A Critique on Critics

It is a commonly known (and increasingly true) phrase usually used by people who don’t want to accept negative criticism given to their personal creative work or craft:

Everyone is a Critic

As defensive and often pretentious as this statement seems, it has become a widespread reality as a vast majority of the population has instant access to the internet at a moment’s notice.

It is a great and wonderful thing that our technology has allowed the world to communicate and express themselves in ways we never could have imagined before, but this has also created a whole new problem:

We now have an entire culture of people from all walks of life who put their opinions out there for the world to see every minute of the day; although this in itself is not an issue, and is often times very entertaining or enlightening, it also means that people seem to have begun criticizing things just for the sake of being critical.

Granted, constructive criticism is arguably more useful to the creator than:

“It’s good, I like it, great job!“

But that doesn’t mean that the goal of a Critic is always to tear everything apart.

To critically analyze a piece of work, you can’t just compare everything equally under the same set of standards; it’s important to take into account what the goal of the work was, and how it is succeeding or failing in its own right.

Take Rob Zombie’s Halloween II film for example:
Despite many positive reactions and opinions, this film (as well as Zombie himself… and his wife) is heavily bashed for being a bastardized piece of trash that ruined a classic piece of Horror history…

—More on this popular ridiculous expression of outrage in a later entry—

What these people refuse to consider is that the movie is in no way intended as a remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween II, and is Zombie’s original story of what he saw as a natural progression of life for a group of characters following an extremely terrifying and traumatic experience.

So yes, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II is a bad remake of the original film that ruins the integrity of Dr. Loomis, Laurie Strode and Michael Meyers…
But that’s like saying that Gregory McGuire’s Wicked ruined the original Wizard of Oz.

Taken for its actual intention, Zombie’s movie is a brilliant portrayal of a group of characters coping with life in their own different ways following an insane night of extreme tragedy, loss and confusion at the hands of a deeply disturbed and psychotic man (while also exploring the mind and delusional motivations of said individual, and the possible genetic heredity of clinical insanity.)

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to voice your opinions or be a Critic, but don’t allow fandom to distort your analysis skill into trivial black and white concepts.
The world is far too full of gradients for that.

– Come talk to me on Mastodon or Twitter

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