No Right or Wrong: Authorial Intent in Media

I had a wonderful literature professor who told me once in my Intro to Lit class that, in literary criticism, there was no right or wrong, only supported and unsupported.

What she meant was that, no matter what the author intended, the only thing that mattered was what was on the page.

That’s a practice I have continued to subscribe to, unless I am specifically looking for authorial intent. But, in the larger discussion of literature, authorial intent simply cannot be the main point if we’re going to have productive discussion.

First off, many authors are dead, or don't want to talk, or even didn't have an intention behind every single phrase they wrote. Does that mean there's no meaning to be found? Of course not. If we focus on what the author meant, we'll probably never know for sure. They either can't or won't tell us, or if they do, they might be making it up on the spot. Not that I blame them. And for the authors that do talk about what they intended, that's great, but it actually has only minimal affect as to what's on the page.

And that brings me to the absolute biggest reason authorial intent cannot truly matter. If we have to uncover, read, and listen to every scrap of anything in which an author has made remarks about their intent just to discuss the text, we would never be able to do it. And when someone who has read more of the author's interviews or tweets or what have you, they get to swoop in with the voice of God and give a "right" answer.

But there are no right answers. There can't be. It takes all the fun and personality out of interpretation.

Instead of debate and discussion, it comes down to rote memorization of what the author has or hasn't said. And that is both un-fun and against the spirit. The only thing that can be truly considered canonical is the text itself. Otherwise we are hopelessly bogged down in a river of minutiae and inscrutable motives, or kneecapped by a poor form of Deus Ex Machina that simply leaves us feeling unsatisfied.

This gets even more complicated when talking about tv or movies. Authorial intent goes out the window because we have to ask: whose intent? The screenwriter? She probably didn't have much to do with it after the studio or director took over. So is it the studio? The director? The executive producer? All of them undoubtedly have different ideas and motives, so that's difficult to parse. What about actors? Their motives color their performances, but if in a scene, they meant to be pensive and came across mad, does that mean the character was pensive, or mad? It gets to be quite a mess in trying to figure out intent.

I'm not saying authors shouldn't say what they meant by something; absolutely they should. Getting insights into their mind and motives as they developed a piece you really love is a singularly enjoyable event. We can see inside their process, have a broader and deeper understanding of the world, and simply get fun facts. It is undoubtedly an interesting part of literary analysis and criticism. But it is just that: a part.

What the author meant is no more, and I would argue far less, important than what's on the page. What you feel, how you read it, matters just as much and is just as valid as anyone else's interpretation. The contest, if there is one at all, is who can back up their ideas with the most details from the text itself. It keeps everyone on the same page, literally. It allows superfans and casual ones alike to discuss at the same level.

And that is what discussion like this is ultimately supposed to do, to meet each other and come together. That is what literature is supposed to do, to let us step into someone else's skin for a while and to share something that matters to us all.