Fun of another kind.. Why do we love watching naive movies?

American film critic Michael Mosto says that bad films sometimes have great appeal, which may exceed - for understandable and sometimes incomprehensible reasons - the success and fame of the most successful good films .. But why?

A sense of superiority and intelligence

Theatrical performances that are characterized by exaggeration, inconsistent artistic plots of filmmakers, excessive use of metaphors or representational expressions, or dramatic scenes and effects, in addition to bad taste in choosing the idea;

To arouse true joy in the masses, a joy that contradicts human concepts of appreciating beauty and valuable pleasures.

The critic, who specializes in evaluating American cinema dramas, believes that "it is very comforting to see brilliant people make grave mistakes and make silly films," considering that this matter enhances the viewer's sense of superiority and intelligence that great films cannot provide to the same extent, because what makes them great is in The reality is that they can never be predicted in a way that provokes our sense of intelligence.

Consequently, people have a certain pleasure due to gloating and sighing when watching these popular films, and they fail and fail to achieve the vision of the work maker, miserably to the point of laughter.

Certainly, in addition to that fun, the viewer can also laugh at the scenes that the film director and actors failed to implement, describing them as "stupidity", so that the experience of watching a silly movie becomes more like a picnic to relieve heavy or serious feelings.

The presence of other people while watching can increase the pleasure of the emotional experience (Pixels)

Unintentionally bad movies

However, not all technically weak films are entertaining and enjoyable from this angle.

For it to be worth watching at all, it had to have a sense that someone was really trying to make a good movie.

Because making a deliberately lousy movie can at most bring a limited laugh to a viewer, but in the end, it will make the film's makers and executors look like eccentric people of dubious taste.

artistic flair

Many theories have discussed why silly, bad movies that don't have a strong and credible plot or story are popular, but there are very few academic studies that have directly looked at why people love this type of work.

In a 2016 paper published in the journal Poetics, scientists in experimental aesthetics research found that those who said they liked "silly movies" actually had higher levels of education than others, and revealed that those in particular were in the categories with artistic taste. Private, who tend to visit museums, theaters, and art galleries more frequently than the average person.

Despite this interesting result, fans of bad films with flimsy and unconvincing stories should not necessarily have this amount of intelligence and refined taste, but rather their main engine may be gloating and sarcasm, nothing more.

Feeling of solidarity and participation

"Part of the idea is that the presence of other people can increase the pleasure of the experience," says Mina Sicara, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, who has authored numerous studies on how humans experience a sense of schadenfreude - according to the cultural magazine "The Cut". Emotional, as that pleasure is amplified by experiencing it with others, in addition to confirming your personal point of view.”

In the sense that if a person hates something and considers it silly and bad, and then another person agrees with him in the same feelings, this shared experience will be very satisfying and protect him from loneliness or alienation.

Few academic studies have directly investigated why people love technically weak films (Pixels).

Enjoy turning down silly movies

Adam Galpin, a professor of psychology at the University of Salford in Britain - according to the "New Statesman" website - says that fascination with a very bad and bad movie can achieve popularity among people, in the same way that poor or absurd content spreads on social media.

He adds, "There is something attractive about the experience of sharing emotions, even if that sharing is based entirely on the vilification of a substandard movie or has a bad story and unconvincing visual tricks."

This fascination with mass viewing makes films seem “so bad they are good” to a certain degree, which leads to the kind of repeat screenings and sales based solely on mocking them and discussing their mediocrity.

“Poor films in general are the vision of one person who decided to do the opposite of what the film industry generally does, in order to share their unique vision with the world,” Galpin adds. “Mostly bad films were someone's dream, but he failed to translate his vision to the screen in the way he had hoped.” ".