Great piece. Several interesting points raised here.

1. I think Tar is brilliant, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

2. I confess I do get immensely frustrated with what I see as Philistine tendencies within certain sections of readership/viewership, but conclude that the art I love simply isn't for them, and shrug it off.

3. As far as my own writing is concerned, I am primarily interested in entertaining people with my gothic mystery horror-thriller novels (and my children's adventure novels, for that matter), so I try to write for a fairly broad audience. But I don't compromise either, and that has led to a few instances of people not caring for my novels (though encouragingly, most reviews of my work tends to be overwhelmingly positive).

4. I do try to leave room for the reader, so to speak, allowing their interpretation to make the story their own. I believe that once I release a story into the world, it no longer belongs to me, in that sense. I've written about this in more detail here, if you're interested.

https://simondillon.medium.com/leave-room-for-the-reader-c3a1e86b13c4