wishfulclicking | everyone wants to be a critic

Criticism and how it's changing is something that interests me. I've got so many posts running around in my head, but here are some links to articles that I've saved recently.

'We Are Not Consumer Guides': Talking About Talking About Culture

If you don't know at the time you start writing about television -- or movies, or books -- that many, many smart people will have diametrically opposed opinions to yours, and will express them eloquently and forcefully, then you will learn it almost immediately. I could rattle off ten things I love that are or undoubtedly would be totally despised by any critic you want to name whose stuff I love reading. I promise you that every single person I deeply respect who regularly reads what I write has, at least once, said to himself or herself, "I have absolutely no idea what she is on about; she has lost her mind." And then they come back the next day, I hope, and conclude that I have regained my lost grip. The idea that all smart and thoughtful people would, if asked, come up with an identical set of Good Movies and Bad Movies is just ... ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous.

That Kevin Smith Thing

It’s not personal. At least it shouldn’t be. It’s about the movies, which could just be entertainments released without comment for a public that can choose to go see them or not and then wait for a new round of movies next week. But movies are more than just those images that flicker for a couple of distracting hours then disappear. Critics are, or should be, those who think movies mean something more than that, that they don’t end when the lights go up. Loving movies means, of course, loving the movies themselves but also the conversations—in print, online, or in person—around them and the discussions of what they mean to us, whether they’re A Serious Man or Hot Tub Time Machine. (Or Jersey Girl. or Cop Out.)

These are focused on movies but this applies to all forms of criticism to me (books, music, etc). If I wasn't so tired I would talk more about how I view criticism but I am tired, so perhaps later.