History Main / WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic

** This seems to be something the author believes as well: "Politics change, but stories remain."

Sometimes, this helps you appreciate a work. Sometimes, it doesn't, but it produces insight into the the thought process and culture that produced the work. Other times, it's misguided overkill that may even detract from the work's actual merits (unless the reader happens to be another lit nerd looking for a fun Saturday evening with a text they've already read twice).

* The show ''Series/{{Lost}}'' was meant to evoke this. The show was filled with all kinds of mysterious symbols, strange happenings, and hints that there was something happening that was bigger than anyone had anticipated. The show's creators insisted that they had a plan all along, but by the time the show was over, most people realized that they were making it up as they went along. There wasn't a big overall plan, and most of the sybolism used to hook people didn't really amount to anything.

** Some have theorized that the different areas and dungeons represent the stages of grief that Link is going through over the loss of Navi. Or alternatively, the stages the whole world of Termina is going through in the face of their impending destruction.

* In the classic {{Doctor Who}} story "City of Death" the TARDIS lands in an art gallery and is mistaken for a piece of modern art. Two art lovers [[hottip:*: One of whom is played by John Cleese]] wax lyrical about its brilliance as a comment on modern life. Seeing three people and a robot dog pile into it before it de-materialises in front of them doesn't change their mind.

* In the classic {{Doctor Who}} story "City of Death" the TARDIS lands in an art gallery and is mistaken for a piece of modern art. Two art lovers wax lyrical about its brilliance as a comment on modern life. Seeing three people and a robot dog pile into it before it de-materialises in front of them doesn't change their mind.

--> [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic People kept me asking what Faust is about]]. [[ShrugOfGod Like I would know it!]]

* The Films of DavidLynch. ''{{Eraserhead}}'' especially.

** The book ''[[SlaughterhouseFive Slaughterhouse-five]]: Reforming The Novel and The World'' by literature professor Jerome Klinkowitz has a chapter comparing ''TheMonsterAtTheEndOfThisBook'' to [[KurtVonnegut Vonnegut's]] novel, mainly in their use of metafictional narrative.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' parodied this in the episode ''The Tale of Scrotie [=McBoogerballs=]'', in which the boys write a book of absolutely horrible depravity with the express purpose of outclassing ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye'''s disappointingly non-vulgar content. But lo and behold, everyone else applies this trope in droves. (This can also be seen as a parody of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' itself, and its critics. [[MindScrew The really ironic part about that is that it adds another layer of meaning to the episode and arguably takes it from "funny" to "brilliant."]])

* ConfusedMatthew argues in his epilogue to his No Country for Old Men review that it, and 2001, were created cynically for these sort of people. Didactic elements were peppered into the film in place of characters, dialogue or plot. YMMV of course.

* [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2112#comic Parodied]] in ''{{SMBC}}'':

* Music/TheBeatles song "I Am the Walrus" supposedly originated after JohnLennon heard that Beatles lyrics were being used for literary analysis in university classes. Finding this ridiculous, Lennon decided to write a song where the lyrics ''sounded'' symbolic [[IceCreamKoan but were just utter nonsense]], as a TakeThat against people taking their songs too seriously (of course, this would turn into a trend with later Beatles songs, even naming the [[TheWalrusWasPaul associated trope]], and it became a case of GoneHorriblyRight when [[CharlesManson a certain cult leader's]] attempts to find meanings in nonsensical Beatles lyrics led him to send his followers on a killing spree in 1969).

This is one of the nasty things that can happen when literary analysis becomes SeriousBusiness.

The opposite of this trope--preemptive criticism of ''all'' literary analysis--falls under MoffsLaw.

See also TrueArtIsAngsty, TrueArtIsIncomprehensible.

This is one of the nasty things that can happen when literary analysis becomes SeriousBusiness.

See also TrueArtIsAngsty, TrueArtIsIncomprehensible,

** ...elsewhere in the book, she and her girlfriend analyze several children's books (e.g. ''JamesAndTheGiantPeach'') [[SatireParodyPastiche for their "erotic undertones".]]

* ''Film/CitizenKane'' is a good film, but over the last 40 years or so it's gained far more traction as [[BestXEver Best Movie Ever]] and subsequent analysis than anything to do with the merits of the movie itself. To the point where it's almost impossible for anybody on the planet to actually watch it with an open mind, without already being swayed by film-school graduates and other intellectual types that ''Kane'' is SeriousBusiness of the highest order. Ironically - or perhaps not - it was a box office flop that failed to recoup its modest budget, and didn't become popular until French and American critics "revived" it 15 years later.
** The movie itself is basically just a TakeThat aimed at wealthy, somewhat unpopular media mogul William R. Hearst, filmed by [[OrsonWelles a guy known for doing whatever the hell he wanted to]].
** It's worth mentioning that a good portion of the blame for the film's financial failure can be directly traced back to threats made by Hearst towards local theaters. Not only ''Kane'', but a number of other movies from the same company were also threatened if any of the theaters dared to go against it. It arguably said more about the man's power in how effectively he was able to crush it than anything in the movie itself. Keep in mind, only '''''one theater in the United States''''' ran the film - and it was rented independently by Welles and the Mercury Theater themsleves.
*** Which brings us to one reason why the movie is - arguably - as momentous as many claim.
** Serious film critics will concede that the plot of ''Kane'' is actually pretty simple, and that its genius lies not in what it is about but ''how'' it was done. The first thing that most beginning film students learn is that all art, including movies, is composed of both ''form'' and ''content'' (the ancient Greek dramatic terms ''diegesis'' and ''mimesis'' being roughly analogous), and that it is ultimately the form that determines the nature of the content, not the other way around. ''Kane'' is special not because it tells an effective story (although it does, as any good literary critic will tell you), but because Welles filmed it in a highly imaginative style (visually, orally, continuity-wise, you name it) that was groundbreaking in his time - and that, truth be told, is not often seen in American cinema even today. That is what makes ''Kane'' unique - and for most jaded film critics, uniqueness is the thing that really makes them sit up and take notice.

* The original ''[[WinnieThePooh Winnie-the-Pooh]]'' novels have dozens of serious or semi-serious works written about them such as ''The Tao of Pooh'' or ''Pooh and the Philosophers.'' Usually these are written with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, though, so they can often be quite entertaining (the Disney version does not get the same treatment; if these books mention it at all, it's usually in derogatory terms).