Critic: The criticism of the popular film comedy Quirks for not being

Question

Critic: The criticism of the popular film comedy Quirks for not being realistic is misguided. It is certainly true that the characters are too stylized to be real people. That could be problematic, but in this case the resulting film is funny. And that is the important thing for a comedy.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the reasoning in the critic's argument?

(A) Films should be judged on how well they accurately capture the world.
(B) Films are successful as long as they are popular.
(C) Film comedies should find their humor in their stylistic portrayals.
(D) Films are successful if they succeed within their genre.
(E) Films should try to stay entirely within a single genre.

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

you-rang.gif The critic admits that the film (or at least the film's characters) is not realistic: "It is certainly true that the characters are too stylized to be real people." Yet the critic still considers it MISGUIDED to criticize the film for not being realistic. How can that be? How can the critic admit that the the film is unrealistic and still say that it's "misguided" to criticize the film for being unrealistic? The critic is basically saying, "Yeah, it's unrealistic, but that doesn't matter. Since it's a comedy, all that matters is that it's funny." Yes, the film is unrealistic. However, that's not a reason to criticize the film, because it's a comedy. The unrealistic nature of the characters doesn't make the film a failure. Instead, the unrealistic nature of the characters makes the film funny. And since the goal of a comedy is to be funny, the unrealistic (but funny) nature of the characters should be consider a success instead of something to criticize. According to (D), a comedy is a success as long as it's funny. That matches the author's reasoning. Here's (C) again: (C) is out because the author does not argue that film comedies SHOULD find their humor in their stylistic portrayals or in funny characters. There are presumably many ways to make a film funny. The author argues that a comedy is a success as long as it's funny. The author isn't concerned with HOW a film is funny. So (D) is a better fit.

Ayeka · Answer

Critic: The criticism of the popular film comedy Quirks for not being realistic is misguided. It is certainly true that the characters are too stylized to be real people. That could be problematic, but in this case the resulting film is funny. And that is the important thing for a comedy.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the reasoning in the critic's argument?

(A) Films should be judged on how well they accurately capture the world. NO
(B) Films are successful as long as they are popular. NOT RELEVANT
(C) Film comedies should find their humor in their stylistic portrayals. NO
(D) Films are successful if they succeed within their genre. (Comedy Quirks is not realistic, but the film is funny and that’s important thing for a comedy. Hence, it can be inferred that films are successful if they succeed within their genre.) CORRECT
(E) Films should try to stay entirely within a single genre. NO

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Prak0709 · Answer

Can anyone explain why can't the answer be C ?

miag · Answer

GMATNinja   GMATNinja Two could you help explain why C) is incorrect?

bb · Answer

LSAT is a slightly different animal with a lot more nuance than the GMAT. It is awesome to capture it but to a large extent GMAT does not split hairs this much.

This seems to be as a hidden assumption question so to speak and resolve a paradox. Interesting question nevertheless.

C) The critic says nothing about the style besides that the complaint was that characters were too stylized and that the resulting film was at least funny. The critic's argument is that a comedy should be judged primarily on whether it is funny, not on whether its humor comes specifically from stylized elements. Basically he says, yes the characters were silly but what the heck, that's acceptable as long as the movie makes you laugh, which is different from saying - a comedy should derive humor from funny characters.

Hope this helps. Maybe Charles has something to chime in 😇

VerbalBot · Answer

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Critic: The criticism of the popular film comedy Quirks for not being

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Critic: The criticism of the popular film comedy Quirks for not being

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