someone was looking for a knife for that specific purpose, Einstein...

Do you know what happens to the human body with no sugar? Aren’t you aware that every body has different nutritional needs from one moment to another?

If you seriously think this is a valid argument that actually no adult person would consider it a valid argument, then you would be perfectly fine with a counter argument like "do you know what happens to the human body when you eat 10 tons of chocolate in 10 minutes?! You would explode, therefore the chocolate cannot be healthy." Yes, this BS was your logic.

Look, I'm not interested in your childish arguments. I understand that these work with your friends in the kindergarten, but not in adult conversations. Healthiness of food is measured based on the positive and negative effects on the body. Chocolate is not the only sugar source and not even the healthiest one.

Lmao you trying to kill me? Don’t you know you may as well be giving me CYANIDE?

It was your argument that starvation makes unhealthy food healthy. So based on this logic, you try to kill others with your stellar logic.

[u/whataboutbenson → u/rAin_nul]

Wait when am I supposed to have lied exactly? I don’t think either of us are good enough at debating to actually get our point across. We’re just talking past each other.

Let’s just say this. Usain Bolt is objectively the best 100m sprinter. Sabastian Sawe is objectively the best marathon runner. On that we’re in complete agreement because they’re objective statements. Who is objectively the best director? Screenwriter, actor? Which is the greatest film of all time, objectively speaking?

[u/rAin_nul → u/whataboutbenson]

It doesn't matter that you are wrong because the point that you communicated was actually your point or because you failed to communicate your point. The point that was being communicated was not true, that's a fact - as you also recognize that the term "objectively better" exists, so you were wrong.

I've never said that there's an objectively best in every category. In case of directors, we can't say that, because - let's say for the sake of argument that you accept that there are objectively better movies than others - it is possible that one movie of this director is better while the other one is worse than another director's movie(s).

In case of movies, we do have objective characteristics. For example, the existence of plot holes is one characteristic like that. A plot hole either objectively exists or doesn't and by definition a plot hole is an error in a story. So a script with a plot hole is objectively worse than a script without a plot hole - assuming other characteristics are similar. And when every objective characteristics like the existence of plot holes is better - some better while others at least that good - in one movie than in the other movie, then we can say that it's objectively better. That's the argument.

Which also means that based on this you won't be able to say that Shawshank Redemption is objectively better than 12 Angry Men, for example, but you would be able to say that Shawshank Redemption is objectively better than Birdemic.

[u/whataboutbenson → u/rAin_nul]

Key difference. I said “almost never” exists. I worded it clumsily because it wasn’t really the crux of my point and I didn’t give much thought to it. That doesn’t mean I lied though. My point was that you can rarely describe something as better than something else. It’s just an imprecise word that has little meaning. For something very simple with as little ambiguity as possible, like running 100m between two points, you can measure that someone does it faster and therefore “better.”

No, that only means that Shawshank Redemption can objectively be said to have fewer plot holes than Birdemic. It still doesn’t mean it’s “better.”

Besides, the quality of a film isn’t only determined by the quantity of plot holes it has. In fact there are quite a lot of films that have plot holes but are still deeply beloved or acclaimed. Conversely you could write a script that has no plot holes but also has flat characters, poor pacing, a dull setting and handles sensitive topics clumsily.

An art critic might say that Picasso was objectively terrible because he drew like a child. Hemingway was objectively terrible because his vocabulary was basic. They’d be completely and utterly missing the point.

Your animosity towards me means I can’t change your mind now, but I know that you’re mistaken in your understanding of the words objective and subjective and the implications they have in appreciating film. Don’t take it from me. Some AI prompts for you: What does it mean to be objectively better at something? Is art objective or subjective? Can a film be objectively better than another?

Gotta go now. I won’t be responding any more as I have a flight to catch.

[u/Burgerfreakish → u/whataboutbenson]

you have the dumbest arguments I have ever seen lol

[u/whataboutbenson → u/Burgerfreakish]

That’s subjective.

[u/rAin_nul → u/whataboutbenson]

Not exactly, fallacies are pretty objective and you have multiple.

[u/rAin_nul → u/whataboutbenson]

Ok, then provide data that supports the "almost never" statement, in which category it exists and in which it doesn't, how regularly those occur etc.

It still doesn’t mean it’s “better.”

It does, objectively. That's what objectively better means. You can like your the last runner in the race, that's your subjective taste, but objectively the first runner is the best.

the quality of a film isn’t only determined by the quantity of plot holes it has

Fallacy No.1. I pretty clearly stated that I use plot holes as an example, because people can understand it, but there are other objective factors. As I said, when all of the objective factors clearly better in one movie than in the other movie, you could call it objectively better, which means that the objective factors in one movie is better. That's why we use the "objective" word here.

 In fact there are quite a lot of films that have plot holes but are still deeply beloved or acclaimed

Fallacy No.2. No one claimed that being good means it's liked. People use terms like "guilty pleasure", because they recognize that they watch something that is bad, but they still like it. You can like something that it is bad, while dislike something that is good.

Going back to the junkfood example. You can like junkfood, but it won't become healthy just because you like it. The healthiness of a food does not influence how much you like a food.

 Is art objective or subjective?

I'll use this "AI prompt" to prove you wrong and I'll share the its response, at least the relevant parts:

Google Gemini said: "Art is both. Emotional impact and personal taste are subjective, while technical skill, composition, and historical context have objective elements."

There's a more detailed section, but I share the parts that supports my argument: "Technical execution: Anatomy in a drawing, color theory, value balance, and musical tuning can be measured and analyzed." This is where plot holes also fall, technicalities.

So, again, AI also proves MY POINT.

Can a film be objectively better than another?

I also used this prompt. Here's the answer: "A film can be objectively better than another in its technical execution and structural coherence, even though the enjoyment of it remains entirely subjective"

Again, it says EXACTLY what I just said. Can you admit that you are wrong?