Our tastes in entertainment ( MOVED FROM MAIN)

[dumbledore11214]

CJ:
<SNIP>
Yeah, you're right. Give JKR a break -- it's just a story, for Pete's
sake. But I tend to be of the opinion that our tastes in entertainment
are clues to who we are as individuals.
<SNIP>

Alla:
Hmm, when I read this statement by CJ, my first thought was to reply 
in complete disagreement, since for the most part I am not buying the 
idea that our tastes in entertainment tell other people who we are as 
individuals, but then I started to think about it a bit more.

So, as I said, I am not agreeing with it for the most part. The most 
obvious example to me always was what if the reader likes Voldemort. 
Would one really make a conclusion that this reader has maniacal 
tendencies and wants to kill minorities and rule the world?

Or maybe the conclusion would be much simpler – that reader enjoys 
reading about villains for the fun of it? That would be my conclusion 
anyways.

But then I was thinking maybe others are buying it and wanted to ask 
sort of related question.

Imagine that you just met somebody for the first time socially – at 
the party or anywhere else. This person tells you that she loves 
Harry Potter books. Would this tell you anything about this person? 

To me the answer is no, not really. I probably would not even say 
that this person likes to read based on the fact that she likes HP 
books, because to me I need to hear that person reads other books 
besides HP to call her a reader. I mean I am sure I mentioned it 
before, but on average I read probably ten twelve books every month. 
In my mind to call someone a reader, the person needs to read at 
least couple new books every month or so, I think.

I mean, I would not even be able to make a judgment that this person 
likes reading fantasy books based on the fact that she likes HP books 
alone, because I need to know that she read some other books of this 
genre.

We can also twist this question around and ask would you be able to 
say about the person if anything, if the only thing you know about 
this person is that she does not like HP books?

Would you say that this person is not a reader in general or just 
does not like fantasy books? I know at least two examples where such 
statement would be false, period, so I cannot make this judgment 
either. My brother and SIL are both avid readers and they both read 
many books that are far more complex than HP. My SIL dutifully read 
first four books of HP and found them boring. My brother read PS and 
did not want to read any more.

Would you be able to say anything about the person based on what 
specific things about HP this person likes? I know at least one 
example where if you do so, you would be sadly mistaken as well. And 
that would be yours truly. I do not hate people and do not wish ill 
upon them. (Well, I hate one person in RL, but please take me upon my 
word, there is a really good reason for that, very far from trivial 
and I do not wish any ill upon this person now either. I dislike 
couple other people, but this is really far from hate. I am just 
trying to minimize communication with those people, that's it).
As some know I hate Snape very much, but the only thing that this 
tells you about me is just that – I hate Snape.

So, I am not sure if I would even make judgment about the person if I 
know what characters she likes and/ or what outcomes she wanted to 
see in the books.

I mean, like my tastes in books are SO diverse. You name it, I 
probably read at least something from this genre. I read contemporary 
fiction, I read fantasy, I read mystery, I read romances, I read 
sci/fi, I read historical fiction, I read poetry, I will read pretty 
much ANYTHING as long as I cannot put the book down.

Oh, and of course I read nonfiction – mostly history and literary 
criticism. It will be really hard for somebody to make any judgment 
about me as individual based on what I read.

I guess you could say that my tastes are very diverse, but that is 
pretty much it.

Thoughts?

Alla