Nathan relaunches “But I Digress…” (again) as a monthly livestream! For episode 50, he’s joined by fellow author/actor/content creator Ryan “The Omni Viewer” Collins to discuss whether or not critics can create good art. They know how the proverbial sausage is made, but can they actually cook, so to speak? Join Nathan and Ryan to see if they can answer that question.
After nearly a year of escalating
hype, Godzilla: King of the Monsters
dropped in theatres this weekend. It was one of my most anticipated films of
2019. As a fan of nearly two decades, the co-creator of Kaijuvision Radio, and a
raging nerd, I went into it excited
but cautious. I remembered another American-made Godzilla movie from 20
years ago or so that had just as much, if not more, hype, and it failed to
deliver.
I walked out of my local
IMAX theatre with a huge smile on my face. Most fans did.
Critics didn’t.
All this week the
Godzilla fan community (in America, anyway) has been in a tizzy. As the critics
score on Rotten Tomatoes dropped (it sits at 40% currently) and the
audience score remained high (it hovers around 90%), the fans got defensive.
They became the latest fandom to declare critics “hacks” who didn’t know what
they were talking about, who just didn’t understand the genre or Godzilla.
While many fans—including myself—said King
of the Monsters wasn’t what critics claimed it was, others stamped their
feet, crossed their arms, and said, “I like because it’s bad like all the other
Godzilla films!”
Even Godzilla is shocked by his some of his fans’ behavior.
To be honest, I’m not all
that surprised. These fans have spent years defending their enjoyment of giant
monsters—or perhaps even hid it—when many people relegated such fare to
schlock. That’d put a huge chip on anybody’s shoulders. While other “nerdy”
genres like superheroes have gone mainstream, the kaiju genre is still trying
to gain wide acceptance. I don’t know if it ever will. Regardless, I think much
of this pushback from Godzilla fans stems from their defensiveness. Like many
nerds, they’ve made their fandom a huge part of their lives, and when they think
it’s being attacked, they see it as an attack upon themselves.
This isn’t to say that
the fans don’t have valid points. Rotten Tomatoes has grown from a website that
helped moviegoers make an informed decision about what films to see to a cultural
force that studios think they must placate. “Tomatometer” scores can make or
break a film now. At least, that’s what many movie executives fear. An
aggregate of bad reviews could destroy the millions of dollars they invested in
a film. That’s why they brag whenever one of their movies has a high RT rating.
The problem is people aren’t engaging with the reviews; they’re just looking at
the score and not reading what was said. They don’t realize that RT’s
system a critic only has to answer a yes or no question—“Is it ‘fresh’?”—before
posting a review on the site. A
rating of three out of five will count as “fresh,” so even a “B-” or “C+”
review will count. In other words, the 90% fresh rating could all be average reviews.
As one fan pointed out, it has ruined film criticism by reducing it to mere
numbers. But these are numbers given tremendous weight and power by lazy often readers
who succumb to some form of groupthink, either in agreement or disagreement.
This, in turn, has led to some borderline conspiracy theories about studios
bribing critics for good or bad reviews as well as theories that studios are
censoring bad reviews from users. I’m not saying any of this is true, but it is
certainly possible.
The “fresh” and “rotten” logos for both critics (top) and audience (bottom) scores on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fans say critics are
prejudiced against the kaiju genre and don’t appreciate it. There’s some truth
to that as I’ve pointed out. Their scores and criticisms often seem
inconsistent, to say the least. Godzilla (2014)
was criticized for allegedly not having enough screen time for Godzilla or the
monster fights while focusing on human characters. Now the common complaint
from critics is there’s too much time given to the monsters (I disagree, but I
digress). Who wouldn’t pull their hair out? It doesn’t seem possible to please
them.
But do fans know what
makes a great kaiju film? I’ve often heard fans say that they want a film that’s
nothing but kaiju fights. This has led to an image of the fandom that is, well,
less than flattering (one Twitter user said it made the fandom look like “knuckle
draggers”). In some ways it seems hypocritical. They fight against non-fans
labeling the films “trash” while advocating for movies that are empty spectacle.
As one YouTuber put
it, fans like the “social commentaries of the Japanese films, but when it comes
to American films, they just want Godzilla to eat buildings and punch monsters.”
I’ll be the first person to argue that there is substance—often profound
substance—in these films. Even the so-called “silly ones.” That’s why it vexes
me to hear such talk from fans. It’s especially annoying because they’re
basically saying, “This movie is nonstop action with human characters I don’t
care about, so I love it for the reasons critics hate it! Boo-yah!” It’s kinda
childish, honestly.
Ultimately, whether the reviews
come from critics or fans, they are simply opinions, and as a crude old saying
reminds us, everyone has opinions. It’s just that, for whatever reason—be it
experience, education, position, or whatnot—we have elevated the opinions of
critics. They are the dwellers in the ivory towers who know what true art is
while fans are the unwashed, ignorant masses. (Insert “sarcasm
sign” here). While fans have wanted to drop Oxygen Destroyers in
critics’ laps this week, if their reviews had been positive, I have no doubt
they would’ve celebrated and shared them as validation of themselves and their
fandom. But do these critics invalidate the opinions of fans? No. They are
allowed to like things other people don’t. They enjoyed it based on their own criteria.
One man’s trash is another man’s masterpiece. Many people watch Godzilla vs. Gigan and see a silly low-budget
kaiju film. I
watch it and see a meta-commentary on pop culture and globalism. Opinions
often change with time. When Citizen Kane
was first released, it has rejected by critics as too unusual. Now it’s regaled
as the greatest film ever made. The
Empire Strikes Back, which is commonly considered the greatest Star Wars film, was dismissed by critics
upon release. I say all of this to remind people that while there are objective
criteria for what makes a good story, the evaluation of art is still largely
subjective.