Month: February 2014

Kevin Pollak.

I’m passing some time today by listening to this while working (and because I’m one of the few idiots who will still defend the LOST finale), and this bit, which is really just a quick aside in an otherwise fine conversation, sent up a red flag. It’s something you hear creative people across all different disciplines say from time to time: this assumption that having worked the mechanics (or bureaucracy) involved in getting mass-audience art made yourself is somehow essential to interpreting and critiquing the final product, with this hint of a defensive attitude underneath it that says “What, you think you can do better??”

Pop culture commentary and criticism is its own art form with its own craft, processes, audience, and all that stuff. It’s an art of explicit argument rather than suggestion or obfuscation, but it’s still ultimately put out into the world for other people to enjoy and react to and think about (a strict interpretation of Xgau’s “consumer guide” schtick is pretty well useless in the modern age so don’t even go there). The problem is that it relies on other art to fuel it, so people in those other arts can be understandably defensive about their work. [I would like to note, though, that music critics have been rather generous about the instances where the tables have been turned and their work has been portrayed in movies as childish (High Fidelity), sentimental (Almost Famous), or creepily highfalutin (American Psycho).] But this is how things are: if you put your name on something that goes out into the world for people to enjoy and react to, you expose yourself to criticism. And the legitimacy of any critique can’t be contingent upon the critic’s experience with anything else but the listening/reading/viewing experience at hand.

I personally think all art of any ‘brow’ should work this way, but come on: it’s Pop. The only barrier to entry is “did you see/read/listen to it?”

(via popcornnoises)

Plus, also – this is fish in a barrel stuff, but it does annoy – good critics are comparing your film to all the other films they’ve seen, which presumably have gone through many if not all of the same processes! This can lead to its own kinds of myopia – assumptions of meritocracy and equal barriers within a biz, for starters. – but “it’s hard to get a film/album/comic made” is really a non-starter as a defense of a bad one since it’s presumably also fairly hard to get all the good ones made. (And yes this goes the other way too – “it’s hard to listen well” is no excuse for shitty criticism)

(There are TOTALLY situations where the Passak defense is highly sympathetic, though – mostly where the criticism amounts to “waaaah why I can’t I have it faster?”, “why can’t I have more of it?”)

(AND and and, I know artists saying this stuff are probably talking about entitled fans shouting at them on Twitter or in person, but good critics – in my opinion! – aren’t writing to or for the artist. If they are, they should call it an “Open Letter To” and then fire themselves.)

(& one last sidepoint – good art is very often also better criticism than any criticism, so while the “you need to be an artist to criticise” point isn’t true, “you will be a better critic if you are an artist” point often is, it’s just said criticism may well not be in the form of words on a screen)

– Ohhhh, man. All of this. Tom nails it.