I HATE SYMBOLISM!!!

Erm, okay. After a most frustrating struggle through a handful of 'optional' final exams (a few of which I no longer bothered with, come on I'm so tired of school) and some other confused requirements, the semester is finally over and now I can look forward to a few weeks of doing nothing.

A week from now is enlistement (my final one!!!) for next semester's classes. My random number is in the 500+ range so I'm no longer counting on getting any of the 'legendary' or easy teachers, or even a nice schedule (why hello there, 7:30 AM classes!). Quite frankly I don't care anymore and I just want to get this year over and done with so I can move on with my goddamn life!

Anyway, on to the real 'meat' of this post, which I really just wanted to let out : I took my first 'film theory' class this sem (it was about horror films, if you want to be specific), on which I spent my last free major elective -- totally betraying any hope I have of ever specializing in any area under the frustratingly wide scope of 'communication studies.' (I've spent the last number of semesters jumping from advertising to journalism to film production and now this, and now I don't know what I'm doing anymore.)

So yes, I'm a communication major, meaning I get to take a lot of courses that involve analyzing texts (films, pictures, ads, etc.). Add to this some University-required literature classes and hypothetically by now I should be some sort of critical reading, symbolism-pointing, media theorist-referencing machine. And to some extent this is a good thing -- I think there's a lot of value in critical and intelligent reading of texts (e.g., horror films) vis-à-vis wider social phenomena (e.g., gender issues, 'Otherness,' etc.). Personally I'm glad to have taken a class about something as mundane as horror films, yet approached in a way that does not insult my intelligence and effort in having reached this far into college...

HOWEVER -- and it's frustrating that I often seem to be alone in this feeling -- it ceases to amuse when so-called 'critical discussion' degenerates into a race among the class to assign symbolic meanings to just about everything flashed on-screen ("Ohh, phallic symbol!" etc., etc.). It's even more frustrating that a lot of teachers seem to encourage this indiscriminate, quantity-over-quality attitude when it comes to class participation and recitation.

Again, I don't know if it's just me, but it feels as if gone are the days when you could just watch a movie or read a story and not lose sleep at night thinking, or being pressured to think, of the deeper, earth-shattering implications. Maybe it's good intellectual exercise, but I swear, everytime someone in class talks about what the goddamn pick-axe represents in terms of so-and-so's theory of whatever, I feel like bashing someone's face in. IT'S SO ANNOYING!

I guess the point I'm just trying to make is: what about the actual intentions of the writers of these films or the authors of these texts? Is it inconcievable to think that they didn't bother with any deeper symbolic meanings of epic proportions? I think the fine line needs to be drawn between sensitivity to subtext and sheer, unabashed over-analyzing.

But more importantly, I'm never taking a film theory class again.