Anyone Else Tired of Self-Important Critics Complaining About the Death of Self-Important Criticism?

No one should take any pleasure when someone else loses their job (Dan Rather being the exception), not even elitist, left-wing newspaper critics. At one time or another, most of us have had the employment rug pulled out from under us. It’s a traumatic experience to say the least, one that transcends politics. We all have a monthly nut to crack and a family to support. That said…

I’ll tell you what I could do without, though: all the self-important lamenting that spreads throughout the critical community each and every time another critic loses his or her job. When Todd McCarthy was let go at Variety, if you didn’t know any better you would have thought the Pope died. And now that “At the Movies,” or whatever they were calling it this year, has been put down, we get 1600+ words from one of the show’s co-hosts, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott.

He asks himself (and us): Is criticism still important? Do critics still matter? Does anyone care? Should they care? But the fact that Scott spends 1600+ words in the New York Times asking those questions makes them all but rhetorical. Oddly, most of the blame seems to be directed at the Internet as though it’s impossible for writers to find success and a living online.

However, almost by accident, Scott does manage to offer up a near-insight:

I don’t go back into the archive of Siskel and Ebert’s reviews to find out how they voted, or for consumer advice, but rather to hear the two of them argue.

As someone who is fortunate enough to get paid to both watch and review films, the simple truth that no one cares (or should care) what I think about a particular film has always been my guide. Why should anyone care what I think? There’s no right or wrong when it comes to taste. What makes my opinion more important than the Walmart cashier or the barber just looking for a little cinematic escape on payday?

Nothing.

Does the fact that I’ve watched more films than the average American, that I’ve read more about film history, give me some sort of special standing as a decider in the what-is-and-is-not-worth-ten-bucks department?

No.

As a matter of fact, it gives me less standing because this passion and profession of mine sets me apart from the workaday folks who not only keep the world turning but make up a vast majority of the movie-going public. It’s just true that for every year that passes where I’m fortunate enough to make this living, it means that I have even less in common with those who don’t. I’m thrilled to get paid for this, but when it comes to film recommendations my parents are much more qualified. My mother’s a school teacher and for fifty years my father’s kept your cars on the road and various nursing homes up to code. Not only do their professions matter more than mine, so do their thumbs up or down.

And that’s what A.O. Scott and his brethren don’t understand. It’s not about the “criticism,” it’s about the person writing it. In the good old days, before he declared war on me and mine and exposed himself as an elitist jerk, the position of Roger Ebert’s thumb still meant nothing. In all the years I followed him, never once did I make a personal ticket-buying decision based on his or any critic’s recommendation. What I did love about Siskel and Ebert was watching two interesting guys talk movies.

Then Siskel died and Ebert turned ugly towards 70% of his audience, and maybe, just maybe this is where the dying critical community needs to take a closer look at themselves. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but very few of us ever cared about your opinions. What we used to care about was you. We liked your style. We enjoyed reading what you had to say, even if we disagreed or had no intention of following your advice.

A critically reviled film making a ton of money is not a new phenomenon. What has changed over the last couples decades, however, are the critics. Not all, but too many have lost complete touch with their audience. The same political and cultural bias, the same snobbery and elitism killing the MSM is what’s killing the critical community. Word of friendly advice: when you have more respect for Roman Polanski than your readers, maybe it’s time to take a step back.

And the bottom line is that this horribly unattractive entitled mentality manifesting itself in an ongoing, years-long Critical Class obituary is only one more symptom of the self-important bloat that’s the real disease.

Maybe a stepladder should come with the pink slip in order to help these people get over themselves.

But the movie gods always have the last laugh…

It just so happens that on the very same day A.O. Scott spent 1600+ plus words completely missing the point on why his profession is dying, Hank Stuever in the Washington Post delivers the answer with this viciously smug review of last night’s Fox News special hosted by Sarah Palin: [emphasis mine]

The debut on the Fox News Channel of Sarah Palin’s “Real American Stories” Thursday night turned out to be like one of those shows that’s on when nothing’s on and yet there is air to fill — like infotainment you sometimes see on empty channels in hotel rooms, or the stuff that’s playing on the little TV screen at the gas pump nearest the rental-car center. What are we watching exactly? (A commercial? News?)

I dunno, but hush: The mother of the dead Marine is talking about the day a naval destroyer was named after her son. The millionaire is about to give away millions to send underprivileged minority kids to college for free. The loyal service dog is going to help the sweet little boy walk again. A woman is about the save a man from a burning tanker truck. Toby Keith is singing about patriotic veterans. Flags are billowing. A piano is playing.

Forgive me for being crass on Good Friday, but fuck him.

Wrapping the words “mother of” and “dead Marine” around snide snark makes you about as low a form of life as this planet has to offer. If I were Hank Steuver’s mother I’d be asking God for a refund right now.

But even if you remove that part, you’re still left with a sneering attack — in a major national newspaper, mind you — on those things most of us hold dear. So…

It isn’t that criticism is dead, it’s that we no longer like most of the people writing it.

Why?

Because they don’t like us.