I wish I remembered more specifically, but there was a book we read in high school that had super heave handed symbolism, like embarrassingly so, and this guy in my class insisted that it only meant what the text literally said.

The consequences of the proliferation of “the curtains were fucking blue” can be seen in the fairly common belief that the only good art is only photorealistic drawings

I see this too, right wingers hate art that isn’t purely representative