Summer-Fall Thoughts on Criticism, Part 3
The final part of a three-piece rambling essay on criticism. This one has The Guardian and blogs
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the films being covered here wouldn't exist.
At the beginning of last month, The Guardian released an article about the absolute state of film criticism, spurred in part, I think, by conversations earlier this summer that came about because of the SAG-AFTRA strike. Unlike the WGA, SAG-AFTRA asked for influencers not to make social media comments on films and, released as it was in a variety of competing and contradictory statements online, helped ignite a conversation on the difference between critics and influencers. This, in common with the killing of publications by venture capital and in conjunction with the slow agonizing death of the main social media platform writers use to build a following (Twitter), created an informal and widespread referendum on the state of criticism. Film criticism still exists at a high level and is also populated at a low one because there are lots of place you can do it (Blogger, Wordpress, Cohost, Tumblr, and so forth), which makes the places with high editorial standards and distinct critical voices harder to find, because it is hard to fund, so difficult to do consistently at a high level. Which is not to say there is not quality work happening on specialist sites, enthusiast sites, or personal blogs, simply that it is not reasonable or sustainable to expect high quantities of professional quality work without professional opportunity, training, and access. Games criticism has been mourned for the better part of a year as more and more websites that tries to do serious work without a subscription model (and sometimes with one) get killed off. Literary criticism, like fiction (from “genre” to “literary”), seems supported through a combination of legacy publications internet publications that fade in and out of existence.
Writing is generally devalued despite that it requires as much talent and hard work as any other craft. Add to that anyone can start a blog or a YouTube channel (though, again, not everyone can do it well, and some people do tremendous work in those spaces). That comes at a time when the long-running incorporation of television into our lives inadvertently(?) lowered attention spans over time, exacerbated by the rise in the last decade and a half of the smart phone and social media. The way Google ranks search results through algorithm and advertising means there are more ways to get an opinion on a piece of art, more ways to share one, and a harder time determining where the best stuff is being consistently produced. There is also, of course, that people struggle with how politics and morality overlap with taste, with everyone having lines in the sand about when a writer is doing too much or too little critical appraisal along those lines, but there is no objective metric, just shifting consensuses that you see through your social media bubble or real-life social network. I am inclined to blame that on lower and lower educational standards empowered by worse educational funding, but it might be a harder connection to make.
Because there is so much content always available, it is difficult to discern whose opinions you should value if you are still developing your tastes. In an increasingly socially isolated world, being shunned on the internet, much less harassed, even, and especially by strangers, for showing inadequate reverence to a piece of corporate art is dispiriting if not depressing. I am not sure, as people often say, that we are living in the worst ever age of media literacy. I am sure we are living in an age where you can have the thoughts of the most media illiterate people beamed right into your eyeballs for hours on end and create an echo chamber of pain for yourself.
We are living in a time when it is difficult to make a living as a writer (not that it’s ever been as easy as people occasionally like to imagine), where opportunities are drying up, and where few if any critical voices are known on a national or global scale. Everything is niche, which is not new, but almost very few can pay their bills with this work, which feels dire. People en masse if not critics in specific have little reason to extend beyond their comfort zone unless they have intent to challenge themselves because we live in a time of endless content algorithm-built and focus-tested to appeal to our sensibilities. You may never know that there are things you would like more than what big brands are selling you because you may not know what else exists or how to access it. Into this space walks the critic, engaging with art and trying to see what it is about and how it is about it and what they can gain in trying to grapple with it.
There simply are no easy solutions to this problem. It is an ongoing struggle. I believe as I must that lowest common denominator thinking about art will fall by the wayside. It is never interesting enough to have staying power. But, as Lincoln Michel wrote in Counter Craft in July, we cannot know what will and will not last in literature or art. Cult classics exist. One reader’s trash is another viewer’s treasure. There is adaptation, interpretation, translation.
What we have is to deal with our reality and make do within it or (preferably “and”) try to change it. Subscription services curated through Patreon and Substack are probably not long-term solutions to the problem of funding writing (Patreon just accidentally disconnected a bunch of patrons with artists on August 2nd) or even finding it. We are seeing with the ongoing strikes and the parallel removals of finished work from streaming platforms that streaming services are clearly not a long-term solution to preservation. Everything seems uncertain now and I don’t like making declarations or predictions in the best of times. I am certain that language learning models cannot adequately make up for the creativity and spirit lost when they attempt to replace human writers, but that is not stopping news organizations or film studios from trying. I have felt miserable many times over the last decade thinking that all our social material problems (from class oppression to the various forms of bigotry) seem so far from being effectively solved that we cannot get to the existential danger of climate change because the pressure necessary from the average citizen-worker to expend on complacent corporate-owned government to act requires levels of solidarity and unity yet unseen.
I feel very firmly that there are no freedom of speech absolutists, no freedom of expression absolutists, and no one that feels absolutely that all things must be allowed at all times. Everyone has their own personal lines in the sand for what is unacceptable or unreasonable to display morally or politically, bound as it is by their own experiences, modified as it is to the relative quality to how they feel about the full body of the piece containing the objectionable content, and, what makes the most distinction, how they feel they, the communities they are part of, and audiences at large or governing bodies ought to respond to the things they find objectionable. The further you get from what would be considered puritanical moralizing, the more likely it is that the thing you find objectionable is “obvious” just as the people you would consider moralizing or smooth-brained (which they very well may be) consider the things they find objectionable to be obvious. And, of course, most important is that some people will, engaging with something they find grossly offensive or vainly corporate, condemn it as bad or empty art while others will condemn its consumers and fans as bad or empty people.
There is always generalization at hand; all-encompassing typologies; amateur anthropology of people who like the things you don’t and don’t like the things you do. If there is sufficient overlap, people can move into or out of your imagined community.
Life is infinitely complex, and it bestows that complexity to art, which in turn bequeaths it to criticism. I don’t know if I’ll ever read or write enough to be content in my ability as a critic. But I do know that I believe criticism matters because I believe art matters because I believe what we have to say about the world we inhabit matter. I believe that the intense and sometimes esoteric and pedantic conversations that happen online about art and criticism draw from places of frustration that we cannot always get people to see the world and its artistic production and representation in the same ways we do. It's not as simple as that an overemphasis on wholesomeness is correlative to conservative reaction or that consumption is our the easiest, most satisfying, and lease materially affective avenue of political expression, though both might be true. It’s that all artistic and critical ground is contested. Consensuses emerge and fade, raised up and washed away on the tides of discussion. But beyond any paean or appeal to art and criticism as inherently virtuous things, and away from the indecisiveness of my perpetual relativity, if I can leave you with one request or demand it is to be honest about how you feel when you write about art, even if you wish you felt differently or fear backlash. I know the latter is mighty difficult in the social media age. You’re allowed to have more than one read, you’re allowed to change your mind. You’re allowed to be wrong, you’re allowed to grow.