Hi guys, this time I'll be writing about something I'd like to think I'm good at: critiquing things. Throughout my relatively short tenure on this earth, I've been called a complainer, whiner, nagger, elitist and belly acher. I like to re-frame all these pejorative terms into one concise label- I'm a critic.
I've heard many people spout phrases like "Those who don't act, criticize", "critics have no talent", and other fun syllogisms demeaning criticism. Yet I feel criticism is necessary in everything- art, film, politics, religion, science- all these fields require discerning eyes to point out faults, but also praise to praise merits. In this post, I'll only be focusing on one type of criticism- art. When I say art, I mean things like film, books, television, music, paintings, etc. I could just call these things "media", but that seems so cold and detached. I would discuss other sorts of criticism, but that would require me writing a 32 page paper, and let's face it, you're not going to read a 32 page paper some guy published on his blogspot website.
Most people think of art critics as needlessly snarky people that can't enjoy anything, and I would respond to them, "That's right, sometimes". Critics often get a bad reputation, as they point out the flaws in a work and demean them. Articles that critics write completely bashing something often get a lot of attention. Who among us doesn't love to read someone's scathing, biting review of Garfield?(the movie, not the comic strip- though I'm sure there's a blog out there where some guy reviews every comic strip of Garfield.). It's fun for us to see a work ripped to shreds, chewed up, and spit out. We get a great sense of schadenfreude from observing this.
It's always been a secret aspiration of mine to become a movie critic, ever since I was a child. I still have fond memories of tuning into Siskel and Ebert as a kid and watching them argue and discuss the merits of particular films. It really instilled a sense of watching movies with your brain "turned on" at an early age. I've heard many people say "I go to see movies so I don't have to think", and this irritates me to no end. I feel that works need to be discussed and processed within your mind and with others. Even if a work's intent is pure entertainment, such as a martial art film, it's worth talking about.
Sadly, what I took away from criticism during my teenage years was a delight in watching a piece of work torn apart. It's easy to emphasize the negative. How many of us find it simpler to complain than to reflect on the good in their life? Humans tend to find negative stories more interesting- just read the news on any given day of the week. How many of us would rather hear a story from our coworker about how she broke up with her boyfriend than a story about how everything in their relationship is fine? We just naturally find bad stuff interesting. This mean-spiritedness is evident on my early posts on this blog, as I dedicated whole blog posts to tearing down summer movie offerings. While I enjoy ranting about how I hated a film, I realized in recent years that I need to work on writing about things I actually enjoyed.
I believe that a critic with true talent is able to sift through all of the trash and find the gems that others might miss, and point out a work's merits. Critics are often complained about by artists as not having any talent since they didn't create a said work to begin with, but a good critic is able to mine details and meaning out of a work that's not visible to everybody.
There have been times where I've watched a movie or television show and took it purely at face value, and didn't think much about it. Then, in a discussion with a friend or reading a review, I discover that someone else found a deeper meaning in the work that I didn't even think to observe. I then begin to see the work in a completely new light. This is the joy of criticism- you help others to discover things about something that wasn't apparent, and help them to gain a deeper appreciation for something.
I've been mentioning movies a lot in this post, so let's keep using them as examples. Thousands of movies come out per year, and many of them go overlooked due to the louder sound that "mainstream" movies make. It's the task of a critic to seek out these lesser known films, watch them, and praise their merits so the general public can watch them. Do we really need 100 critics dedicating their time to the third installment of "Alvin and the Chipmunks?". While these scathing reviews are fun to read, critics need to be watching a great foreign film, a unique piece of sci-fi, or a documentary that was released the same week and encouraging readers to see it.
Don't be lazy when consuming media, find people to discuss it with. Whenever I finish watching or reading something, the first thing I do is search for topics on the work on Reddit so I can discuss it with other people. Share your voice, there may be others that could benefit from your insights, and you could introduce somebody to a piece of art that could really change the way they look at the world.
A final disclaimer: don't let critics dissuade you from watching or reading something that you really want to see. Sometimes, It often becomes popular to gang up on a work and bash it in a vicious cycle of mutual hate, but you may end up enjoying the work. In the end, you like what you like, and you don't have to feel angry if other people don't like something that you like. Criticism is by it's nature incredibly subjective, and that's what makes it so fun.
