Need we dumb down all the arts to the lowest common denominator?

It's ethical to accord respect to ALL human beings by treating them as intelligent but this smartness may have nothing to do with the way different individuals analyze and consume products and services.

For example, in the case of "The Power of the Dog", even the collaged scenes didn't make sense to me, and I am openly admitting to that here, and you can form whatever perceptions you like about me, and call me "stupid" even. So I had no choice but to hit the Internet by Googling the Search phrase: "The Power of the Dog explained". Finally it became clear to me Benedict Cumberbatch's fate in that movie.

Not surprisingly, a Maldivian friend who watched Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" didn't like it, because the "good" messages were delivered in an in-your-face and over-the-top manner. He prefers implicit subtlety rather than explicit superficiality.

Gerwig told The New York Times that she deliberately lowered “Barbie” to a superficial level of understanding because there are still many people who do not really understand the toxicity of toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and misogyny. Thus, a need for America Ferera’s 3-minute monologue in the movie.

This brings me to the argument whether dumbing down to the lowest common denominator is ethical and moral. Should we regard all humans as intelligent and therefore smart enough to understand sophisticated story telling as we saw in Christopher Nolan's "Memento"?

I didn't understand its plot until I watched an English subtitled one, so the issue may be not that there are stupid humans but a "problem" with the way different people are able to “get it” and consume cultural productions. People may need to obtain instruction and training in order to understand things that they feel attracted to - such as all those friends of mine who are currently learning "foreign" languages such as Arabic, French, Korean, Turkish, etc., for all kinds of personal and professional reasons.

Some Maldivians understand and get delight from reading Ibrahim Hussain Maniku's short stories in Maldives’ native Dhivehi language; however, for me, they go over the top of my head because I suppose I need to complete a First Degree (at least) in Dhivehi to familiarize myself with the arcane words he uses. Even one of my older relatives, for this very same reason, refused to buy the five-book collection of his short stories. 

This is in contrast to all short stories, novels, and serials written by “Binmaa” Ibrahim Waheed which I and my relative can easily grasp. Binmaa writes in everyday language; you don’t need to refer to the online Radheef Dhivehi dictionary to understand his narratives. For me, the most interesting of Binmaa’s stories is “Gandufen” (loosely translated to “ice” or “iceberg”, which is pictured here): it was serialized in the now defunct Maldives’ daily newspaper Haveeru where I proof-read it and is now compiled as a novel and sold at Novelty bookshop in Male’, the capital of Maldives. That the story ends in a twist may be one of its other attractions.

So, in the end, it may have something to do with people's familiarity in certain stuff and strangeness with other things; in other words, both Maniku and Binmaa are good but it's in the way we receive and perceive that makes some people to falsely - and snobbishly - pass judgement that some people are plain stupid.

Perhaps a reasonable demand could have been, rather than passing such unhelpful judgements, making people understand that they have to train and get instructed in order to be able to digest all sorts of media productions. Even I have been subjected to verbal abuse because some people don’t understand what "satire", "irony", and "sarcasm" mean and how they actually work.

As for me, I am not anyone different from the rest of the human race. In other words, there are things I do and don't understand. It's not something that I should be embarrassed about. On the other hand, admitting to one's weaknesses and shortcomings help to make one humble and remain in humility.

As I wrote recently, my audience is my audience, and I should not change my writing style in a way that forsakes my loyal audience in favor of attracting new audiences, keeping in mind that it's practically impossible to win the hearts and minds of everyone out there living in their preferred niche of human societies.