Why even bother with Realism?

I'm also somewhat skeptical of the Film Crit Hulk to begin with, and I think that article is creating a conflict between setting and character that doesn't really exist.

Strongly concur.

Reread the posts here. Well, except that all cap post, because I'm not reading any mess like that.

Anyhow:

Perfect. Just...perfect.

It's a worthy topic to discuss. I'm just disappointed we didn't manage to wring more conversation out of it than we did. A lot to talk about, here.

I'd define realism as a combination of psychologically believable characterisation, scientific accuracy (in the case of non-fantastical works or non-fantastical aspects of fantastical works) and internally consistent world building (in the case of fantastical works). If one accepts this definition, I think technical realism - i.e. realistic rendering of things like perspective and anatomy - in visual arts works as a pretty good analogy for the place of realism in fiction.

If you want to tell a straightforward story, much like if you want to make a straightforward drawing of a thing, a greater degree of realism will generally get it across more vividly and make the work more enjoyable. Failure to write plausibly, like failure to draw well, can be distracting and turn people off your work. Sufficiently painstaking realism can occasionally carry a work on its own - say, a novel with amazing world building or a photo-realistic landscape painting, but if the work has little or no other substance it will probably not have a lasting emotional impact on the reader beyond that admiration of skilful craftsmanship.

In some types of works, however - such as cartoons and escapist genre fiction - it's generally accepted that realism is not a necessary part of their intention, and to criticize such works for any lack of realism therefore misses the point. Which of course doesn't prevent the creators of such works from, if they feel like it, using realism to great◊ effect.

And then there's a whole range of styles and genres - impressionism, expressionism, dadaism, absurdism, surrealism and so on - where the intentional deviation from realism is in itself a positive artistic quality. Though in many cases, the creators of such works have a whole lot of knowledge about the craft of realism to help them make their non-realism as good as it is.

So in conclusion, I'd say realism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient requirement to make a work good, but learning how to write realistically will generally make you a better writer.

So recently, I've been watching movies by Michael Mann and The Wire, works that are very famous for realism.

One thing I realized could be a very good strength of realism, when done right:

Realistic works tend to feature realistic characters, and they feel like real people. If you play your cards right, it can be extremely effective in making readers/audiences care about the characters, which I think is one of what good writing is all about.