![]() ![]() ![]() We suggest, however, that (1) badfilms offer a robust challenge to the assertion that intrinsic aesthetic value should be regarded in all cases as nothing but an irreducibly fluid socio-historical illusion of taste, and (2) they highlight in an especially stark fashion how fundamental assumptions about artistic intention are to the interpretation of any aesthetic object. Relatedly, it has been claimed that the cult fan practice of conscious counter-interpretation demonstrates the ‘intentions’ of readers or taste communities prevailing over the intentions of filmmakers. Discussions of evaluation and badfilm regularly argue that such films confirm the inherently unstable, discursive, and/or socially-determined nature of aesthetic value. ![]() What we suggest in this paper, however, is that the badfilm is also capable of prompting a reconsideration of two very old, but vital, questions for aesthetics. Scholarship addressing the terms ‘bad’ and ‘good’ in relation to such films has unsurprisingly tended to focus on the important issue of reception. ![]() A cult film valued for being ‘so bad it’s good’ – in Jeffrey Sconce’s terminology, ‘badfilm’ – is championed via a form of interpretative competence which values incompetence. ![]()
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