PT73.S2.Q06 - the criticism of the popular film comedy quirks

lsat2016

Those who have taken pt-73 as a timed test, how did you score in its LR compared to other 70s tests?

This question was fairly confusing.

We know from the premises that humor is important for comedy. C says that comedies should find their humor in stylistic portrayals.
So stylistic portrayals are very relevant and important for the comedy film Quirks, because that is where comedy is expected to find humor. Thus, criticizing Quirks for being non-realistic is wrong.

D doesn't counter the argument's conclusion that the criticism of film for not being realistic is wrong. D can not be seen as justifying the conclusion because though it says the film is successful, it doesn't mean that criticism of the film for not being realistic is not valid. A film could be successful and still deserving of criticism for not being realistic.

why is C not the best choice?
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-73-section-2-question-06/

blah170blah

Actually, the stimulus doesn't say that stylistic portrayals are important in humor. That is a separate premise.

Conclusion: Quirks is misguided for saying it's not realistic

Why?


P1: It is true that the characters are too stylized
P2: The film ended up being funny
P3: Being funny is important for a comedy

There's no evidence to suggest that P1 is the reason why P2 is true: we don't necessarily know if the reason the movie ended up being so funny is because it was too stylized - we just know that the film is funny (success) and because being funny is important for a comedy (the genre), that's why the critics are misguided. This is what makes answer choice (D) correct.

lsat2016

@blah170blah

It's in the OP and reproduced here. It flows from choice C the need or relevance of stylistic portrayals for comedies, because C says that in them one finds humor. Why doesnt that make C a better choice?

From the OP also, how is that D that justifies only that the film is successful address the issue that a film being successful and criticism being invalid are two very different things?

blah170blah

Maybe someone else can back me up here but I actually don't think it's saying that. The line is: "It is certainly true that the characters are too stylized to be real people." All we know about the effect of the stylization is that it's overly done so that the people don't look real. We don't necessarily know if this is the reason why "the resulting film is funny, as given in the last sentence.

However, even if the referential language is saying that stylization is the specific reason for why the film is funny, (C) still doesn't get at how we should judge films. So what if film comedies should find humor in their stylistic portrayals? We've already established that this is true, right? Even if this is true, we still don't know how to judge whether or not the critic is misguided. (D) gets at that by specifically saying that meeting genre is a sufficient requirement for success. Because Quirks meets the genre requirement, we can deem the movie a success (and therefore, declare that the criticism is misguided).

lsat2016

we can deem the movie a success (and therefore, declare that the criticism is misguided).

Going from successful to declaring that criticism is misguided is too big a leap. One could easily have a successful movie that rightly gets criticised for something specific like not portraying realistic characters.

We don't necessarily know if this is the reason why "the resulting film is funny, as given in the last sentence.

Right, we don't know this. That's why C is appealing because it fills this gap and says that stylistic portrays are there for a reason, for humor. So it directly counters the criticism about film showing non realistic characters.

blah170blah

It's fine if it's too big of a leap though. It's a principle, right? You're trying to find an answer choice that has a principle that is broad enough to encompass the particular example given in the stimulus.