Random
On Criticism
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about the position of criticism. At least, specifically in the online sphere. Clearly, the culture of criticism is something that helps perpetuate discussion about this stuff we like, which is always a good thing. Namely, this stuff we like, here at HTMLGIANT, is literature. Criticism can be great because it can carry on a conversation about a piece of work which helps to maintain the lifespan of the work. This is stuff that needs to happen– literature should not be read and forgotten, it should live on in other words I think.
The first public writing I ever did on the internet was film reviews. I started doing it because I was watching a lot of movies that had me really fucking excited, but nobody else on the internet was writing about them. Or, if they were mentioned at all, it was either in dismissive brevity or a simple exclamatory remark like “THIS SHIT IS DOPE!” Empty hyperbole is fine, and sometimes that’s all you have the energy to say, but I didn’t want to leave the space of these films. I wanted to engage with them and keep them going, because I knew they were powerful and needed some more recognition.
The first problem I ran into would be when I would watch something & end up not liking it at all. At the time, when I was basically just “developing content” in addition to gaining experience with what it was that I was doing, anything I had in my mind that I was going to review before watching it, I was stubborn enough to actually write about. If I found a film mediocre, the writing became a chore. If I hated a film, it was easy to spit vitriol, but I knew I wasn’t engaging with the film & that my commentary was useless. So, to put it simply, I stopped reviewing anything I didn’t like.
I’d like to suggest that this is a good approach; especially in regards to when you are writing on an outlet such as a blog. When you are not getting paid to write criticism, and you are doing so of your own volition, it strikes me as an incredible exercise in futility to waste energy writing negativity. Sure, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be able to articulate why you don’t like something, but it seems to me much more progressive & useful to be able to article why you do like something. It also strikes me as a lot difficult, because it requires more thought.
Let’s consider, perhaps, the thought process that you (or, well, “I” at least) encounter when I encounter a work of art and I like it enough to want to write about it. My initial response, generally, because of how I function, is one of pure affect. I can feel the text, or the movie, or the art, pulse into my bloodstream and carry my body. I get excited. Sometimes I want to just jump up and down in pleasure. It is, basically, my favorite feeling in the world. It’s pure physical response. So, if I have to examine why exactly my body is responding to art, I really have to consider it. I have to move beyond the hyperbole and look inside of the text, try to crack the code of what it is that’s moving me.
This is, as I’ve said, hard work. But it feels good when I figure it out. If I can put my finger on what exactly it is that inspire such a reaction inside of my own headland & body, then I can look for it further. I can find more things that have this “thing,” and I can possible work towards including the “thing” in my own work. Not only this, but I can (theoretically), introduce other people to this “thing.”
This is a constructive approach to criticism. There is no negativity, and there is only forward progression. Of course, it’s also constructive to figure out things that bring a work of art down. I don’t question that. It’s near impossible to find things that are perfect. But it’s easier to intellectually approach what doesn’t work in a work of art that you do like than it is in something you don’t like. In a work of art that you don’t like you are unlikely to care enough to really microscopically examine the work to the point where you can articulate exactly what it is that you don’t like. Instead, one will likely be stuck with the overwhelming despair at the idea of having to look harder into a text that brought them no pleasure.
In the height of despair you are more likely to only see the forest, not the trees (hah). You’ll forget that the forest consists of hundreds of trees. If you don’t like the way the forest looks, you shouldn’t blame each individual tree. Wait a second I hate metaphor what am I doing. My point is, basically, I don’t see the point of writing criticism of something you hated if you’re under no obligation to.
To be fair this arises more often, here, in the comment threads than it does in actual posts. It’s this sort of overwhelming negativity that immediately finds me frustrated. Somebody makes a post about something they love (most recent incident: Stephen Tully Dierk’s guest post on Steve Roggenbuck), and then, for no honestly discernible reason, somebody will make a comment that boils down to “THIS IS FUCKING STUPID I HATE IT.” I’m not questioning dissent, and good lord do I not want everyone to like the same shit (that would be so BORING), but I really don’t understand what the point of this comment is.
There are a number of artists in the world that I completely despise that will often, and do often, get lauded in critical arenas that I frequent. I hate Quentin Tarantino possibly more than anyone else who has ever made a movie, yet for some reason people I respect seem to honestly enjoy his work, and will often dialog with it in tangent with something that I wanna talk about, think about. I have a really hard time dealing with this. Mostly because, for whatever reason, Tarantino is a director who, in opposition to the happy jouissance my body encounters when faced with something truly awesome, inspires a pure, physical, revulsion. I have literally shaken with anger when people have spent time trying to convince me that Tarantino is the best director in the world or whatever.
I understand, this happens.
In fact, for a couple years I would intentionally waste money to see his movies in theaters so I could craft a carefully articulated & pre-packaged response when people would, of course, bring whatever his most recent movie was up, lauding its merits. I do not like talking about shit I don’t like, and for some reason Tarantino fanboys really like to insist on talking about him. So, I thought, “I know, I’ll just have some highly articulated and memorized spiel ready so I can disarm these motherfuckers before they push full-steam ahead and then I can get out unscathed.”
In theory, this is a good idea. In practice, this makes you a cunt. If somebody really loves something, and you try to counter their enjoyment with some “objective” or “analytical” defense of why what they love is terrible, it’s not like they’re going to suddenly, immediately, have a change of heart and decide that what they love is bullshit. It ain’t gonna happen. All that’s going to happen is that you’ll find yourself suddenly engaged in a two hour conversation about a movie that you wish didn’t exist. This is wasted energy. This is not even Bataille’s accursed share, this is just basically nihilism.
I could write a 200 page treatise on why Tarantino’s movies are shit, and people are still going to like them. You could write me a 200 page treatise on why Jess Franco’s films are crap, but I’m still going to love him. In fact, it’s unlikely that I would even read a 200 page treatise that spends those 200 pages trying to convince me that something I love is bullshit. Who in their right mind would? So all you’re doing is wasting time when you’re hating on something.
This is an annoying fact of life.
I’m not saying I’m above this. There is a TON of shit I hate, and even a ton of shit that I like to hate on. But being, so to speak, a hater, I’ve learned that there are times when I just need to shut the fuck up and appreciate the fact that everybody has their own taste, and no matter how objective you think are you are saying something, objectivity cannot invalidate someone’s subjectivity.
So, I guess, my suggestion is: how about we pour our energy into writing about things we love instead of things we hate?
it doesn’t matter if a critic loves or hates something, only if the critique is beautiful
it doesn’t matter if a critic loves or hates something, only if the critique is beautiful
i’ve never read a beautiful critique that spent its time hating on something
you must not like richard ford either
check out pope
or william gass.
guys i don’t really have any interest in reading criticism that hates on things that’s kind of my point
I don’t mind critiques where someone discusses something they hate. We cannot love everything. I generally have little interest in writing those kinds of critiques because I love talking about things I love. I question the purpose of extremely negative critiques but I don’t mind, and I have seen some amazing such critiques. I only have one caveat. I like to know why someone hates something and I want to be told about that hate in an interesting way. If someone just says, “I hate X,” they may as well be talking about the weather.
I don’t mind critiques where someone discusses something they hate. We cannot love everything. I generally have little interest in writing those kinds of critiques because I love talking about things I love. I question the purpose of extremely negative critiques but I don’t mind, and I have seen some amazing such critiques. I only have one caveat. I like to know why someone hates something and I want to be told about that hate in an interesting way. If someone just says, “I hate X,” they may as well be talking about the weather.
Seriously?
you just said you’ve never read a “beautiful critique” that hates on something. i’m only suggesting (and mark seems to be to) that, in my opinion, Gass has written some really beautiful critiques that spend a good amount of time hating – but they do so to interesting purpose and are worth reading. but then gass often says he writes from anger, so, well, whatever, caution: if you don’t want read something generated from anger.
in any case, i agree with you regarding almost all of this post, especially the meanness of some comments and also when you say “it’s constructive to figure out things that bring a work of art down.” that seems the most important thing to me. critiques that deal with works we like but that are necessarily flawed. how we can come to love those flaws; that’s the great thing about good critiques to me.
I agree with the sentiment here. I have had a similar experience with penn’s into the wild which was an academy award winner based on a best selling biography/memoir. A lot of people I know really enjoyed the film and I found it deeply unsettling. Why are we cheering for this guy who threw away his map and poisoned himself? When I bring this up with people they (as you noted) acted like I was being a cunt. Ok. I get that too. I think its important to aim your critique. Personally, I see in the film a deeply unsettling desire to become fiction (thoreau, basically) and I think that desire is being played out by the younger generations on facebook or whatever where you can construct whatever identity you want. Why interact with each other? People might find out you are not what you portrayed yourself as and that would be horribly awkward for your ego. My critique here isn’t about the artistic merit of into the wild (which is by all accounts, pretty formulaic, perhaps accounting for its popularity) but about its logic. How many people who “enjoy” a film/book are concerned with its logic? My bet is not many.
yes.
what’s it achieve tho? what’s the point in “ripping some(thing) a new asshole” so to speak? i’m tired of bullshit power relations, i want total freedom.
i like fiction that comes from anger. arguably it could be considered contradictory that i think peter sotos is an amazing author yet i just wrote this post. however, i think, as you point out, there’s an entirely different motivation.
i’m cool with vitriolic critiques of the unjust bullshit in the world, but really, if it’s just a novel you didn’t like, what the hell are you going to accomplish?
i mostly only read criticism (in book form) on authors that i already know i love, because i want to see how other people read them. i have probably read more film & art criticism than literary criticism, if i had to guess, which is why i have not read any of the authors listed. i do like reading sontag & barthes. but i like them because it often segues into theory.
and while sometimes it’s really fun and hilarious to read a carefully crafted rant/critique of something, there’s nothing there for me beyond entertainment (not that there needs to be)– it’s not something i’d call beautiful. whereas i’ve read a lot of art criticism that becomes just as sublimely exciting to me as the art it’s discussing itself.
I gotta say that I completely disagree with this post.
Someone who can only talk positively about things is a weak critic and, more importantly, a community that only talks positively about itself is a weak artistic community. It shows they are not taking themselves seriously or holding themselves to a high standard. We should always hold art to a high standard. When an art form or community ceases to hold itself to a high standard, the work is poorer for it. The rot sets in.
Whether or not you like a work, your thinking about it and your thinking about art in general will be improved by engagement with serious criticism (whether positive or negative). I would absolutely read a brilliant critic’s take-down of a work I love.
To be sure, there is plenty of awful and brainless criticism that is entirely negative (*cough* B. R. Meyers *cough*), but there is just as much, if not more, awful and worthless super-positive-happy-fun-time-hold-hands reviewing going on out there. Far too many reviews read like blurbs (which we at least know to not take seriously) and i think this is a more common problem in literature. Other artforms are much better about having balanced criticism.
The writing world has more hyperbolically positive praise than negative praise, I think. I understand why. For one thing, a book takes a long time to read. If I’m not paid to review a book, then if I hate it I probably won’t finish it (and I’m not going to review something I only read a fraction of). So my own reviews, when I do them, tend to be mostly positive. A more likely reason that reviews are so overwhelmingly positive in the literary world is that critics tend to be writers themselves (while film critics aren’t normally directors, video game critics aren’t programmers, etc.) and thus don’t want to offend their peers who they interact with and who may review their books some day and whose editors they want to have publish their own books. I fully understand that and am probably guilty of it some myself, but it isn’t something to laud.
I will say that personally I don’t negatively review any debut books I don’t. It seems hard enough to get a first book out there that piling on a new author seems pointless. Perhaps that’s my own weakness. But otherwise, pull out the blades and hack away at the weaknesses. You need that to happen for the organism to be healthy.
I certainly don’t want to suggest that everyone would love everything — I just question the motivation of putting extended effort (which is what I think is needed to actually craft a ‘worthwhile’ critique) into writing a review of something one hated.
I agree with the sentiment in the second half of your comment 100 fold.
I will also admit that the only negative criticism that I ever actively read (not just killing time on the internet read) will be of art/film/books that I already love, because I am certainly curious as to dissenting opinions, and I enjoy crafting my responses to things I disagree with, because that further encourages me to think about the thing I love.
haha, i’m generally only concerned with the diegetic logic of the film– but i’ve railed about the necessity of suspension of disbelief in fiction, and about how an artificial logic is often more interesting to me than the logic of ‘reality.’ however, i haven’t seen into the wild so can’t comment on that!
haha, i’m generally only concerned with the diegetic logic of the film– but i’ve railed about the necessity of suspension of disbelief in fiction, and about how an artificial logic is often more interesting to me than the logic of ‘reality.’ however, i haven’t seen into the wild so can’t comment on that!
Sorry to get ranty, just a subject I have been thinking about lately.
Sorry to get ranty, just a subject I have been thinking about lately.
to clarify, i would prefer vitriol be spent towards progressing direct action against all the shit that’s terrible in the world. why waste it on a book you didn’t like?
to clarify, i would prefer vitriol be spent towards progressing direct action against all the shit that’s terrible in the world. why waste it on a book you didn’t like?
It seems like you are giving good reasons FOR negative criticism now.
It seems like you are giving good reasons FOR negative criticism now.
the last sentence about art criticism: that’s what gass’s criticisms read like. i don’t go out searching for mean or nasty reviews either; still, i think you’d enjoy gass. his criticisms are pieces of art (and they’re not all negative, plenty of positive essays).
to try to answer what a vitriolic critique accomplishes: a “good” or “worthy” negative critique does the same as positive critique for me. i’m always compelled to read the book to see if my estimation is anywhere near same.
I agree: criticism is about extending the conversation, articulating what it is you love about what you love. But that will embroil us in quarrels, even so. At least according to Kant via William Flesch: http://arcade.stanford.edu/air-guitar-hero
(no, really, you should go read it.)
(oh all right: Ginsbourg and Flesch, they say, after Kant, that aesthetic judgments are objectively groundless [so can’t be settled by dispute], yet we’re compelled to argue for our subjective aesthetic judgments as if they were universal [so we can’t not quarrel, or at least, we’re compelled to seek assent to the universality of our groundless judgments, an assent that is not always forthcoming]. –But I like what Flesch does w this: shows that there’s a necessary sociality built into what seems so subjective.)
And why couldn’t you extend the conversation with articulating what you dislike? What isn’t working? What could be better?
Conversations tend to be most interesting when people disagree. Two people patting each other on the back for liking the same thing in the same way isn’t much of a conversation.
This is interesting, because I have always carried opposite sentiments.
I’ve never felt the need to explain why I love the things I love too much because loving something and expressing love for something without a clear explanation normally isn’t a dangerous thing to do. People like seeing people be happy and enthusiastic, such emotions are rarely a downer, look at smiling bouncy babies.
On the other hand I understand the dangers of blind love, Nabokov’s “Cloud, Castle and Lake” comes to mind, so does Pleasantville, all that whitewashed business, where people see someone they admire express love for something, and infer that if they, too, love that thing, they’ll be seen in a more favorable light by said admired person. So, without questioning it, they imitate and latch onto another person’s love for something, taking advantage of lack of explanation, making it easier to share the love, albeit disingenuously, resulting in mob mentality, and for a bunch of people on a train to laugh at your cucumber and throw it out the window.
Hate unexplained has the same dangers but is much faster in making a group of mean people. Admired person blindly hates something, admirers chooses to blindly hate the same thing to get into the admired person’s better graces, or admirers choose to blindly adopt hate because they’re pissed off and they need to direct their anger onto something, and BOOM — the Tea Party. A group of pissed off people not exactly understanding what they’re pissed off at gets people killed.
There aren’t many things made by other people that I feel very impassioned about. There are things I like and things I dislike, but I don’t take many of them to bed with me. Nevertheless, a dude says they hate something, I don’t really care if I like it or not, I want that to person to explain themselves, because hate is just as strong as love but has a better chance of making a turn for the worse.
Explaining why you hate something don’t make you a cunt. It means you’re carrying responsibility with your words. A person thinks you’re a cunt for explaining why you hate something should get the stick out their ass.
I’m questioning the motivation of writing the negative criticism in the first place here more than I am in reading it. The merits of reading interrogative criticism float higher than reading someone ripping into something.
Why wouldn’t having your readers think harder about the things they love (or hate) not be a reason to write negative criticism? And why is “interrogative” criticism limited to the positive?
i think about it often as well. there was a great discussion on big other a while ago about this very issue. that perhaps the online community/indie-land/whatever was too soft when it came too criticism. i’m too tired to get into it now, and while i agree with Mike’s idea that needless meanness is stupid, i also agree that critiques are necessary and we need to see more of them around here. but it’s a difficult task and i’d also say a dangerous one.
also, i just want to add this before i pass out: a critique may have positive or negative elements, but it should never really be only one or the other – that’s the sign of a bad critic (i know you didn’t say anything like this, Lincoln).
I don’t disagree with what you’ve said here, and I also don’t think it’s incongruous what I’ve said in the post. I think there is a difference between exercising an ability to talk about something negatively and intentionally writing a scathing review with the only motivation being that “you didn’t like it.” Obviously there is a world of difference between liking something and something being good, hating something and something being bad, and all the ways that those justifications can intersect (I love a lot of terrible movies & terrible written erotica, but I’m not going to waste my breath insisting to someone that said things are ‘objectively’ ‘good’ works of art). My point is that more negative reviews I’ve encountered err on the side of laziness than positive reviews due to, as I said, a willingness to engage with the text.
My interjection of “interrogative” criticism here is more of the idea of probing a work and discussing what works and what doesn’t work. Technically the best criticism would be neither negative or positive, right?
Saying to hate is a waste of energy sounds wrong to me. Vitriol is emotive. You can’t switch it off because you suddenly had the realization that you were wasting time/energy.
dang mang that’s what i’m saying. i’m definitely not lauding infinitely positive reviews, i’m just saying it’s either to articulate the flaws of a work when you’re more willing to spend time with the work. i want to know what doesn’t work in my favorite works of art as i want to know what does work.
“Hate unexplained has the same dangers but is much faster in making a group of mean people.”
That’s basically my point, but apparently I did a really bad job of actually explaining that in the post :-/.
Well perhaps I’m misreading you. If so, apologies. I agree, of course, that lazy purely negative rant reviews are normally pretty bad. But again, most super happy positive reviews are bad too.
Your post did, however, say “how about we pour our energy into writing about things we love instead of things we hate?” and that you wouldnt’ want to read a negative treatise on something you like.
I disagree with this though: “My point is that more negative reviews I’ve encountered err on the side of laziness than positive reviews due to, as I said, a willingness to engage with the text.”
I actually feel like smart criticism seems to come more often from work that the critic dislikes than work they like. Maybe not scathingly hate, but at least have serious issues with. Issues are easier to define and examine in a work. When you love a work, too often it is an emotional response that can’t be articulated to another reader. You end up, too often, with purely subjective reviews (“I really liked this. It made me happy. Maybe you would be happy to if you read it, but maybe not, who knows?”) or abstract and inarticulate reviews.
to, too, fuck.
I think it’s pretty easy to hate something without writing a scathing review of it. My concern is that I’m going to die some day, and whenever I think about how much time I’ve spent hating things I get remarkably pissed at the fact that that time would have been better spent either thinking about things that bring me pleasure or finding new things that are awesome.
We might agree there.
ah, but here’s the discrepancy. the difference between a critique and a review. if we’re talking “reviews,” yeah, writing a shitty ass review is pretty lame. if we’re talking critiques, a socalled negative critique is something entirely different and more enlightening just by nature of what it is.
My point with the idea of reading something that’s 200 pages hating on something I love isn’t going to make me love it less if I’ve already engaged with the text. I’m not prone to loving, like, LOVING things without critically examining why I love them because I’m neurotic. I get antsy if I love something and don’t know why.
As I’ve said in other comments some of the only negative reviews that I do intentionally read are on works that I already have examined and loved, because I know that a negative review will find me, at least in my head, engaging with these problems and trying to come to terms with how what things that other people find problematic are not problematic to me. However, I am unlikely to read something that’s 200 pages that is trying to convince me not to love something that I already love. There’s a big difference.
As I’ve said other places in the comments section here, I am already terrified of dying before I’ve read every book I want to read, seen every movie I want to see, and experienced every work of art I want to experience. I’m terrified because I know there is absolutely no way for me to reach the kind of totality I desire. But the only way I can fight this terror is by not wasting time dwelling in the realm of shit that I don’t like. I like to push forward, quickly. In terms of pure pleasure, obviously, I find more pleasure in reading/seeing/experience things I enjoy than I do in reading/seeing/experiencing things I don’t enjoy, knahmean?
I had a friend who was a tried and true fan of Haruki Murakami. I’ve read two of Murakami’s books and haven’t particularly enjoyed either. He would insist that I hadn’t read the right ones, that I would definitely like this other text of his a lot better, etc. That’s very possible, but I literally have a list of probably 700+ books that I actively want to read, so why should I read a third book by an author I have formerly not enjoyed first? Am I possibly going to miss something that I enjoy? Well, yes, there is always that possibility, but I feel like it’s far more likely that I’ll find something I enjoy a lot more looking forward, towards things that fit my aesthetics better.
Who knows, it’s late at night, I’ve felt like shit all day, maybe I just didn’t give the entry the energy it deserves.
But I do see what you mean with regard to the Roggenbuck post. I read that post, and I thought, “That isn’t my cup of tea, but the whole thing sounds interesting, I like the interactivity, I like how it makes poetry almost into a bunch of people who like each other hanging out,” and I didn’t understand how so many people could get upset about such a nice idea, especially because the entry didn’t read as self-congratulatory or “idiosyncratic” or anything other than being happy.
Maybe I should’ve said something there, but those threads are much more fun to watch and trying to keep up a dialogue in them just gives me a headache.
To be fair I think the blogosphere has kind of eradicated a pure differentiation between the two– elements of both seethe into each other (and as I say, I’m mostly addressing ‘internet criticism’ here)
i guess. i dont add up the value of my life that way i guess. i tend to view hatred spewage as better than hatred festering. i feel like if you hate something, then you should get it out of you in some way. i feel like everyone needs to spend a balanced amount of their life in negative and positive energy. extreme negative moments often make way for extreme positives. to suppress the negative would also be to suppress the positive and you end up lethargic.
i’m dreamin about outer space and i love every minute
Today: Silence is the more effective (and mostly more beautiful) artistic criticism.
The reason to examine why and then explain why certain things make you feel pleasure, is so that you can repeat those experiences and encourage others to have them in the future.
The reason to examine why and then explain why certain things make you feel displeasure, is so that you can avoid those experiences and discourage others from having them in the future.
That said.. I prefer positive criticism because I think it’s more likely to encourage further exploration. Much more than negative criticism is.
oh, and.. JackieBrown4VR!! WOOOOOoooh!
“Vitriol spent toward progressing direct action against all the shit that terrible in the world.”
Err, don’t we all have a different idea of what constitutes “terrible shit in the world”? If my upbringing and education and my social milieu has convinced me that free clinics, scholarship programs for low income students, and needle exchange programs are evils that need to be eradicated, would you prefer that I directed vitriol in service of their elimination or sublimate that fire in my belly in a less deleterious way?
Unless you were talking about specific political action that you stand behind. In which case you should have just specified your cause. Otherwise, your plea here is pretty naive and silly, no offense.
Not necessarily. You can probe a work, discuss what works and what doesn’t, and come to the conclusion that it mostly doesn’t work. You can even acknowledge that part of the reason it doesn’t work is that you don’t fit the target audience or you are too distant from the subject matter. But there’s nothing especially laudable about taking a tepid stance, especially when the stakes are as low as a book review.
I’m officially not responding to comments on any HTMLGiant threads in which an earnest political drive is equated with naivety. Shit is condescending and privileged.
darby, this comment is basically presupposing that the only way to vent negative energy is to write a scathing review of something and post it in a public place. i don’t bottle up hatred inside, i rant at my roommates or get drunk and break shit. nowhere do i say “ignore negative energy” — the thesis of this post basically amounts to “don’t you have better things to do with your time than dedicate energy to hating on a book?”
darby, this comment is basically presupposing that the only way to vent negative energy is to write a scathing review of something and post it in a public place. i don’t bottle up hatred inside, i rant at my roommates or get drunk and break shit. nowhere do i say “ignore negative energy” — the thesis of this post basically amounts to “don’t you have better things to do with your time than dedicate energy to hating on a book?”
Is anybody, anywhere in either these comments or in the post, arguing for a tepid stance? I’m questioning the use-value, at a personal level, of intentionally probing a work you didn’t like.
vipshopper.us
I think you’re confusing appreciation with criticism.
That’s a good way of putting it, but I think it points out what’s wrong with so much negative writing online: it’s not trying to help others avoid displeasure, it’s trying to destroy or deny their pleasure in something just because you don’t share it. There’s often a weird sense of personal grievance to it, with an attempt to exaggerate the stakes (“this isn’t just bad art, it’s somehow destroying all the good art”) in order to justify that.
But ultimately it’s not helpful like what you’re describing; it doesn’t help people find things they’ll like or avoid things they won’t, or give more insight into either. It’s just coercive. It’s like the inverse of the aggressive Tarantino fans the original post talks about, except I think you see a lot more of the negative version on the internet.
I’ve been moving away from strong emotional/visceral reactions. Even if I see a film that I think is abysmal, there are usually some interesting aspects, or some unexpected aesthetics that get me involved somehow. It is sort of a scavenger approach. If the whole is useless, take what I can get.
I think M. Leidner’s own film reviews take a +/- stance, but focus more on what was interesting about that experience or the film’s place in culture, rather than evaluation.
I’ve been moving away from strong emotional/visceral reactions. Even if I see a film that I think is abysmal, there are usually some interesting aspects, or some unexpected aesthetics that get me involved somehow. It is sort of a scavenger approach. If the whole is useless, take what I can get.
I think M. Leidner’s own film reviews take a +/- stance, but focus more on what was interesting about that experience or the film’s place in culture, rather than evaluation.
One benefit of critiquing things you dislike is that you will draw in people who share your opinion. While a group of people who share a common hatred may not sound productive, if those people turn that hatred around to produce the opposite (relatively speaking) of that which they hate, something good can come from it. It could be argued that most, if not all, great movements started as a hatred of something before morphing into a love of something else.
I like Tarantino and I like Jess Franco, but for me nobody touches Lucio Fulci.
Hey, what were we talking about again?
I like Tarantino and I like Jess Franco, but for me nobody touches Lucio Fulci.
Hey, what were we talking about again?
This is the crux of the matter. When a negative review seeks simply to destroy a piece rather than criticize it thoughtfully, within context, then the benefit is lost. Many vitriolic reviews are so lacking in focus that it’s hard to ascertain if the reviewer even understands what he’s attacking. It would be a simple matter to attack Citizen Kane as a shitty action movie and write a negative review that convincingly argues against seeing it, but it would be pointless since Citizen Kane isn’t an action movie. Too often, caustic reviews aren’t reviewing a piece of work for what it is, rather they attack it for not being what the critic would prefer.
It is, however, possible to thoughtfully provide a negative review of a piece. I discovered one of my favourite musicians through a negative review. The reviewers didn’t attack her album as a worthless piece of shit, they simply listed off the things they didn’t like about it and explained why they reacted negatively to them. That, I think, is the key to successful negative criticism, the inclusion of the reviewer in the review, providing context to his negativity.
I’ve long since realized that my tastes rarely coincide with those of the average person. There are various things that I enjoy that many people won’t. So when I see a negative review in which they mention such things, it will attract me to the work. That’s what happened with the aforementioned music review. One of the qualities of the album the reviewer complained about was the sing-songy nursery-rhyme-like quality of the lyrics. That sounded interesting to me and, sure enough, that’s one of my favourite qualities of said musician.
So the problem isn’t with negative reviews. Rather, it’s with a particular type of negative review and the purpose of the reviewer.
(There is, in my opinion, an exception for the negative reviewers who intentionally go over-the-top with their denigration of the target for comedic intent. They certainly aren’t for everyone but it is a valid artistic style, as long as the viewers take it for what it’s worth.)
This is the crux of the matter. When a negative review seeks simply to destroy a piece rather than criticize it thoughtfully, within context, then the benefit is lost. Many vitriolic reviews are so lacking in focus that it’s hard to ascertain if the reviewer even understands what he’s attacking. It would be a simple matter to attack Citizen Kane as a shitty action movie and write a negative review that convincingly argues against seeing it, but it would be pointless since Citizen Kane isn’t an action movie. Too often, caustic reviews aren’t reviewing a piece of work for what it is, rather they attack it for not being what the critic would prefer.
It is, however, possible to thoughtfully provide a negative review of a piece. I discovered one of my favourite musicians through a negative review. The reviewers didn’t attack her album as a worthless piece of shit, they simply listed off the things they didn’t like about it and explained why they reacted negatively to them. That, I think, is the key to successful negative criticism, the inclusion of the reviewer in the review, providing context to his negativity.
I’ve long since realized that my tastes rarely coincide with those of the average person. There are various things that I enjoy that many people won’t. So when I see a negative review in which they mention such things, it will attract me to the work. That’s what happened with the aforementioned music review. One of the qualities of the album the reviewer complained about was the sing-songy nursery-rhyme-like quality of the lyrics. That sounded interesting to me and, sure enough, that’s one of my favourite qualities of said musician.
So the problem isn’t with negative reviews. Rather, it’s with a particular type of negative review and the purpose of the reviewer.
(There is, in my opinion, an exception for the negative reviewers who intentionally go over-the-top with their denigration of the target for comedic intent. They certainly aren’t for everyone but it is a valid artistic style, as long as the viewers take it for what it’s worth.)
Been leaning towads the position lately that whatever we call art and not-art doesn’t matter because art is really sort of an endless process of dialogue between art with other art, the “real world” and “actual people”, and art criticism. I am losing an ability to tell where the art ends and the subject’s response begins, neither exists without the other, so it’s sort of just another arbitrary seam placed upon a void (not in a nihilist sense, a very “full” void).
Sometimes you figure out you dislike it as a result of the probing…
Yeah, I realized that after I left that comment (because there clearly is a use-value in probing something you didn’t like). I think the cornerstone to what I’m suggesting here is that it just “makes more sense” to me to spend more time with things that bring you pleasure than it does to me to spend more time with things that are actively frustrating.
Really? I think John Gardner did it. Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard took gorgeous dumps on Hegel’s head. Nietzsche? Come on.
“Explaining why you hate something don’t make you a cunt. It means you’re carrying responsibility with your words. A person thinks you’re a cunt for explaining why you hate something should get the stick out their ass. ”
There’s a distinct difference between “explaining why you hate something” and simply responding to someone’s enthusiasm with a completely unwarranted “YOU’RE FUCKING STUPID THAT SHIT IS TERRIBLE HERE’S WHY.”
“Too often, caustic reviews aren’t reviewing a piece of work for what it is, rather they attack it for not being what the critic would prefer.”
Yes this.
welcome to the future // isn’t it awesome?
I like Fulci’s Beyond more than most movies that exist, but I like Franco’s oeuvre more than Fulci’s
i am going to re-edit the original post and make the very first sentence a description of the difference between a ‘review’ or ‘criticism’ that simply “hates” on something without thought and an “interrogative” review that engages with the work and finds it unsuccessful, because 2/3s of my comment responses here are me saying that in different ways
You seriously haven’t lived until you’ve seen his sword ‘n’ sorcery epic “Conquest”. It’s like Conan the Barbarian on some really bad acid. But I’m with you that Franco is pretty great. His version of Dracula is one of the best out there.
That, I think, is the key to successful negative criticism, the inclusion of the reviewer in the review, providing context to his negativity.
I’d go further and say that’s a good thing for positive criticism too — to let the reader know what kind of a lens they’re looking at the work through, so they can calibrate their taste relative to yours. And, for the sake of being an ethical person if not a good reviewer, I feel obliged to try to acknowledge within whatever piece of criticism that this is only a view of the work, not the view. I think most people writing reviews are habituated to writing as though they were the voice of objective reality, even though if you asked them they’d mostly agree that it’s all subjective.
Yes!
Criticism can be a form of curation. What if all the million-dollar papers and mags let their critics read/watch/view/hear/&c art as it came to them (or as they found it/sought it out), and then just write about the best stuff? Or just the stuff that actually moved them to write? It’s really weird to me that the same critic will write about say, TWILIGHT and the new Delillo. What’s the connection (other than big marketing $)? At a certain saturation point (thousands of books being released today, for example) it isn’t enough to just be a ‘book critic’ (or whatever) and write about ‘some book’. To just review a thing you don’t care about because it’s your job (or life) isn’t really art, IMO. It’s like working at the H&R block that does the the local opera company’s taxes. Not really, but I’m saying tangentially connected at best. Pills are taking effect and affect, and I’m wandering here, but what I’m saying is YES, MIKE KITCHELL, crit should be a curation of things wondrous, and one’s reading life the same. I’m off topic still, but compared with a decade ago the # of books I actually finish and actively dislike is down like 99%. I call this cap-P Practice.
The thing that got me thinking about criticism as curation was when one of our most visible critics, Kakutani, wrote a review in the voice of a character on Family Guy. I don’t even read her on the reg, but yuck.
what are some bad things you can say about an art thing
you can say it’s bad
you can say it’s stupid or wrong, or something
you can say it’s useless
you can say it’s unoriginal
you can say someone else did the same thing better
you can say that it’s boring (this is a form of “useless,” maybe)
you can say it’s immoral, maybe
you can say it’s “pulpy”/”low brow” (this is another form of “useless,” maybe)
are there other bad things you can say about an art thing
what happens when you say an art thing is bad in some way
are you telling people how they should make art by way of an negative example (i.e. a bad art thing)
are you contributing to some critical tradition, advancing the art or humanity somehow
how is saying good things about an art thing different
huh
how do people use the critical works provided for them
do they learn from them
is there anything else they get from them
can they make people better people, better artists, better critics
how else is
This is a famous (well: used-to-be famous) piece of “hate” – a critic hating on another critic (for being s l o p p y): http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1980/aug/14/the_perils_of_pauline/#fnr3 . (Sorry, but they paywall (munusmur?) most of the article, and I don’t know where to link to the whole thing.)
Shee it. That’s ignorant linking skilz. Let’s try this: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1980/aug/14/the_perils_of_pauline/ .
Well, there’s some kind of linkwall – if you go to either of those links, and type in “the perils of pauline” into the search box, and scroll down to an article by that title from Aug. ’80, you’ll find an attack – I think: well-documented and -reasoned – by Renata Adler on Pauline Kael’s movie reviews. (Sorry about the extra work; I just don’t know how to link directly from here to the article (?).)
I agree – and I think most people would – that ‘criticism’ that says “this sux man” is worthless. I’d go farther: that’s not even “criticism”; that’s leaves turning towards the afternoon sun.
But criticism, supportive or hostile, can become – rather: be a part of – a self-fulfilling social ‘prophecy’: a fed-back echo chamber of groupthink evaluation.
Mike, you could challenge specious arguments about art, as well as actively malign art – about some particular director (say) being “good” – , and, in the course of attacking something you find to be destructive, be doing a bit of (non-sophistically) ‘creative’ destruction.
I mean that one’s voice, when it’s negative but not merely ‘hateful’, is constructive.
What’s the point of contradicting (say) the ‘greatness’ of Tarantino’s movies? Well, surely not to erase them! – and convincing a fan is greatly unlikely (though getting one to think again might not be). – but a worthwhile point might be to push back, and to push dialogically towards whatever it is that is ‘great’. Is that a losing cause? – bah.
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I can go either way on Tarantino/most things. Mike, if you were to do a post setting out why he revolts you it might well help me clarify my own response. I’m sure it would at least give me something to think about as I considered his work. You don’t see any value in that?
in order for me to write something setting out why he revolts me i would have to spend time thinking about him which is literally not something i ever want to do– so from a selfish level: no, i don’t see any value in that, haha.
[…] to positive reviews. In a recent post on HTMLGiant, M Kitchell argued that negative reviews are now all but pointless: “How about we pour our energy into writing about things we love instead of things we […]
hey dude i’m checking out some movies from your blog and it’s really great, i want to tell you thank you
getting the most out of my karagarga account
[…] off last time speaking of horrible writing. About which Mike Kitchell over at HTMLGiant recently wrote: “It strikes me as an incredible exercise in futility to waste energy writing negativity. […] […]