Quem tem medo dela? Virginia Woolf, em texto publicado em 1942, ataca os middlebrow com gosto. Se ela vivesse em 2014, ficaria enojada ao saber que os middlebrow tomaram conta do mundo. [O texto da Virginia foi extraído da Wikipedia, essa fonte eterna de sabedoria middlebrow. Não posso deixar de zoar a mim mesmo aqui, rsrsrsrs.] Virginia Woolf distinguishes middlebrows as petty purveyors of highbrow cultures for their own shallow benefit. Rather than selecting books for their intrinsic value, middlebrows select and read what they are told is best. Middlebrows are concerned with how what they do makes them appear, unlike highbrows, the avant-garde men and women who act according to their indelible commitment to beauty, value, art, form, and integrity. Woolf said, “We highbrows read what we like and do what we like and praise what we like”. Likewise, a lowbrow is devoted to a singular interest, a person “of thoroughbred vitality who rides his body in pursuit of a living at a gallop across life”; and, therefore, are equally worthy of reverence, as they, too, are living for what they intrinsically know as valuable. Middlebrows, instead, are “betwixt and between”, which Woolf classifies as “in pursuit of no single object, neither Art itself nor life itself, but both mixed indistinguishably, and rather nastily, with money, fame, power, or prestige”. Their value system rewards quick gains through literature already designated as ‘Classic’ and ‘Great’, never of their own choosing, because “to buy living art requires living taste”. The middlebrow are meretricious — which is much less demanding than authenticity.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 02:38:15 +0000
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