'Literacy is a continuum,not binary.' Now I feel stupid.

MamaGrillo

I detest intellectual snobbery. But why oh why did I engage one!
Now Prof Google will have to teach me.... Or my D13 ladies.
Background: my cousin asked why people don't like subtitled movies. Immediately his cohorts said laziness, illiteracy, narrow-mindedness (because it would be foreign in nature, and that was a concept people were against).
My simple , 6am, 'face-nursing' answer was, that I seldom have time to devote that much time to a singular activity, so not because of lack of appreciation or desire, but because I multitask and it would be lost.
Someone's response was 'literacy is a continuum, not binary'.
I don't think i'm stupid or illiterate, but I honestly don't know what that means. . Plus, what's your take on it?

MamaGrillo

hercules03 said:

I believe what they are trying to say is that literacy is ever expanding. You don't just learn to read in first grade and stop, you continue to grow and expand on what you know throughout life. However, in the context of this argument, I think they are mistaken - not everyone understand and appreciates every form of art (movies, literature, etc.) and not appreciating or understanding one form over another doesn't automatically make someone illiterate or ignorant. Ironically, the people in the convo sound quite narrow minded... "Agree with me, do what I do otherwise YOU are narrow minded and ignorant" Lame.

Okay. Got it.

I wasn't going to turn it into a male female issue, because it seemed like a lame argument to fall back on, but equally amusing to me was the fact that they were all male.  

My point was that one cannot automatically assume that because someone doesn't choose to watch a sub-titled movie, that it is because you don't want to read, are too lazy to read or have issues with foreigners.  That seemed to be the general consensus.

But it appears that these days, one must agree or otherwise be considered 'wrong'.  A whole other conversation.

zou bisou

That doesn't make sense to me either.  You're not turning down subtitled movies because you learned your abcs and you think you're cool with that whole word thing now.

Your cousin's friends are lame.

Aycul18

That's quite snobby. I don't find myself to be stupid or lazy, I just don't enjoy reading my movies. I am curious how many people really do... Ladies?

My top reasons:
A) if it's Russian 1/2 the time they don't translate correctly and it pisses me off. Not sure about other languages
I prefer to keep my movies and books separate. I do like to read, but I just don't like those activities mixed.
C) Same as @mamagrillo, I'm usually multiple-tasking, therefore I wouldn't properly enjoy the movie.

Nice job not stopping down to their level of rudeness and snobbery. I am not sure I could have done the same haha.

Aycul18

Loolaide said:

Aycul18 said:

That's quite snobby. I don't find myself to be stupid or lazy, I just don't enjoy reading my movies. I am curious how many people really do... Ladies?

My top reasons:
A) if it's Russian 1/2 the time they don't translate correctly and it pisses me off. Not sure about other languages
I prefer to keep my movies and books separate. I do like to read, but I just don't like those activities mixed.
C) Same as @mamagrillo, I'm usually multiple-tasking, therefore I wouldn't properly enjoy the movie.

Nice job not stopping down to their level of rudeness and snobbery. I am not sure I could have done the same haha.

You kind of did step down to their level in your response ... People don't watch subtitled movies just to read movies. People watch them because they want to see a good movie that happens to be in another language. In that case, yeah, I do enjoy reading my movies. 

 If you know enough Russian to be pissed about the translation, why are you watching the movie subtitled anyway? 

 JFC.

I wasn't referring to a fully subtitled movie with that point, but a movie in English that has some Russian that they subtitle.

I respect the fact that other people enjoy them; it's just not something I enjoy. I don't feel like I put someone down for enjoying a subtitled movie, and to me it seems like OPs cousin did.

MamaGrillo

I think my New Year's resolution is to be more focussed on one thing at a time, like:
Watch more subtitled movies and laundry be damned (I actually don't mind them- of course, subtitles doesn't make something good. )
Stop bumping instead of looking into my baby's eyes.... Elimination of potential dropping-phone-on-baby's-head incidents.

mh89

Subtitles are distracting. I like to immerse myself in a movie and read the actor's facial expressions and get lost in the story and characters. Having to constantly be looking up and down, reading the dialogue and trying to watch what's going on onscreen simultaneously is annoying. Takes away from the cinematic experience IMO.

I have seen quite a few good subtitled/ foreign movies, but they aren't as enjoyable to me as a non-subtitled movie. And I bet I read a fuckton more than any of those people who commented on your cousin's fb saying those who don't like subtitled movies are illiterate.