![]() Then again, Dave Chappelle’s The Closer and Ricky Gervais’ recent Supernature Netflix standup specials - both of which tackle the same topic far more irreverently - currently sit at ten and twelve reviews, respectively. Some may argue that it’s the topic - the current culture war debate over gender, so-called “gender identity” and transgenderism - which is simply too hot to handle, especially given the decision to time the release in conjunction with Pride Month, which admittedly feels like a deliberate provocation (like releasing The Last Temptation of Christ on Christmas Day). Furthermore, it’s not as if more incendiary material hasn’t previously garnered their attention - even Dinesh D’Souza’s 2020 film Trump Card sits at three Rotten Tomatoes reviews. Whether triggered by the subject matter or Walsh himself, the widespread critical hissy-fit is clearly missing the forest for the trees, failing to acknowledge that a) nothing generates publicity and awareness like making something taboo (just ask a teenager), b) ignoring a movie never generates as much ignominy as hounding it en masse into the Rotten Tomatoes basement, and c) watching and reviewing movies you may hate is literally the job. That brings us to the current bugaboo of the zeitgeist, conservative pundit Matt Walsh’s What is a Woman?Īs of this writing, the film has one review on Rotten Tomatoes (barring a miracle, this will be the second) with it widely reported that critics are flat-out refusing to see the film at all. As I saw it - I did my job and the fans did theirs. Fans then brutalized me in return - filling the review comments sections with the kinds of vicious personal attacks that might have earned a visit from the FBI if I had cared to report them. Case in point: during one eventful summer in 2008, when I was still working as Senior Film Critic for Boxoffice Magazine, I brutalized three of the season’s most hotly anticipated tentpoles - Wanted, The Incredible Hulk and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. ![]() ![]() Goring the culture’s sacred cows, after all, is one of the occupation’s most time-honored sacraments. Wide-release films of all political, religious and social stripes have historically been subjected to the full critical gauntlet - a treatment which, it should be noted, many films would gladly forego if they could. It’s no secret that film criticism generally leans left - like the entertainment business it covers - but that hasn’t typically kept critics from reviewing movies with which they may disagree. When the societal polarization infecting nearly every other American institution finds its way down to film criticism - an occupation literally predicated on provoking and exploiting polarization - it’s hard not to find the whole thing weirdly comical.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |