I was quoted today in CNN’s piece about how Social Media is changing the marketing of movies. In the article, the author points to a website that catalogs all the movie critics that have been fired from traditional print publications in recent years due to the decline of the medium. As a person who grew up loving movies, along with every other kind of pop culture, film reviews have been a big part of my life. Hearing about its decline (in the traditional sense) certainly fills me with some nostalgia and maybe a sprinkle of “what’s happened to us?”
Also today, a heated debate through E-Mail with some friends about Bill Simmons’ (The Sports Guy) article on his (questionable) admission that Laker fans actually know a little bit about basketball – well, 2/3rds of them. Simmons is an acknowledged die hard Celtics fan (and all the bias that that entails) but attempts to offer critical thinking on the NBA. It’s the Daily Show of sports analysis. The Lakers and Kobe are the GOP. You can’t blame Simmons so much as ESPN. Sure, Boston and Los Angeles have one of the most storied rivalries in all of sports, if you’re going to provide balanced reporting, you can’t only have one half represented. But aren’t we used to this, by now? Everyone loves to hate L.A. – NY, SF, Seattle, Boston… hell, even cities within our own state hate us. But of course we know why. It becomes laughably apparent when we see Bill Simmons lugging his fake tan up to the trendy and expensive SoHo House in LOS ANGELES, where he LIVES, to rub shoulders with all the people he proposes to not like. As one of the folks on the E-Mail chain puts it, he’s like “a politician who has won elections and committed his life to passing laws incriminating and marginalizing homosexuals, while at night, he’s secretly sneaking away to airport mens rooms to secretly blow strangers.”
And I learned recently that Bob Garfield, the long-time salty and acerbic AdWeek op-ed guy, is no longer employed. This is a guy who has embraced the word critic way more literally than it was intended. At least with Simmons, the allegiance to the Celtics provides a little back story. Some context. Garfield hated on advertising in the same kind of spewing and personal way that commenters on YouTube rail against, well, everything. But, at least with Garfield, there seemed to be an equal opportunity for greatness and although it was hard to get that accolade from him, it seemed that he wasn’t going to stonewall any agency from the chance.
It all adds up to a new day for the reviewer. What we know is that the old method is changing – it’s not like it was anymore: a guy or girl on staff of a print publication who submits his review by some kind of deadline and then gets some sleep. For one thing, those publications are losing their shirts and the critic seems like an extemporaneous piece of content, like music in schools. Never mind the soul-crushing reality of an entity without opinion or standards. But sure, with no advertisers, you have to kill some babies – why not the whiny ones? Half the readers hate them anyway. If the Los Angeles Times ever asks me who to let go, I put T.J. Simers on the top of the list. To me, he’s not a reason to buy that paper. Others may disagree, but appealing to 50% of your audience isn’t job security.
But another big change is, of course, the Internet. The syndicated critic was a way to market something in short supply to the masses: access. If you had a movie, book, play, art show, ad or album coming out, you gave access to a reviewer and the general public paid for that glimpse. But we have access now, ourselves. I’m hearing about art from the artist. I’m hearing about Kobe from Kobe. I’m listening to the music online. The creator of the content holds all the cards because they can grant access, or deny it, to whomever they want. Or just take it on themselves. That’s why all Simers complains about anymore is that he’s getting stonewalled at press conferences. He knows. It’s the last thread you hold onto before you float out into space.
Unless you’re great. If you’re great, then it’s about more than access. But it’s hard to be great. As it should be.
The great critics/reviewers won’t ever die. Christgau, Kale. Damn, Roger Ebert literally loses his voice and he’s still making it happen. So, yes, the list of the fallen critic is going to make some headlines, but the real story is who remains. Crowd-sourcing is not the answer. We want a curation. We want intelligence. And we SHOULD want to be challenged, but for the right reasons – to increase the public discourse, not decrease it. Don’t be fooled by devil’s advocacy. There is a kind of critique that is all too easy – the kind that simply hates. You can gain followers by being a hater, it’s true. But to what end? When it’s all said and done, we’re going to be remembered for what we say yes to, not no. True passion for something, anything, comes from what you commit to. Something you stick your neck out for and, despite criticism and roadblocks, do great at. If you’re simply critical, then your life’s work is just to be something that someone else has to overcome.