I could hardly sit through 'Frozen.' There was an attempt to craft a moral message and to build the story around that, instead of building the story and letting the moral message emerge. It was the subjugation of art to propaganda, in my estimation.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes the prioritization of moral messaging over storytelling in art.
Jordan Peterson argues that in the film 'Frozen', the creators focused too heavily on imparting a moral lesson rather than constructing a compelling narrative. This detracts from the artistic value of storytelling, as he believes that a story should naturally convey its themes rather than have them imposed upon it, leading to the idea that art should not be compromised by overt propaganda.
In practice
In a debate about the importance of storytelling in children's films, this quote highlights the pitfalls of moralizing art.
Part of the reason there's an injunction to the truth, for example, is that if you're in a circumstance of extreme uncertainty, your best weapon, let's say, or your best tool or your best defense is the truth, because it keeps things simpler.
I don't tell people, 'You're okay the way that you are.' That's not the right story. The right story is, 'You're way less than you could be.'
Once someone has spent enough time cultivating bad habits and biding their time, they are much diminished. Much of what they could have been has dissipated.
If you learn a martial art, you learn to be dangerous, but simultaneously, you learn to control it.
Life is tragic. You are tiny and flawed and ignorant and weak, and everything else is huge, complex, and overwhelming.
Music has an intrinsic meaning, which has always been mysterious to me.
Each night about this time he puts on sadness like a garment and goes on writing.
It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely.
Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it.
Your job is to get your audience to care about your obsessions.
If something doesn't creep into a drawing that you're not prepared for, you might as well not have drawn it.
My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there's no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.