Lowest Common Denominator: Difference between revisions

There are varying interpretations on what this implies. In an egalitarian interpretation, it might be an admirable potential of art; generalized stories that most people can relate to. Stories that all human beings, or at least members of the targeted [[Demographics]], can understand in relation to their own lives. Many tropes came into fiction as fully-formed repeating patterns from real life, colored through a dramatic lens. Also, if we think of media as communication between the creator and the audience, the most successful communication would be the one that is understood by the most people.

 

 

The name of this trope comes from basic fractional mathematics. If we metaphorically imagine individual numbers as the minds of the audience members, some larger and some smaller, the [[Lowest Common Denominator]] is the show itself, a number that is calculated by taking all of them into account. If you would think too hard about the metaphor, it would be heavily in favor of the egalitarian interpretation: after all, in mathematics, the LCD itself, the product of a multiplication, tends to be a large number, almost like in [[The Sons and The Spears]] metaphor, the result of including everyone is more than the sum of its parts.