The Studio
There is an episode in Seth Rogen's "The Studio" where the protagonist, who is a Hollywood studio head, comes to be dating this doctor and attends a gathering of other prominent figures in her specialization. At one point, they all initiate trolling the protagonist for not doing "something serious" and he is correspondingly frustrated with how "uncultured" they are since none of them has watched anything but Netflix slop shows. While that episode is clearly an exaggerated version of reality, since I'm convinced nobody is suicidal enough to exclusively watch Netflix over and over again, I found myself in an identical condition lately.
The other day I was discussing our courses this semester which I took "Video Production" and "New Media Management", which the latter is essentially documentary making. Both courses are about learning creating diverse types of visual media at a beginner level that might sound "not serious" to some as we produced a talk show, high school musical replica and will dub a scene from Madagascar 2 as the last project for "Video Production" and for the "New Media" we are working on the "Guangchang Wu" phenomenon that are spaces where retired people come together to dance and exercise. What happened was that I heard some people commenting that what we're doing isn't "serious enough" or comparing other majors like Engineering to Media or Humanities and truthfully, I think this is so ridiculous.
I don't think studying Humanities or Media is "easy". There are numerous struggles coming with learning how to be a good "historian", "journalist", "director" and etc as the same thing goes for other fields. People who downplay movies, books, or songs are simply the most annoying group for me. I can't relate to them because I believe the individual who doesn't appreciate art and the process of bringing it to life, simply can't enjoy life either.
Indeed, I don't think what we're doing in these courses is the best work ever, but am I proud of myself for participating in them? Absolutely yes. That's the reason that every time someone comments in that certain manner I get irritated and the recent discussions felt like going through that exact episode over and over again only to acknowledge how some people don't really get the significance of media and art.