The critics are out of touch...except when they're not

[Hawki]

This kind of thread has been brewing in my mind for awhile now, but I've decided to go ahead and get it over with.

So, recently, Venom released, having a 30% critic score on RT, with an audience score of 89%. Once again, this triggered the cycle of "critics are out of touch, critics don't know how to have fun, this movie was made for fans," etc. Y'know, the same rigamarole that happens every time this thing comes up.

Except...are the critics "out of touch?" Well, first of all, I disagree that's even a relavant point, as a critic is meant to look at a film as objectively as possible and judge the film on how it succeeds as a film. To cite one example off the top of my head, the Warcraft movie. Did I like it? Yes. Did it give me gratuitous fan service? Yes. Is it "good?" Fuck no. Simiarly, the idea that "X is made for the fans" has never been a valid excuse in my mind, because if you're producing a piece of art, and expect people to pay for it, it should be able to stand on its own merits. Plus, the idea that people are spending millions of dollars just for the fans is something that doesn't really add up, in every sense of the word. The MCU for instance didn't get as big as it was by being a 1:1 version of the comics, any more than the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings films were by being a 1:1 adaptation of their books. I'd expect a critic to have a different opinion from the average filmgoer on average, because not only are they meant to have studied the art and craft of film, but even if they haven't, in theory, they should have still seen far more films than average Joe.

So, fine. Maybe I'm just part of the "global elite" or somesuch. Except if we're using Rotten Tomatoes as a metric of the critic/fan divide, let's look at the films currently out now. For said films, I'll list the critic score and audience score:

Venom: 30% vs. 89%

Wajib: 100% vs. 83%

Smallfoot: 73% vs. 68%

The House with a Clock in the Walls: 67% vs. 49%

Christopher Robin: 71% vs. 86%

Night School: 27% vs. 47%

A Simple Favour: 85% vs. 79%

Crazy Rich Asians: 92% vs. 80%

A Star is Born: 91% vs. 85%

Ghost Stories: 82% vs. 60%

Lean on Pete: 92% vs. 74%

Running the numbers from this sample size, on average, the difference between fans and critics comes to 18%.

Now, this is far too small a sample size to say anything definitive, but if the average difference is 16%, that...doesn't really suggest any kind of "out of touch" phenomena. That suggests a reasonable amount of deviation. Compare the average of 18% to the 59% difference of Venom, and it's clear that Venom is an outlier, not indicative of the actual, overall divide.

Now, that's not to say that I always agree with critics (or fans) - there's movies that have been lauded/panned for reasons I just don't understand why, and I'm pretty sure that's true for all of us, and not just in movies. But I find it eye-rolling every time the "critics are out of touch" argument comes up because usually, if one agrees with the critics, people are usually fine to say "X was critically acclaimed" not "the critics are out of touch, but they managed to get it right this time."

Anyway, thoughts?

 

[Trunkage]

It's the normal over exaggeration, which sometimes critics do themselves, which sometimes audiences do, and which sometimes the critics of the critics do. It's exactly how society has worked for years. Like, look at the over-exaggeration during the elections around the time of Andrew Jackson's presidents. Propoganda during the World Wars. Look at the civil rights era.

The way Freedom of Speech currently works is that there isn't any responilibity placed onto the speaker about whether what they say this true or false. It's placed onto the listener. Thus lies and exaggerations are standard. And when you, as a listener, have your time wasted by someone speaking falsely, your going to have a reaction. But, if you take your turn speaking, there isn't responibility to speak truthfully. Thus the feedback loop of Freedom of Speech promotes lies. (As does sales, but that's a whole different part.)

 

[EvilRoy]

When the two groups deviate that much in opinion I usually assume its a difference in what the groups were looking for, or thought they were going to get. Critics might see a movie like the lost skeleton of cadavera and mark it down for a silly plot and terrible acting, while the public might mark it up for the exact same reasons - the difference being that the critics thought they were showing up to give a potentially good movie a shake, while the public new that it was going to be crap and went anyway wanting exactly that.

You could call it critics being out of touch, but that statement would mean less "critics and the moviegoing public don't see eye to eye" and more "the critics went into this with one set of expectations, and the public with a vastly different set". It isn't necessarily a failure on the part of the critics - most of the time the critics get the same marketing blitz the public does, but they might not get the subtext we do so they don't always get the same prep. If you went into snakes on a plane thinking it was going to be an intense thriller you would probably be really disappointed. If you went in expecting a meme-y piece of shit with SJ shouting something ridiculous really intensely, you got what you wanted.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

The idea of being a critic of anything is so 1990s. No one fucking cares anymore. We don't have to read shit magazines anymore.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

I think the specific bias of critics valuing "novelty" more than the general audience holds up pretty well. When it's your job to watch approximately all of the movies, you are naturally going to get sick of the more common styles of movies even if they are good, and something new or different will stand out a lot more and be refreshing. In contrast, since the general audience doesn't see as many movies as a critic, they may not care if there are a thousand other movies like the one they are watching if it is good. What a critic might see as novel and refreshing, the general audience frequently finds gimmicky or distracting. Similarly, critics are often more familiar with the industry and film making in general and may be impressed with shots or scenes they know take a great deal of skill and effort to make, but the audience doesn't really care if a shot is technically impressive if it isn't...conventionally impressive? I'm not sure what word I am looking for.

 

[Kyrian007]

The biggest difference between a critic and a fanboy... a critic is a much better judge of quality. That's why audience score doesn't matter in the slightest, I want to know what someone who knows quality thinks... not what some random idiot and his 57 sock puppets rated a movie 5 days before they even saw it because of their pathetic basement-dwelling brand loyalty.

That said, are there movies I will see even if the critics are brutal... sure. I was going to see Man of Steel on weekend one even though critics were bashing it. I wanted to see a good DC comic movie. BOY were the critics right about that PoS. Are there movies I will miss even if critics rave... yeah. Its because I know what I'm likely to enjoy when I go to a movie. But taking the word of the common and frequently agenda driven unwashed masses over the expert opinion of a properly educated critic... goodness no. Now if you'll excuse me, a fingerprint has frightfully smudged my monocle I must be off to polish it.

 

[Hawki]

The idea of being a critic of anything is so 1990s. No one fucking cares anymore. We don't have to read shit magazines anymore.

Except you now get it on sites, including YouTube.

The medium doesn't change the profession.

 

[bluegate]

Oi, Smallfoot was a fun children's movie, where do these man-children come off ranking it 68%?

 

[Casual Shinji]

The first thing that came to mind when I saw how much bank Venom made versus the critical lambasting it received, were those stories of movie studios complaining how Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic ruin their sales numbers. Except of course all the times when it totally fucking doesn't.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

I don't think critics watch movies all that differently than anyone else. Not the type of critic that actually writes for magazines and websites, anyway. It's not like most of them are film students that watch them from a scholar's perspective and have an in depth knowledge about the craft. Some of them, sure, but most of them are just people expressing an opinion and it's arguably part of their job to keep that opinion and the reasoning behind it relatable to the average reader of their respective publication. If that's your job you can't go on about how a movie uses a camera technique pioneered by Federico Fellini in the early 60s in a way that's evocative of Ingmar Bergmans' later work. The reader wouldn't give a shit because what matters to him is the experience of watching a movie, not of making it. What the reader wants to know is: What is the movie about, am I gonna enjoy it or not and why would or would I not enjoy it.

Sure, a critics perspective is gonna be slightly skewered because of the sheer quantity of movies they watch. A movie might have a twist that a critic has seen a thousand times but that might genuinely catch a less frequent watcher of movies by surprise. It's something that I often notice when gaming critics complain about certain mechanics they consider overused in games.

Nevertheless, a critics experience of watching a movie is rarely radically different from an average persons. I still prefer reviews by professionals with actual names and faces and a certain amount of accountability, at least when it comes to big movies because the discourse around popular culture has been partly hijacked by shady organizations with less than wholesome goals to whom the actual quality of a movie matters very little. There's this study about the backlash to Star Wars Last Jedi going around that, unsurprisingly, found out that more than half of it was a vehicle for mostly reactionary agitprop. I don't believe in the integrity of faceless masses.

 

[BrawlMan]

The first thing that came to mind when I saw how much bank Venom made versus the critical lambasting it received, were those stories of movie studios complaining how Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic ruin their sales numbers. Except of course all the times when it totally fucking doesn't.

Kinda similar to how developers/publishers will blame other games or series for their own failures.

The situation with Venom is nothing more than critical dissonance. It's amazing when critics, casual moviegoers, and fans can all agree on nearly the exact same thing. I have a known dislike with most movie critics, so I don't even bother with them. Though I hate overly defensive, entitled, dipshit, know-it-all fanboys/girl just as strongly. Sometimes even more than professional critics, yet some aren't immune from these negative traits either and shows up in their reviews.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I prefer reading an educated opinion regardless of whether the conclusion is agreeable. There's always something to learn from another eloquent perspective. It's inevitable there will be some divide between those who view entertainment for a time passer and those who have a deep passion for the artistic depths that can be explored within the medium while viewing almost every popular film through contractual obligations nonetheless. Even those who start off casually reviewing for the "every-human" perspective will naturally hit a point where their exposure highlights patterns that would grow far more tiresome compared to the every-human viewer.

Will still see venom, they can't take that away from us, Jackie!

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

The idea of being a critic of anything is so 1990s. No one fucking cares anymore. We don't have to read shit magazines anymore.

Except you now get it on sites, including YouTube.

The medium doesn't change the profession.

Sure, but no one reads online reviews either. At best someone looks at the final score, the X/10 or whatever. But no one seriously says 'I want to try the new Assassin's Creed game, but I'll wait for Bill Billinson to tell me what he thinks first'

 

[CaitSeith]

The idea of being a critic of anything is so 1990s. No one fucking cares anymore. We don't have to read shit magazines anymore.

Except you now get it on sites, including YouTube.

The medium doesn't change the profession.

Sure, but no one reads online reviews either. At best someone looks at the final score, the X/10 or whatever. But no one seriously says 'I want to try the new Assassin's Creed game, but I'll wait for Bill Billinson to tell me what he thinks first'

The Youtube views count say otherwise. Seriously, lots of people go to Youtube for criticism over movies and games.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Critiques use to write opinion pieces about art not 'score it'. The latter is for sure easier but critics should refrain from giving this sort of measurement to compare ie. 2 different movies.

When they don't, they end up in situation, where they ie. get so caught up in lowering the score of the movie, because of that pet peeve they have with it to a point were it's completely irrational in comparison to general public perception of that piece of art. So often happens majority doesn't care much if at all for that particular pet peeve. Add to that ounce of snobbery, cliquishness and disdain for ill-educated folk and their tastes and you have a recipe for adversity - an echo-chamber with similar set of likes and dislikes that resonates well within critic circles. Not so much with general public though.

Had these pieces been in depth, well versed, personal opinions of individuals deeply enjoying the medium without a number slapped on, general perception would be different. Add to this grading or rather degrading or inflating score system and people perceive it as venomous diatribe of a hater or fraudulent ramblings of a sycophant.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Just saw this today, I think it makes loads of sense.

Spoiler: The Reason Audiences and Critics Disagree on Venom!

TL;DW, essentially, his theory is that you can have such dissonance between critic and audience reception because professional critics are many times obligated to watch movies they?re not interested or know little to nothing about; their critique is based purely off of the ?mechanics? and not so much the representation/execution of the subject matter. Audiences conversely consist of people who are already interested in a given film and therefor, predisposed to enjoy (or at least be far less critical of) it. As a Venom nutcase, the film gave me more than exactly what I wanted; my fan glasses are too fogged with love steam for me to see any cinematic missteps (of which I?m told there are many? Huh, didn?t see ?em through all the fucking awesome,) so my vote is biased beyond belief. But give a professional critic with no deference for hero movies (let alone intimate knowledge of a specific character like Venom) a simple ?recommend? yes/no? format, and it?s easy to land on 32% (he details this break down better in the video.)

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

The idea of being a critic of anything is so 1990s. No one fucking cares anymore. We don't have to read shit magazines anymore.

Except you now get it on sites, including YouTube.

The medium doesn't change the profession.

Sure, but no one reads online reviews either. At best someone looks at the final score, the X/10 or whatever. But no one seriously says 'I want to try the new Assassin's Creed game, but I'll wait for Bill Billinson to tell me what he thinks first'

The Youtube views count say otherwise. Seriously, lots of people go to Youtube for criticism over movies and games.

Oh I'm not saying people don't watch Youtubers, but that's for their personality and humor, not for the actual review. 'Tubers don't effect purchasing decisions. No one is waiting for MovieBob's review of Venom before deciding if they're going to see it. Likewise I'm currently enjoying the new Ass Creed game, but I know the ZP of it is going to be merciless, but i'll still watch it because of the humor.

 

[CaitSeith]

The idea of being a critic of anything is so 1990s. No one fucking cares anymore. We don't have to read shit magazines anymore.

Except you now get it on sites, including YouTube.

The medium doesn't change the profession.

Sure, but no one reads online reviews either. At best someone looks at the final score, the X/10 or whatever. But no one seriously says 'I want to try the new Assassin's Creed game, but I'll wait for Bill Billinson to tell me what he thinks first'

The Youtube views count say otherwise. Seriously, lots of people go to Youtube for criticism over movies and games.

Oh I'm not saying people don't watch Youtubers, but that's for their personality and humor, not for the actual review. 'Tubers don't effect purchasing decisions. No one is waiting for MovieBob's review of Venom before deciding if they're going to see it. Likewise I'm currently enjoying the new Ass Creed game, but I know the ZP of it is going to be merciless, but i'll still watch it because of the humor.

"Thanks. I was going to go see that movie, but after watching your video, I decided not to." - every 10th comment in every CinemaSins video.

 

[CaitSeith]

Anyway, thoughts?

My only question is: how is the audience score representative of the real-world audience? What does a normal person do after watching a movie that they found out being "meh!"? They move on and forget about it. Who votes in the Rotten Tomatoes audience score? In the best case, people who can't stop thinking about the movie. How can people outside the norm be representative of the general audience? The way they handle the same movie is very different.

 

[CaitSeith]

But give a professional critic with no deference for hero movies

OBJECTION!

This ignores the professional critics who are also comic book geeks, know comics and super hero very intimately, and still disagree with the "audience score". You'd have to assume that most professional critics have no deference for super hero movies for the rest of the argument to make sense; and the amount of recent super hero movies with positive criticism debunks that assumption.