Editor's note: This author has a fascinating thought process while critiquing critique-able media. He knows Avatar (the movie) and Dante's Inferno (the game) have problems -- but does that ultimately matter? The answer to that may seem obvious, but trust me -- it's worth reading Brendon's story to see his point of view on how we all "review" movies, games...just about everything. -Shoe
It’s become a running gag.
After a solid five minutes on the phone extolling the virtues of Avatar to my indulgent friend, I can hear her knowing smile: “So, is it The Best Film Ever?”
I pause. I want to say yes, because to me, in the hour since I returned from Pandora, Avatar has set up camp in my heart. I am invaded, overcome. I close my eyes and see the welcoming arms of a thousand blue cat people calling me home.
I compromise: “Yeah. For now.”
We both laugh. We’ve been friends for 10 years. She knows me well enough to know that, in the moment, I am completely honest; through her, I know myself well enough to know that I’ve been here before. I get caught up. My fancy is a tramp.
It is something my friends have come to appreciate over time. When something grabs me, not even years of carefully cultivated discernment can shake it. Avatar is the second 3D film I have ever seen, but it feels like the first. This isn’t watching -- this is being there. While the little critic in my head kept making cynical ticks on his clipboard, my inner enthusiast was hooting at the top of his lungs and banging on the walls of my brainroom.
I came out of the screening stunned. I wanted to line up again right away, but the queue was already snaking out the front doors and around the building. People in line tried to read our faces as we left, to get a glimpse of their immediate futures. I wanted to give them the thumbs up.
A couple walked briskly out the doors ahead of me. Their shared expression was cloudy. As they passed the people waiting the man said, “That was lame.”
I could have punched him in the face.
They trotted off into the parking lot, unaware that behind them, in line, a gaggle of nerds heard him -- their bright eyes dimmed a bit. They regarded each other with sudden doubt. As my father and I walked past, I was already babbling “Wow!” over and over, but I made a point of saying it louder. I didn’t look back to see if it had worked. The momentary shock passed, and I was back in my flabbergast -- but since, I’ve thought about those guys and wondered if the seed of lame strangled the roots of wow before they could take hold.
***
Three things the Internet taught me:
1. Cats are hilariously illiterate but surprisingly technical.
2. Some things you can’t unsee.
3. The quality of your opinion is directly proportional to your ability to hate.
Dante’s Inferno is awesome. Technically polished and thematically focused, it is a thoughtful and satisfyingly violent jaunt through nine circles of Hell. It survives its obnoxious advertising campaign to be a worthy hack-and-slash that stands up to multiple runs. After my first playthrough I started a second almost immediately. This isn’t like me. I generally need another game between return trips to cleanse the palette. But Dante’s Inferno gets me for some reason. Perhaps because it is a bracing tour through a place I’ve been told I’m going.
There are few pools of sympathy for my feelings on it.
It is derivative. It rapes a literary classic. It has too many tits to take seriously. It smacks of cynical bandwagoning, except it’s three years too late and one month too soon. It’s lame, and more importantly, anyone who likes it is retarded.
Of all the haters I’ve met with my enthusiasm for it, one did not instantly write me off as a mouth-breathing proto-man. I asked him why he thought it was "rape." He said the developers took an easy way out of a complicated piece. We discussed the nature of translation and adaptation. Several posts later, neither of us had changed our position, but we understood where the other was coming from -- and we knew better why we thought what we did. It was all going well until he signed off by saying, “I’m surprised you’re interested in it -- you seem like a smart guy.”
I don’t know if I am a smart guy. I may be clever with a chance of charming, but "good enough" only counts for government work. I don’t think my appreciation of a game makes a definitive statement about my character. It says a lot about what I like and where I come from, how I view things and what I expect, but it doesn’t sum me up. I am large; I contain multitudes.
Some excuse the behavior of people on the Internet as the result of a perfect storm -- anonymity allows personalities to go off unrestrained, without the social checks of real life, like seeing someone’s face when you call them retarded. It doesn’t always mean your opinion will change, but it’s likely that what you express online would be measured out more evenly in person.
Everyone has, at some point, liked something that other people didn’t. All of us have multitudes and none absolutes. This is awesome. Argument is good for the soul and the culture. The trouble with geekdom is that enthusiasm equates to stupidity, and criticism is a sign of refinement. The more flaws you can see, the better your vision. Visit any video game forum and every expression of love for a game is met with several assertions of hate; also, you’re a faggot. Excitement is a dubious position. Distrust is solid, dependable and above all easy to defend.
Perfection doesn't exist. No one has made something that cannot be improved in some way. Dante’s Inferno could have been a different game -- it could have come up with its own control scheme or used its binary system to affect different outcomes or taken a more literal approach to its source material -- and it may have been better for it. But it is what it is, and I like it. Does this mean I have appalling low standards? Have I failed as a critical mind because I can accept its flaws?
It’s a chore to tell people why I like it. Liking something is subjective. Disliking something is somehow not -- because nothing is perfect. Recognizing and assaulting imperfection stands as a testament to a quality mind. To enjoy anything less than the platonic ideal is to debase the self with gross, unclean emotion. It feeds the beast and starves the intellect. The game space is filled with unenthusiasts, each proving their worth with the volume of their hate.
***
The third time I see Avatar, I go alone. It is a matinee, but the theatre is packed. Lots of old farts, who are generally good people to see movies with. They will sometimes yell when the hearing-endowed would whisper, but it’s not that bad.
It has been three weeks since my second screening. I’ve read the reports from better minds. Dances with Thundersmurfs. People have fallen into depression after watching it, because our world is nothing compared to the imagined paradise of Pandora. One man died from what appeared to be overexcitement. China renamed some mountains. It is a hair's breadth away from being the most financially successful film of all time, which is a testament to the stupidity of the masses. It has destroyed narrative. It is unoriginal garbage. Sure, it’s nice to look at but so are breast implants. It does not say. It does not mean. It is the empty caloric load of a bourgeois culture on the brink of total irrelevance.
With some dismay, I find myself restless at the midway point. It’s stupid when Sully calls the hammerhead rhino a bitch. Why didn’t they just unplug Jake when he got lost? “Unobtainium” is dumb, even if it is a real term. Why can’t aliens be alien and not, you know, First Peoples?
Sully is stalking his space dragon. Netyri urges him on. There is a struggle, but soon, Sully is soaring through the air. The sense of depth is breathtaking.
The old farts beside me gasp. The man has grabbed the woman’s hand, and they exchange a look of wonder.
As my inner critic underlines points he had written down before, my enthusiast looks over his shoulder at the clipboard. There is a lot of red ink. They look at each other knowingly. They have been here before. The enthusiast offers his hand, and the critic takes it.
The critic does not abandon his notes. They are valid...but do not mean more than the smile of his friend.
Very well-written article!
Passion has a way of bringing out the best and worst in people. I was one of five of my friends that didn't like Avatar. I didn't hate it, I just didn't like it. Yet I was ganged up on when I expressed my feelings for the movie. The words"You're fuckin stupid" were thrown my way several times at In and Out burger as the movie was discussed ad nauseum afterward. Never during that time did I throw the same words back and ask them why they loved the movie so much.
Everyone is entitled to their own voice; as to whether they choose to use it is another issue all together.
I've ascertained the same frame of mind you have -- it's OK to have an opinion, even if it's not "popular". For instance, I've been having an interesting time writing about Wii Fit Plus. On one hand, I realize that gaming culture at large has next to no interest in it and on the other I realize that it's a pretty paltry product in regards to helping people get active. However, I did glean some motivation and an admiration for what it was trying to accomplish, even if it doesn't quite hit the mark.
I doubt anyone will meander to my personal blog to read it, but that's getting back to your point: I like something most people don't. And I'm OK with that.
Wow, thanks for the necro-mote, Shoe. :-)
@Patrick - I think you're right about passion. From a personal standpoint my hate meter is really an indifference gauge, but I do love stuff strongly, fiercely and - I hope - knowingly. But that can get away from a person, too, and cause a different kind of blindness. In either case I think there's something about protecting the value of your opinion by shitting on dissent, which is, in a word, crap.
@Matthew - right on. I think the best remedy to pervasive snark is being honest to what you dig. The world should thrive on plurality.
I think a lot of the time maturity comes into play when dealing with this type of behavior. When I was younger I had no qualms about savaging someone who mentioned liking something I thought was inferior. It took a good friend explaining what an jerk I was being for me to realize that just because someone has a different opinion it doesn't necessarily make them wrong--especially when it's something subjective like movies, music , or video games.
Maturity also helps in dealing with the criticism, nothing irks someone who tells you your taste is stupid more than ignoring them or laughing it off. Geeks are a funny breed though. Even a couple of the commenters here had to toss in their opinion on Avatar regardless of whether it had anything to do with your central argument. Geeks are by and large a self-conscious breed, and for some of us that self-consciousness manifests itself in feeling our taste and intellect are superior to the point that it is demonstrably provable. Which, any way you cut it, is pretty silly.
Oh, and Mortal Kombat sucks. If you like it you are stupid.
I can't tell whether you are serious when you say this or not, but I disagree that distaste is the metric for a quality opinion. The critical thinking *behind* an opinon is. I can tell you precisely why I liked Avatar - because it pushed the technical boundaries of filmmaking. The story is completely irrelevant the first time you see Avatar digitally projected in 3D. Avatar is a statement about the potential of filmmaking. Just imagine, when those tools are cheap enough to be widely distributed, where filmmaking is going to go from here!
I can also tell you precisely why I don't like Avatar, because there's nothing else to it. No characters, no real story, no theme...the movie is technological masturbation. Once we get over the wonder of the 3D presentation, the film becomes more and more empty with repeated viewings. We become desensitized to the visual effects, and that's when the story and characters would become our handholds for continued interest, and they are totally absent from Avatar.
My negative comments about Avatar are not born of personal distaste. I can critique the film without hating it, just like I can appreciate the 3D technology without loving the film. I'm able to detach my emotions from the analysis, and that, to me, is criticism.
The hallmark of a quality opinion is the ability to validate itself outside of "If it's my opinion, it therefore has value." Not to someone else it doesn't - a valuable opinion, what we may call a "quality" opinion, is one which someone can back up with fact or logical argument. That is an opinion whose meaning we may convey to someone else, and thereby potentially have an impact on someone else's thought process about the same object. That's the goal of discourse, right? So, one could also say that the hallmark of a quality opinion is its ability to add to the discourse.
To wit: just saying "I loved Avatar!" is a low-quality opinion if someone can't tell me *why* they loved it. I can't react to that statement. It is a null result for discourse. Why do I care if someone loved Avatar if we can't talk about it; or rather, how is their making that purely-subjective statement going to entice me to see the movie and potentially share the experience with this person?
Likewise, as you say, the statement "Avatar is shit" is also a low-quality opinion, for the same reasons. I want to know *why* this person doesn't like it. Unfortunately, it's rather easy to qualify this statement for all the reasons given by so many critics, including myself, i.e. derivative story, empty thematic content, lack of characters, etc. That doesn't make said criticism of low quality, it just makes it rather obvious...but the obviousness of that criticism is, in and of itself, a statement about the low quality of Avatar when all is said and done. The critical mind doesn't have to look very hard to find the weaknesses.
@Gabriel - agreed on all points, except Mortal Kombat, which I've never played.
@Dennis - is it always possible to back up affection for something with logic? When you say there are no characters, theme or story - can you prove it?
The critical mind rarely has to look very hard to find weaknesses, in anything, and affection can be hard to justify - it is not necessarily logical. I observe a tendency in geek culture to prioritize disdain as objective authority, and use it as a way to discredit subjective appreciation.
Your negative comments about Avatar are born of personal distaste - you have an idea of what is an acceptable level of storytelling and characterization that Avatar fails to meet. That you don't hate it, that it doesn't inspire a great passion in you one way or the other, isn't proof of objectivity, but of maturity.
In defense of Dennis, expressing enthusiasm for something without providing any real objective reasoning is as useful to the debate as an online poll is. Which is to say, not at all. Your opinion has been noted, but you have not stimulated conversation in any meaningful way and in fact are practically begging for the reciprocal haters by couching the debate in yes/no absolutes. If you can say you like something "just because", then your opponent should be allowed to hate something "just because" too.
Which is fine, in both cases. But again, meaningless to any kind of discourse. I for one believe that you can "back up affection for something with logic", because you can back up everything with logic. That's kind of how logic works. If you can't find the words to articulate the reasons why you like something, it is not because those words do not exist. It's because you just do not have a grasp of them.
Using the case of Avatar - if I say I like it because of its heartfelt expression of anti-corporatism, its affectionate portrayal of an organic interconnectivity and its propulsive pacing - is that objective reasoning? What if I thought that the characters were poorly drawn, the narrative tired and the themes trite - but I found it to be a good time at the cinema because despite its flaws it was involving and pretty - is that logical?
I can find the words to give reason to why I like something, but that doesn’t make it objective or logical. The exact character of enjoyment is, on some level, intangible. ‘Like’ is an abstract. If you have a partner that you love, and someone asks you why, you can give a list of things they do for you, ways they are with you - will that answer the question? I don’t believe so.
As I said in the essay, liking something is, in my opinion, inherently subjective; it can exist outside an ‘objective’ assessment of quality. Recognizing flaws, which exist in everything, gives the convincing illusion of objectivity, but it’s still subjective - because the metric for what you consider a flaw is just that, a measurement, not an absolute, not a truth. It is easy to justify disdain because nothing is perfect; it is harder to justify love, because sometimes we’re okay with imperfection.
Specifically in game and film culture, I feel that people often use their perception of imperfection to discredit those who, whether or not they can see those flaws, respond to something in a positive way.
Yes, it is objective reasoning. It is also subjective reasoning as well. You could, for example, say that objectively the scenes are a certain length and subjectively that "feels" fast-paced to you and further that you subjectively like things that feel fast-paced. You mix fact (the length of the scenes, the content of the script, etc.) with your opinion of those objective facts to present your argument. Why do you keep trying to seperate objectivity and subjectivity? Is that not what the "haters" do? You seem to be irritated with people who hate things for no reason and then insist on the right to like things for no reason. I mean, you literally said you wanted to punch someone in the face for disliking something. What's the difference?
And how precisely is it illogical to dislike certain elements of a film but enjoy it overall? If such a stance is illogical, then my feelings towards my family would make a case-study in illogic. (Actually, my feelings towards my family would make a number of case-studies, but that's another topic.)