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SeekingBlood  1yr ago (text post)   2642 thread views

I feel that people often praise movies that call out or subvert expectations of their genre solely because they do that, even if execution of the subversion itself is not good.

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Well or poorly for sure, but even at its heights, subversion can never reach greatness. It is only by "subverting" some better work that it exists, after all. Subversion is to story as impressions are to comedy.

I'd argue many of the great enduring works are subversive. The Christian gospels are extremely subversive works in many ways. Everyone thinks Jesus is marching into Jerusalem to take the throne as "king of the Jews," but his real purpose there is to be tortured to death like a common criminal. "The last shall be first, and the first shall be last." The gospels are loaded with stuff subverting the religious and cultural expectations of the time and place.

I think my argument stands. The gospels aren't exactly great literature.

2000 years worth of history would appear to disagree.

Meh, Fifty Shades of Gray outsold The Fall by a factor of seventy. I'll stand by my judgement.

Except we're not talking about Camus, we're talking about the Bible.

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