If a critic doesn't like anything, is their opinion worthless?

[dsrtao]

Suppose there was a critic of some media form of which you were a knowledgable fan.

Is the critic's opinion worth anything to you if she admits to having no knowledge of many of the classics?

Is the critic's opinion worth anything to you if he doesn't like most of the classics, but praises works that you don't think are of the highest caliber?

(Not consistently, mind you -- there have been film reviewers and critics whose opinions I looked to for reverse recommendations -- when they hated a movie, I would usually like it, and sometimes vice versa. That can be useful.)

Comments

[much-ado.livejournal.com]

indoctrination in the classics is, i think, vastly over-rated.

i did my undergraduate degree in English Lit, which is all about studying "the classics". they done nothing in the intervening years for my understanding of critical theory other than give me a broad base of material from which to form comparative critical analysis, but that's only one form of critical theory.

personally, i'm far more likely to appreciate critical commentary from people who are articulate about why they liked what they liked and disliked what they disliked. comparative critique is really only valuable to the other classical wanks who have read the same classical texts (or seem the same classic movies, etc.). and i've read too many reviews where the critic got his or her nose out of joint about a new production's "derivation from classical themes", as if the lack of originality is a detriment.

seriously, if the audience going to see "Fast & Furious IV" hasn't seen the first three, they're not going to care much what the critics thought about the first three (okay, that was maybe a bad example, as a lot of people will go see #4 because they know it's the regrouping of original cast & crew in the studio's apology for sequels 2 & 3, but i digress ;-) or how F&F is derivative of classic Steve McQueen somethingerotherthisthatandtheotherthing.

nor do i expect critics to personally have anything less than my own eclectic tastes, which means i allow they're going to praise things i hated, and i'll love things they panned. i don't read any one critic consistently enough these days to worry about consistency i their own tastes, but mostly just to get a sense of what the Thing i'm interested in is about from the perspective of someone who's already read/seen the Thing in question.

[dsrtao]

I think that the classics of a field need, basically, two qualifications: they should be nearly universally pointed to as examples of doing something well, and they should be old enough that people have had a chance to discuss them and evaluate them and appreciate them in context.

I don't think a critic is going to spend much time on F&F4 until 20 years or more from now, when someone is going to ask "how did we get here?" and eventually point to it as yet another signpost that Hollywood was going to be utterly transformed, why didn't anyone notice at the time? Right now, it's a method of selling popcorn. The key characteristics of whether or not you're going to like it are in the title.

Consider the (fictional) case of a book critic assessing a secondary-world fantasy with a hard-boiled private eye protagonist and elves. What can he say about it if he's never read Hammett or Chandler or MacDonald? Or if he knows those but not Tolkien, Zelazny or Brust?

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I can learn from anyone, anywhere. But how much?

I don't like the "thumb up/thumb down" kind of critic. I like the sort of critic that can provide insight, and information.

So, a critic that knows less than I think they should, can still resonate insight, but is a lot less useful to me.

Critically speaking

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

A critic should defend their points with some concrete reasoning. A critic can be negative and hard to please, but still provide accurate insights into the work. If they can't do it in a broader context, they should for a contemporary set of works for the genre.

All in all, you should be able to say, this critic is primarily good at identifying x and y in the work, and take that insight for what it is worth to you.

Fandom muddies the water a bit. Often a fan is looking for something specific to his fandom. I would take out kids gloves when considering any fan review.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

re the title:
From a signal/noise perspective, yes. If they hate everything equally, they are emitting no signal.

If they have unrealistic standards, but grade things differently from "shlock" to "pitiful", then they're being rude but are emitting signal...


re the body:
Opinions are pretty much always worth something; but context is important. A critic who rates a work in the context of classics presents one point of view, and is implying they have a sophisticated history of experience to compare against. However, such critics can easily become jaded, or insensitive to merits in new content (and, paradoxically, blind to this shortcoming).

The reviews I find completely useless are those from someone whose tastes are orthogonal to mine and who post a review like "I loved it!!!!1!" with no details. Again, zero signal.

If you're between that situation and "has the same tastes as I have, and reviews exactly the way I would have", there's a sliding scale depending on what angle and overlap of opinions there are.