Hating on Haters: On Bad Critics

I recently stumbled upon something that disturbed me significantly. I was looking up discussions of "Watchmen" on google, becuase I find that this book can draw up some significant debate betwen me and friends that can lead to some profound discussions. I clicked on a webpage for someone (I will not call her a critic after reading this page) named Debbie Schlussel.

The article in question

I am for freedom of speech. If you have an opinion, I don't mind that you voice it. If I don't want to listen, I will go somewhere else, which is what I did after reading that article. However, after that, I realized really what is wrong with her article, and so I decided I wanted to make this post, not about her per se, but about people who call themselves critics.

I would like to ask a question to all the parents in the audience: If you ask your child to clean their room, and when you see it was not a good job, what do you do? If I were a parent in that situation, I would point out to my child that they can do a better job and I show them their weak points so that when they clean their room again, my child doesn't make the same mistakes again. This is an apt description of what a critic does. If I watch a movie, I discuss what went well, and what a director may need to do next time.

What disturbs me is that this post, like many others I see on the interwebs, is not a critical essay. The author does say she dislikes the sex and violence in a movie, but let's face it, that comes with the territory of watching an R rated film. Mrs. Schlussel instead spends a great deal of time criticising the people who watch the movie or read the book. I must preface that I myself love the book, and was lukewarm about the movie (Zack Snyder was not the best director, but it could have been so much worse). If you like something that she does not like, you are, well if you want her words read the article. I do not wish to have that kind of speech in my blog. She is not decrying the movie as much as she is decrying thoughts that are different from hers.

Penn Gillete once said that if you want to test if something is a "racist statement" put in the name of an ethnic group instead of whatever the speaker is discussing. If it sounds offensive, then it is likely, according to him, a "racist statement." I put this in quotes because there are some obvious exceptions ("Man, I just hate mushrooms, they are slimy and taste like dirt" is racist according to that rule). I ask the reader to do the same thing with her statements about Watchmen fans. What I mean is, insert the name of another book, or movie, or piece of art. If you are criticising the people who like that, you have ceased to be a credible critic.

Criticism is discussion of a piece of work on its own or in context, neither of which Mrs. Schlussel does. She decries the fact that parents are taking their children to see this movie, and that toys are sold of this film, but I would like to remind her that this is rated R by the MPAA, and the toys in question are not poseable, and instead are figures for toy collectors. In other words, in all 1,443 words of her article, she brings up no valid points about this R rated film for adults, and instead just bashes anyone who has a different opinion than her.

Lastly, to Debbie Schlussel, if you ever read this, I would like to say this to you: Yes, I did just deconstruct your article and single you out, but that is because you are a good example of a larger trend I am seeing in critics on the internet. I have no personal vendetta. You are entitled to have your own opinion, but if it is what your article says, then do not call yourself a critic. I sincerely hope that on your next film review, you discuss the actual film.

Evil: Monster or Mobster?

The concept of a scary villain is something I really take to heart. If a villian is either not believable, not bad enough, or just an idiot, it detracts from the hero. I recently saw the film "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker", and it got me thinking. How do you make a villian scary? Where is the line between an antagonist and someone the audience truly hates, an abomination on a colossal scale? I'm going to use exanples of the Joker for this article. Take a look at the following clips (don't watch if you're squeamish):
The Dark Knight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QehZjjwb7-I
Return of the Joker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKEfoC4tvJg
What is the difference between these two? The first clip portrays a man who is essentially a colorful bully. He kills the one mobster as a demonstration. For the most part, he is a complete sociopath, but he behaves in a manner like a bully. His whole plan is intimidation. Bascially, he is just like all the other mobsters in the room, except he takes more chances. I know that he at one point burns all of his money, but that is more because his goal is not to get the money. He wants to make Batman become a villain. His goal is to prove (as Batman himself points out) that everyone is bad. At first, this may seem really devious, but really it's the same maneuver as when a person caught for a speeding ticket claims that everyone was speeding (although that might be trivializing the crimes he commits a bit).
In the second, Mark Hamil's Joker is played quite differently. Instead of flat out intimidating the henchmen, he instead threatens one, lets him go, and then kills him when he relaxes. Not only that, unlike Heath Ledger's Joker, this one seems to actually enjoy it.
This is the kind of villain that disturbs me. He doesn't do bad things for power or to prove a point (as Ledger's Joker). Instead, we find a man who is a complete monster because he does these things for his own benefit (of course) but also plays it off as good fun. He's a lot more like Anton in No Country for Old Men in that he functions as a killer. He's not a bully, he's an absolute monster.
While the Dark Knight's Joker is evil, he doesn't scare me. If you watch him in the movie, he's an evil genius, but the way he manipulates people, it seems like he might easily be able to influence people. On the flipside, if you managed to figure out what he was planning, he tends to be easy to figure out (Once you find out he disguised his hostages as henchmen, his "hostages" are obviously the real henchmen).
The big difference in all of this is that if you are dealing with a real madman genius, he would likely go further than that, and in all probability do something unpredictable. That unpredictability is what can really be scary. It makes him all the more monstrous.
In short, a villian to me is scary when it isn't someone you can reason with. You can't predict it, and you can't stop it. All you can do is react to it. Essentially, this monster is a force of nature. There is no man behind his face, only the Joker.