A Critical Look at Criticism

Consider the following, fictional conversation:

“Man! I just saw the 4^th Transformer movie. It sucked!”

“Really? Did you see the first three?”

“Yeah. They sucked, too.”

“Well, then . . . who’s really to blame here?”

Audiences encourage filmmakers to produce terrible movies every time they spend millions of dollars to see those movies. Those same moviegoers afterwards rant about the horrible experience.

You can’t give your dog a treat every time he urinates on your rug and then complain that he urinates on your rug. The blame rests with those of us who continue to purchase the tickets, to feed the dog.

I love to poke fun at Michael Bay, who makes movies I can sum up with the word “Explosions.”

However, we go to see his movies, put millions of dollars in Bay’s pockets. It serves as a mixed message to afterwards complain about them, to demand better work from Bay.

We, as a collective audience, need to cut many filmmakers some slack. Most of us couldn’t tell a good story if our lives depended upon it.

I loved The Rock and Pain and Gain. Everything else that Bay’s put on the screen made me curl into the fetal position and weep, but I can’t blame that disappointment on anyone but myself. I know what a Bay movie offers before we purchase the ticket.

Bay’s movies don’t work for me, but I stand as an audience of one. Who gives a damn what I think? If millions of people love to watch Bay's senseless explosions—more power to them. I can stay home or go to the gym or annoy the cat.

Why shouldn’t I respect that Bay’s work entertains people? So what if I don’t personally enjoy his work? Why should I experience anything worse than gratitude for The Rock and Pain and Gain?

Whenever someone mentions M. Night Shyamalan, I want to launch into a rant about how much I hate his movies. The enjoyment that Shyamalan brought me via The Sixth Sense doesn’t surface in my mind. I think only of the negative.

I need to discard this habit.

I attended funerals for people who led less than respectable lives, and yet everyone present tried to think of nice things to say about them. Why do entertainers face constant, unconstructive criticism for their worst moments?

More people forgave Ray Rice when he beat his wife than forgave George Lucas for his Star Wars prequels.

Sure, those prequels made us want to duct tape plastic bags over our faces, but did we so suddenly forget the childhood joy Lucas’s previous work brought us?

Doesn’t a one-hit-wonder band merit something better than our snickers at how they never produced a second album?

Can’t we discontinue this snobbery?

I hereby insist that everyone forgive Alanis Morissette’s misuse of “ironic.” Everyone misuses that word. The song’s catchy. Enjoy it.

Criticism proves a useful tool. The nastiest criticism might contain useful information, but their nasty delivery drowns their value.

I get carried away with my movie reviews at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com, my head shoved so far up my own ass that I forget I ought to know better. My own work sits on kindle and martinwolt.blogspot.com. I should know better.

Some buildings need someone to tear them down, but with respect to the effort that went into their creation. Tear them down, but with a plan to rebuild them even better.

Writing means rewriting, which requires feedback. Negative feedback often proves more useful than positive (go figure), but minus a constructive delivery, such feedback becomes easily ignored.

You can catch my novels, such as Daughters of Darkwana, on Kindle.

I publish my blogs as follows:

Short stories on Mondays and Thursdays at martinwolt.blogspot.com

A look at entertainment industries via feminist and queer theory, as well as other political filters on Tuesdays at Entertainmentmicroscope.blogspot.com

An inside look at my novel series, its creation, and the e-publishing process on Wednesdays at Darkwana.blogspot.com

Tips on improving your fiction writing Fridays at FictionFormula.blogspot.com

Movie reviews on Sundays at moviesmartinwolt.blogspot.com