Fans vs. Critics

From the moment that critic Robert Daniels’s one-star review of the movie Michael was shared on Twitter, he was harangued by a tidal wave of backlash from both intense fans of Michael Jackson and ordinary users who merely liked the film he panned. His critiques were broadly comparable to other critics: aimed at the conflict-of-interest oversight of the Jackson family on the movie’s production, the bland characterization of the singer’s life and family, and the hagiographic attitude sapping away any dimension from Jackson along with his flaws. “A filmed playlist in search of a story” he characterizes it sharply. Against the furor, he stood his ground and engaged with some comments, most of which were in bad faith. It was blatantly obvious that a lot of them hadn’t actually read the review, assuming Daniels took issue with the movie’s omission of Jackson’s later controversies, legal issues, and pedophilia allegations -things he barely alludes to.

Daniels was not alone in this -critics across the board were and are being lambasted for their opinions on this movie. But his is an especially curious case, because unlike some of these other critics, he is black -and so his take couldn’t so easily be chalked under the frequent dismissing sentiment of white people trying to put down an important black artist. In reality, Daniels is one of many black critics who disliked the movie, again for fairly consistently agreed upon reasons. Yet his share of the hate in responses compared to his white peers seems disproportionate. I wonder why…

In any case, it is a telling episode in this latest perceived war between critics and general audiences. Perceived, because it is almost entirely measured by a viral Rotten Tomatoes page, in which the critics score for Michael sits at 39% (which is actually up by about 10% from when the movie first released) to a 97% audience score. Rotten Tomatoes, which it must be underlined is a terrible site that reduces criticism to mere metrics, is an aggregate with no space for nuance. Reviews that either broadly or incidentally lean in a positive direction are counted under 'fresh', while those that veer by however much into the negative go towards 'rotten'. This gives an impression on the critical consensus of nearly every movie that is off from what they actually think. Meanwhile the audience score operates under the same parameters, but from a wider pool of inexpert, non-affiliated users -who can sign up for an account for free- and is a function of the site incredibly easy to manipulate. We've seen this a lot with far-right users down-voting movies en masse prior to release just because of the political position or gender of a star or director. On the flipside they will up-vote en masse movies that conform to their ideological framework. I'll bet there are currently more positive audience reviews of the Melania documentary than there were actual human beings who saw it. On that note, the site is also notorious for its infestation of bots.

Nonetheless, a social media sphere either accidentally or wilfully ignorant to all this, has latched onto such a stark visual symbol seemingly legitimizing their confirmation bias. So many average people apparently liked Michael, it must be good! And the critics largely disliked it -they must be out-of-touch! And this of course has fed into old talking points of critics and film criticism being useless or elitist (most critics in the modern age have never been further from the elites) with citations of other times critics have "gotten it wrong" and it has even sparked disingenuous racial or political connotations in the context of this movie specifically. Bad reviews have been tied into the white establishment trying to dunk on or tarnish the legacy of an important black artist, despite the fact most other biopics of this nature have received similar treatment. And both the intense involvement of the Jackson family estate and the rebuttals to the production from Janet and Paris Jackson have been consciously ignored. Seemingly all because the movie plays some popular songs with a convincing look and sound-alike. 

Setting aside this specific case, as well as some discomfort at how successfully Michael Jackson’s image has been posthumously rehabilitated with the public, the issue here stems from a much wider, very mainstreamed tension between fans of a thing and critics. A lot of it has always been fed by broad misconceptions around what critics are, who they are, and what their purpose is. It is unfortunate, the old Bosley Crowther image of the critic as art snob looking to find fault in any movie he sees has never gone away. And through the rise in the latter half of the twentieth century of prominent popular critics like Pauline Kael, Rex Reed, and even Siskel and Ebert -more countercultural and interesting though they may have actually been- they didn't exactly do much to shake the widespread notion of critics as university-educated white folks coming from a place of arrogance and privilege (it doesn't help that by nature the job requires a certain authoritative voice). It has permeated the culture ever since, and it does make a certain amount of sense that an average viewer might be disinclined to be "told what to like". 

But the rise of fan culture in the internet age has leapt on that, proliferating more harshly than ever this misguided conception of a critic's voice and role. With the collapse of the newspaper industry, today's movie critics could hardly be called privileged when they are by-and-large scraping by on the gig economy like so many other workers -many of them may be college-educated but that doesn't mean nearly as much as it did fifty years ago. The world of film criticism has also never been less white than it is today -a side-effect of a democratized internet- and while there may still be a gender gap, critical women's voices are strongly represented. But this is not what the average person sees film critics as -to them they are still in some ivory tower judging and tearing apart for no reason a thing an audience may have loved.

And maybe a part of that stems from the misconception that to criticize something is to hold it to an objective standard, and that in taking on that task a critic naturally assumes the role of a gatekeeper, setting themselves above other consumers of art. Certainly more could benefit from the media literacy in knowing that criticism does not and has never had an objective purpose. No movie is objectively good or bad. Each critic merely brings their own perspective and rather than detract from a work’s supposed merit or lack thereof, it simply adds a new layer of interpretation. And it is not meant to be an affront to a differing opinion, or even to change one’s opinion. I loved the movie Knives Out, and I loved the New York Times review of it by Monica Castillo (now of the AV Club) that was considerably more negative, focused on issues relating to the movie’s Latin representation. It was a piece that made me realize I identified automatically as a white man with the Benoit Blanc character and my take on the film was coloured by that point; while Castillo in identifying with the Latina maid Marta (Ana de Armas) saw shades of the movie in a different light, had a different lens through which to view its politics. I still thoroughly enjoy the movie, but a perspective like hers gave it more depth for me. That is the mark of good criticism.

But yes, often-times critics are in general consensus around movies, either in liking or disliking a film -though there are always outlying exceptions. And critics are usually not fans -or rather if they are fans of a particular series, franchise, brand, or figure (be it writer, director, or actor), they are expected to put that aside for the benefit of a neutral audience. Sometimes a critic can bring in perspective from being an especial fan of something -several (including myself) are guilty of that. But they are not required to judge against a fan rubric, and certainly should be above the tactics of fan service, at least when applied for simply its own sake. Whether that is the case obviously can differ -but it says a lot that so few critics were swayed by Michael’s use of recognizable outfits and popular songs. Taking into account Michael Jackson’s ubiquity it is ridiculous to assume that no critics with negative things to say about the movie are Michael Jackson fans outside of their professional writing.

In the internet age it increasingly seems like fans of a thing are easy to buy, at the very least easy to satisfy on a temporary, superficial level -which might be all they want. Iconography matters more than storytelling or craft because it is immediately tangible, it hits a certain kind of dopamine in a way that other aspects of a movie do not. And fans, but also even general audiences to an extent, are not necessarily beholden to take that as fault when they are looking for movies to be merely a comfort or affirmation. They also perhaps don't watch a lot of movies outside of their prescribed modes of interest, especially with so many competing mediums of entertainment today. Hell, some people spend as much time scrolling TikTok reels as they could watching a whole feature film.

What critics or viewers with a critical eye want out of a movie is generally something more substantive. They watch more movies on average and so the novelties of many of these superficialities have little effect. They can spot the formulas and clichés and the cynical ploys, yet this also means when they find something new and exciting in a film there is greater credibility to take them at their word. And in spite of the conspiracies, no critics are paid to give movies good reviews -if it were the case you would see far more wealthy critics and far fewer negative reactions to the movies put out by the biggest studios. Fans however sometimes are paid to give movies good press, as seen in all the influencers showing up at red carpets these days, invited by studios to drum up hype.

Of course there is another angle to all this that very much used to not be an issue -the political culture war one. Fan spaces and fandoms have gotten considerably more right-wing in the last decade, which in addition to a team sports mentality towards various brands and their perceived dogmas fostered by the internet, has created stark battle lines. Most critics are and have long been broadly left-leaning and so they become natural enemies for bad faith conservative actors. And these don't necessarily have to mean supporters of a particular political party or specific ideological stripe -just anyone who wishes not to see complexity in their favourite things, only respecting and absorbing the familiar rather than being open to the new. But certainly it does take the common forms of discourse -attributing divides of opinion to the prevalence or absence of arbitrary "woke" creative choices, "virtue signalling" nonsense, or "making things political" as if any work of art can be removed from the political context it came in. These voices are loud in fan spaces, and though they hardly represent a majority they have undoubtedly influenced the way a lot of fans relate to culture online, even those who would think of themselves as well-meaning. It's there in the defensive tactics they use, as though not just their preferred art but anything that they like is an extension of their personality, and that folks like critics intend an assault on them personally. So sometimes they lash out, using hyperbolic vernacular. Sometimes they'll call a black critic racist.

It ties back to that inherent toxicity of fan culture, which needs to be thoroughly excised from the act of being a fan on its own terms. Because fans are no more a monolith than critics, but any discourse around bashing critics trains them to be. It trains them to look at liking or disliking a piece of art as an act of duty or to view contradicting opinions in an explicitly bad faith light that must be rationalized as such. And a lot of fans don’t actually know what audiences, fans and non-fans alike, want. Critics however, historically at least, have a better barometer. The reason why those who dislike critics tend to bring some of the same cult classics up as signs of their irrelevance is because for the most part the critical consensus has matched that of general audiences over time. Most populist movie classics that people remember and rewatch decades later were critically acclaimed, they tended to be spot on on the movies that shaped the future of the medium, and almost all of those franchises and brands that fostered entrenched fan communities had mass critical approval in their corner at the start. Because those movies were good and attracted audiences for a reason that is often either not what the fans think it is or what they look for in movies today. Obviously it is hard to say in the present, but I’m fairly confident Michael is not going to stand the test of time; it is not a movie people are going to be talking about decades from now. In fairness, I’m not sure my favourite movie of the year right now -Mother Mary- will be either. But it’s interesting and distinct in a way I think gives it at least a shot, despite the audience not being there for it in the moment. ProjectHail Mary, which fans and critics are largely united on, very likely will.

And more likely than not, history will be kind to critical consensus, in spite of fan outrage. That doesn’t make moments like these any less irritating though, especially coming in a time of fierce anti-intellectualism seeping forth into the public from the highest echelons of power and critical voices being deliberately obfuscated and muted in this via callous and shortsighted economic decisions. The critical space is in danger more than it has ever been before, so while my arguments may be tinged by some personal bias there is a measure of real necessity to them as well. Fans need to understand the real purpose of critics and not get into a bind over particular consensus opinions. Any critic will tell you that they don’t mind people disagreeing with them, their goal is to encourage deeper engagement with art because understanding its form and meaning matters. Fan culture as it exists today is often antithetical to that, and as a result unfortunately hostile about it as well. And a war by fans on critics will produce no winner. It only trades in and incentivizes pointless division. Rotten Tomatoes itself may be the real culprit here (though that is an essay for another day), but these traits and mentalities need to stop. Enjoying movies is a wonderful thing, but critiquing movies is entirely valid. Let’s not diminish either by turning discourse into a grudge match.

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