I can understand why harping on about loathing a piece of media can be regressive, and even that in some scenarios it can align you with all sorts of people that you don’t want to be aligned with - the discourse surrounding The Last Jedi is a classic recent example.
But saying, publicly or otherwise, that you dislike a film or a book or what have you isn’t necessarily toxic. The expression of a negative opinion isn’t a moral failing. Criticism isn’t poor etiquette.
Artists have to be robust enough to be able to withstand criticism - that criticism only becomes unhealthy when it becomes obsessive, becomes harassment or abuse.
If you’ve decided for yourself that you’d prefer not to express a negative opinion about another artist’s work, that’s fine. If you’ve elected to police the comments of your own online space to align with that decision, that’s fine too. Expressing that decision as a moral imperative that you hold other people accountable for is less so.
It’s not ‘being a dick’ to blog or post why you don’t like a movie. ‘Being a dick’ would be posting and reposting that opinion increasingly vehemently, crapping on anyone who dissented, or arguing that anyone involved with making the movie needs to be censured or punished in some way. It’s not expressing the opinion, it’s the behaviour that sometimes follows that makes it toxic.
I think what I did constitutes obsessive and toxic behavior. I also think that public criticism adds almost nothing valuable to the world since most people with an opinion aren't qualified to share them. The world was a much better place to love art when our opinions were shared with groups of friends, at dinner parties, and over drinks. Shouting about them in public is, yes, a perfectly fair thing to do. Opinions are people's to share. But I have spent years doing this and reading this stuff, and I have never gleaned a moment of wisdom from public criticism shared outside the format of actual art criticism.
I'd rather waste my time publicly talking about things I love and admire. So, in theory, I agree with this post. However, i don't see the point of re-posting the take down. You didn't like it, you ranted, you learned the lesson. That feels like you're needlessly drawing attention to it. It's okay to call out the mistake and move on, in my opinion. But YMMV.
If someone asks me about something I hate and I feel compelled to answer, the most I'll say is "it's not for me." Because that's the truth! Plenty of people like stuff I don't like, and the last thing I'd want is for my opinion to disrupt their enjoyment of something. I believe firmly in the no guilty pleasure rule, too.
Because I think it’s been a decade since I did this, and publicly using myself to reflect on my mistake as a flaw in our society and then using my generally poor take to show how even a professional screenwriter is ill-suited to publicly shit on someone else’s work because they’ll get it wrong in their take, too, might prove educational for some. Our overconfidence in what a thing should be is itself part of the problem, whether we’re a fanboy posting on an angry FB group or professional storytellers. That’s why I deconstructed why my take was wildly imperfect and, in some ways, quite bad.
All that said, I won’t even say, “It’s not for me” publicly anymore. That’s not something I think others have to do. I’ve just reached a point where I can’t even be ambiguously negative in a public space about anything other than politics.
agree – if only because it tried to undo the whole hereditary-dynasties-of-chosen-ones idea by suggesting anyone could be a Jedi – much more democratic and, i think, much more in the spirit of *Star Wars*
Very very very early on in my career, when I was writing IMDb reviews galore (over a thousand of them before I stopped) and on message boards having hearty discussions about why this movie sucked, this movie was great, whatever, someone I met in the industry absentmindedly said, "I don't speak ill of film work I don't like because movies have a ton of producers and assistants, you never really know who you might be talking to actually is very proud of it and won't think kindly about you criticizing their work."
I pretty much stopped being publicly negative on films immediately.
To be fair, then I overcorrected and tried to find the positive in every film, which leads to a sort of poptimism that doesn't really help focus your tastes or refine the work either. In the media specifically, there's a dire lack of good criticism willing to call out bullshit.
But that's the job of a good critic. To be the outside voice saying, "No, this isn't right." I don't intend to be a critic. I am a filmmaker. For my own taste refinement and expansion, it suffices to rave about good work and ignore the bad stuff.
"Poptimism" made my morning. As for the rest of what you wrote, I have adopted the same approach. Sing about what you love and forget about the bad stuff because the bad stuff didn't make your life better and, most likely, you talking about it isn't going to make other people's lives better. In my case, I haven't been a critic in almost 20 years, but as a critic, I was encouraged to be negative and terrible. I hated it. I made the world a worse place.
I think where negative criticism is concerned, there's three different approaches to criticism that gives it nuance:
1) Punching up vs punching down. Large studio franchise films don't need the help selling their wares. Poptimism overweights their importance to the average viewer and makes it difficult for humble indies to compete. Where the studios collectively fail to meet their audience, this should be called out.
Usually this requires more discussing overall release schedules rather than individual movies, but where a movie really fails a critic shouldn't really be protecting it just because it's "a piece of popular culture" or "entertaining." (Oftentimes the issue is, in fact, it's not).
2) Genre. We need more critics that focus exclusively on comedies or superhero movies or even broader "franchise films" versus studio original releases or whatever. There are plenty that focus on indie films but still could use genre specific, audience specific approaches. And within that narrow band of genre they can then criticize when and where the work really fails to live up to the genre, often by refusing to embrace its highlights for fear of alienating audiences it doesn't need to reach.
3) Taste-philosopher critics. The old Sontags and such of the world. Those that make very clear, showing their hands, what they're into and what their bringing into the film re: their own POV or just personal juju, and then break it down from there. In that situation the goodness / badness / entertainment quality of the movie doesn't really matter, and a negative review can become just as much a selling point as a positive one (there was a little indie critic in New Mexico I knew well who had a certain way of complaining about some movies that made me absolutely sure it was a great movie, and my assumptions met 100% success rate). This is a form of art unto itself, there's just not a lot of space provided for it anymore.
Instead most modern film criticism really is just PR poorly done. And from a newspaper / news / trade perspective, that criticism still isn't great just because of the 'poorly done' part. There's not a lot of acknowledgement of "who this is for" and "what audiences should expect from this" so much as a tendency to try to make everything seem like it's great for everyone, and it's wrong to find anything wrong with the movie. And that's not helping anybody.
I don’t have an issue with actual criticism, which I still value — though I think the quality of it has crashed hard, as I’ve pointed out at my Substack before. But I do not care for a world where everyone thinks they’re a critic. Film criticism is something you have to seek out. Social media makes everyone’s opinion valid…and while they are, in theory, that freedom, that radiant hum of anger, hurts our culture.
Cole, I loved this. Thanks for sharing. It is profoundly meaningful to me. So much so that I was seized by a powerful desire to write a story with Lois as the center. She's never been treated as the central linchpin figure she truly is in the development of clark/superman's humanity. To me, she's the freaking key to everything he is and becomes.
I haven't read Superman comics a lot in the past 15 years or so, but I know they've tried to address this. I just can't say how. On the big screen, though, it's yet to happen. Maybe the new film will finally get it right.
Though I’ve failed many, many times, I try to remember the “test”: “is it true, is it kind, is it necessary?” Or as my late mother said, “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it!” There are a lot of things not to my taste, but I don’t want to spoil it for those who do enjoy them. 🙂
I think this is the correct approach for people not attempting to serve the role of art critic. There's a relationship we have with critics. We read them, decide to trust them, and return to them. At least that's how it used to work. An average person shouting from their social media soapbox is really no different to someone shouting at passersby on a street corner.
One of the only YouTube channels I ever followed is called Cinema Wins and the whole premise is "every movie is someone's favorite movie" and he does a really good job of highlighting the good in controversial movies (yes, there's a lot of star wars, marvel, and DC movies in there.) This article reminded me of that. A good reminder for all of us.
Like someone once said, "That's how we win. Not by destroying what we hate, but by saving what we love." If only I could remember what excellent movie Rose said that in. 😉
i did something similar, although not about a movie, but about the direction of an entire franchise ;•P
the idea came to me back in the 2000s, and it continued to bug me for years until i finally decided to get it off my chest in late 2020, and wrote a blog post called “Alien Empress”
in it i describe how the “Ellen Ripley” saga could be brought to a satisfactory close after *Alien Resurrection*, while also setting up a ‘new’ protagonist to lead the franchise into the future
quickly scanning through the rant now, parts do come across as a bit snooty – i must’ve been in a mood – thankfully, i think the number of people who read it could be counted on the fingers of one hand
that said, i still stand by the initial idea, believing it follows the natural progression established in the previous four movies
Cole, you did a magnificent job of reflecting on what we’re facing now. Thank you for reposting this article. I remember this movie all too well. You had the decency to confront those who disagreed with your opinion of the film…that was your opinion at the time. That’s what free speech is all about.
It’s certainly free speech, but I gained nothing from exercising it. I think I lessened myself. How we use free speech has to be as important — or almost as important — as our right to it, I think.
Writing about Star Wars, this is something I think about a lot. I have largely settled on the "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything" school of thought. When I first started my newsletter, I would fairly regularly dunk on Rise of Skywalker. I don't anymore. Partly because what's the point? I've said my piece, my view on it isn't likely to change. There's enough negatively in the Star Wars "fan" base and in the world at large. I'd rather focus on the parts of Star Wars that make me happy.
My only problem with your version of the story is that it should have a scene where Clark Kent gets beat up by a trucker in a diner and then Superman goes back at the end to beat up the trucker. THAT would be a good movie.
And here we are, recording a podcast about what made the Superman films good (or bad) stories. 😂🫣 But because I wholeheartedly agree with your point about where our disgusting egos can cause these critiques to become mistakes, our discussion clearly differentiated personal opinions from storytelling “law.” I love discussing films because I think it gives us an appreciation for and an opportunity to learn from the different perspectives of others that cause them to love or hate a story.
It’s not really how I would’ve done it as much as how I would’ve rewritten WB’s approach. But in the years building up to it, before we even knew it would exist, I think I probably brought up my general desire to see a Superman film in which he didn’t put on the suit until the 2nd act turn. A 2-hour film in which he doesn’t put on the suit until 1:35 into it. I think it’s the choice to become Superman rather than anonymously save people that makes his origin story interesting, though I think it’s a moment generally ignored in the comic books in favor of the suit. I want a Clark Kent film that only late in the game becomes a Superman film.
I can understand why harping on about loathing a piece of media can be regressive, and even that in some scenarios it can align you with all sorts of people that you don’t want to be aligned with - the discourse surrounding The Last Jedi is a classic recent example.
But saying, publicly or otherwise, that you dislike a film or a book or what have you isn’t necessarily toxic. The expression of a negative opinion isn’t a moral failing. Criticism isn’t poor etiquette.
Artists have to be robust enough to be able to withstand criticism - that criticism only becomes unhealthy when it becomes obsessive, becomes harassment or abuse.
If you’ve decided for yourself that you’d prefer not to express a negative opinion about another artist’s work, that’s fine. If you’ve elected to police the comments of your own online space to align with that decision, that’s fine too. Expressing that decision as a moral imperative that you hold other people accountable for is less so.
It’s not ‘being a dick’ to blog or post why you don’t like a movie. ‘Being a dick’ would be posting and reposting that opinion increasingly vehemently, crapping on anyone who dissented, or arguing that anyone involved with making the movie needs to be censured or punished in some way. It’s not expressing the opinion, it’s the behaviour that sometimes follows that makes it toxic.
I think what I did constitutes obsessive and toxic behavior. I also think that public criticism adds almost nothing valuable to the world since most people with an opinion aren't qualified to share them. The world was a much better place to love art when our opinions were shared with groups of friends, at dinner parties, and over drinks. Shouting about them in public is, yes, a perfectly fair thing to do. Opinions are people's to share. But I have spent years doing this and reading this stuff, and I have never gleaned a moment of wisdom from public criticism shared outside the format of actual art criticism.
I'd rather waste my time publicly talking about things I love and admire. So, in theory, I agree with this post. However, i don't see the point of re-posting the take down. You didn't like it, you ranted, you learned the lesson. That feels like you're needlessly drawing attention to it. It's okay to call out the mistake and move on, in my opinion. But YMMV.
If someone asks me about something I hate and I feel compelled to answer, the most I'll say is "it's not for me." Because that's the truth! Plenty of people like stuff I don't like, and the last thing I'd want is for my opinion to disrupt their enjoyment of something. I believe firmly in the no guilty pleasure rule, too.
Because I think it’s been a decade since I did this, and publicly using myself to reflect on my mistake as a flaw in our society and then using my generally poor take to show how even a professional screenwriter is ill-suited to publicly shit on someone else’s work because they’ll get it wrong in their take, too, might prove educational for some. Our overconfidence in what a thing should be is itself part of the problem, whether we’re a fanboy posting on an angry FB group or professional storytellers. That’s why I deconstructed why my take was wildly imperfect and, in some ways, quite bad.
All that said, I won’t even say, “It’s not for me” publicly anymore. That’s not something I think others have to do. I’ve just reached a point where I can’t even be ambiguously negative in a public space about anything other than politics.
Cool. We can agree to disagree! Have a good one.
Absolutely!
I think you're right about The Last Jedi!
I don't know what you're talking about. I edited that out. Heh.
I saw nothing :D
agree – if only because it tried to undo the whole hereditary-dynasties-of-chosen-ones idea by suggesting anyone could be a Jedi – much more democratic and, i think, much more in the spirit of *Star Wars*
Exactly!
Very very very early on in my career, when I was writing IMDb reviews galore (over a thousand of them before I stopped) and on message boards having hearty discussions about why this movie sucked, this movie was great, whatever, someone I met in the industry absentmindedly said, "I don't speak ill of film work I don't like because movies have a ton of producers and assistants, you never really know who you might be talking to actually is very proud of it and won't think kindly about you criticizing their work."
I pretty much stopped being publicly negative on films immediately.
To be fair, then I overcorrected and tried to find the positive in every film, which leads to a sort of poptimism that doesn't really help focus your tastes or refine the work either. In the media specifically, there's a dire lack of good criticism willing to call out bullshit.
But that's the job of a good critic. To be the outside voice saying, "No, this isn't right." I don't intend to be a critic. I am a filmmaker. For my own taste refinement and expansion, it suffices to rave about good work and ignore the bad stuff.
"Poptimism" made my morning. As for the rest of what you wrote, I have adopted the same approach. Sing about what you love and forget about the bad stuff because the bad stuff didn't make your life better and, most likely, you talking about it isn't going to make other people's lives better. In my case, I haven't been a critic in almost 20 years, but as a critic, I was encouraged to be negative and terrible. I hated it. I made the world a worse place.
I think where negative criticism is concerned, there's three different approaches to criticism that gives it nuance:
1) Punching up vs punching down. Large studio franchise films don't need the help selling their wares. Poptimism overweights their importance to the average viewer and makes it difficult for humble indies to compete. Where the studios collectively fail to meet their audience, this should be called out.
Usually this requires more discussing overall release schedules rather than individual movies, but where a movie really fails a critic shouldn't really be protecting it just because it's "a piece of popular culture" or "entertaining." (Oftentimes the issue is, in fact, it's not).
2) Genre. We need more critics that focus exclusively on comedies or superhero movies or even broader "franchise films" versus studio original releases or whatever. There are plenty that focus on indie films but still could use genre specific, audience specific approaches. And within that narrow band of genre they can then criticize when and where the work really fails to live up to the genre, often by refusing to embrace its highlights for fear of alienating audiences it doesn't need to reach.
3) Taste-philosopher critics. The old Sontags and such of the world. Those that make very clear, showing their hands, what they're into and what their bringing into the film re: their own POV or just personal juju, and then break it down from there. In that situation the goodness / badness / entertainment quality of the movie doesn't really matter, and a negative review can become just as much a selling point as a positive one (there was a little indie critic in New Mexico I knew well who had a certain way of complaining about some movies that made me absolutely sure it was a great movie, and my assumptions met 100% success rate). This is a form of art unto itself, there's just not a lot of space provided for it anymore.
Instead most modern film criticism really is just PR poorly done. And from a newspaper / news / trade perspective, that criticism still isn't great just because of the 'poorly done' part. There's not a lot of acknowledgement of "who this is for" and "what audiences should expect from this" so much as a tendency to try to make everything seem like it's great for everyone, and it's wrong to find anything wrong with the movie. And that's not helping anybody.
I don’t have an issue with actual criticism, which I still value — though I think the quality of it has crashed hard, as I’ve pointed out at my Substack before. But I do not care for a world where everyone thinks they’re a critic. Film criticism is something you have to seek out. Social media makes everyone’s opinion valid…and while they are, in theory, that freedom, that radiant hum of anger, hurts our culture.
Yes. Everyone criticizes, but there’s a dearth of real critics.
Cole, I loved this. Thanks for sharing. It is profoundly meaningful to me. So much so that I was seized by a powerful desire to write a story with Lois as the center. She's never been treated as the central linchpin figure she truly is in the development of clark/superman's humanity. To me, she's the freaking key to everything he is and becomes.
Thank you so much!
I haven't read Superman comics a lot in the past 15 years or so, but I know they've tried to address this. I just can't say how. On the big screen, though, it's yet to happen. Maybe the new film will finally get it right.
TLJ is one of the two best star wars, so
Though I’ve failed many, many times, I try to remember the “test”: “is it true, is it kind, is it necessary?” Or as my late mother said, “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it!” There are a lot of things not to my taste, but I don’t want to spoil it for those who do enjoy them. 🙂
I think this is the correct approach for people not attempting to serve the role of art critic. There's a relationship we have with critics. We read them, decide to trust them, and return to them. At least that's how it used to work. An average person shouting from their social media soapbox is really no different to someone shouting at passersby on a street corner.
Absolutely. And I do read art critics (grew up with Siskel and Ebert), but don’t always agree!
One of the only YouTube channels I ever followed is called Cinema Wins and the whole premise is "every movie is someone's favorite movie" and he does a really good job of highlighting the good in controversial movies (yes, there's a lot of star wars, marvel, and DC movies in there.) This article reminded me of that. A good reminder for all of us.
Like someone once said, "That's how we win. Not by destroying what we hate, but by saving what we love." If only I could remember what excellent movie Rose said that in. 😉
I have no idea what film you're referencing here. I don't think I've ever seen it, nor would I ever publicly disclose that I love it if I had. Heh.
i did something similar, although not about a movie, but about the direction of an entire franchise ;•P
the idea came to me back in the 2000s, and it continued to bug me for years until i finally decided to get it off my chest in late 2020, and wrote a blog post called “Alien Empress”
in it i describe how the “Ellen Ripley” saga could be brought to a satisfactory close after *Alien Resurrection*, while also setting up a ‘new’ protagonist to lead the franchise into the future
quickly scanning through the rant now, parts do come across as a bit snooty – i must’ve been in a mood – thankfully, i think the number of people who read it could be counted on the fingers of one hand
that said, i still stand by the initial idea, believing it follows the natural progression established in the previous four movies
By the way, Cole, I post it on LinkedIn!
Thank you!
Cole, you did a magnificent job of reflecting on what we’re facing now. Thank you for reposting this article. I remember this movie all too well. You had the decency to confront those who disagreed with your opinion of the film…that was your opinion at the time. That’s what free speech is all about.
It’s certainly free speech, but I gained nothing from exercising it. I think I lessened myself. How we use free speech has to be as important — or almost as important — as our right to it, I think.
Writing about Star Wars, this is something I think about a lot. I have largely settled on the "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything" school of thought. When I first started my newsletter, I would fairly regularly dunk on Rise of Skywalker. I don't anymore. Partly because what's the point? I've said my piece, my view on it isn't likely to change. There's enough negatively in the Star Wars "fan" base and in the world at large. I'd rather focus on the parts of Star Wars that make me happy.
My only problem with your version of the story is that it should have a scene where Clark Kent gets beat up by a trucker in a diner and then Superman goes back at the end to beat up the trucker. THAT would be a good movie.
https://open.substack.com/pub/brianhoward/p/superman-did-what?r=c50dd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
And here we are, recording a podcast about what made the Superman films good (or bad) stories. 😂🫣 But because I wholeheartedly agree with your point about where our disgusting egos can cause these critiques to become mistakes, our discussion clearly differentiated personal opinions from storytelling “law.” I love discussing films because I think it gives us an appreciation for and an opportunity to learn from the different perspectives of others that cause them to love or hate a story.
In all our talks about this amazing movie i've never heard how you would have done it I can't wait to read this.
It’s not really how I would’ve done it as much as how I would’ve rewritten WB’s approach. But in the years building up to it, before we even knew it would exist, I think I probably brought up my general desire to see a Superman film in which he didn’t put on the suit until the 2nd act turn. A 2-hour film in which he doesn’t put on the suit until 1:35 into it. I think it’s the choice to become Superman rather than anonymously save people that makes his origin story interesting, though I think it’s a moment generally ignored in the comic books in favor of the suit. I want a Clark Kent film that only late in the game becomes a Superman film.