Smaller journals can be a little spicier, though: Becca Rothfeld’s masterly evisceration of Sally Rooney’s “riskless and conciliatory” novels in The Point last year was a bracing antidote to Rooneymania. When there is less space for book coverage, it makes sense to foreground good work than cackle over the bad, except when a real stinker from a big name hoves into view and critics can take the gloves off with a sigh of relief. Why has negative criticism become so contentious? One factor is the growing vulnerability of both journalists and the artists they cover. It is an unfortunate truth that it is much easier to be funny when you’re being mean, but Ebert wasn’t just going for cheap laughs he knew how wonderful cinema could be and was indignant when millions of dollars were squandered on crud. While they were both important champions of overlooked or misunderstood movies, one of my favourite comfort reads is Ebert’s 2000 anthology of pans, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie. The show turned disagreement into entertainment. Between 19, when they hosted the half-hour TV show At the Movies, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were the most (and perhaps only) famous film critics in America, appearing on David Letterman and Saturday Night Live as celebrities in their own right and introducing many viewers to the concept of film criticism itself.Ĭentral to their appeal was the intensity of their opinions, which often clashed. “To criticise is to find fault, to accentuate the negative, to spoil the fun and refuse to spare delicate feelings.”įor an entertaining reminder of a more knockabout era of criticism, I recommend the Ringer’s current podcast series Gene and Roger, presented by Brian Raftery.
“Criticism is not nice,” writes AO Scott of the New York Times in Better Living Through Criticism. Thumper the rabbit’s famous maxim, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all,” might have been good advice for Bambi but it’s fatal for the appreciation of art. What these responses all have in common is not so much disagreement with the critique but fury that it was written at all. Moral disapproval: Why would you waste your precious time being mean about something when you could be praising something else? Some people mix and match these accusations into strange hybrids like the schoolmarm-turned-troll: Why can’t you be more positive, you dumb piece of shit? Taking offence: How dare you imply that everyone who likes this movie is a tasteless dolt? Assumption of bad faith: You’re only saying this for clicks and notoriety.Ĭharacter assassination: You’re a vindictive killjoy who’s no fun at parties. There’s faux-objectivity: You said this movie wasn’t funny but I laughed, ergo it is you are factually wrong and unprofessional. A few popular lines of attack pop up regularly. Now critics are often up against readers who resist the very notion of criticism. His crime, let’s say it again, was hating an old, animated movie about an implausibly Scottish ogre and his donkey friend. “Shrek Fans Diss ‘Joyless Chud’ Guardian Critic Who Called Film ‘Unfunny and Overrated,’” reported The Wrap.
Tobias was called, at best, a cynical, click-hungry contrarian at worst a twisted, misanthropic snob. It looks awful.” I found the reaction extraordinary. Back in May, the Guardian’s Scott Tobias became Twitter’s baddie of the day for battering Shrek on the occasion of its 20 thanniversary: “Shrek is a terrible movie. This is far from uncommon, for it’s increasingly common for critics to adopt the brace position before daring to dislike something that many people enjoy.
Three weeks later, she tweeted: “Despite spending most of my career writing about online radicalisation and disinformation, I’ve never received more abuse than when I criticised T*d L*sso.” “It’s always fun to post an article that you know beforehand will get very badly ratioed,” she tweeted after linking to a piece in which she called Apple TV+’s feelgood soccer sitcom Ted Lasso “the most overrated show on TV”. A few weeks ago, the New Statesman writer Sarah Manavis steeled herself for a backlash.