Everyone's a critic
2019
I recently thought about a specific scene in The Incredibles, the 2004 computer-animated film about a family of superheroes. It was a staple of my childhood - one of the few films that my siblings and I unanimously enjoyed watching - and I can still recall certain passages of dialogue at a speed that’s pretty close to embarrassing. An interaction takes place between matriarch Helen Parr and her son Dash; they’re not supposed to reveal the fact that they have superpowers, but he has used his to play - and avoid punishment for - a prank on a teacher at school. His mother chastises him on the car journey home. “Dad always said our powers made us special.” he bemoans to her. “Everyone’s special, Dash.” she replies. “Which is another way of saying no one is.” he scowls. I wondered if this notion applies to criticism, specifically in regards to the familiar lament; if “everyone’s a critic”, is anyone? What defines a critic? What makes a critic worthy of attention, makes their opinion valuable, or offers them any authority?
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I think that the barriers to being a critic are perhaps being broken down, both from within and outside of the established discipline itself. In the first instance, it seems that newspapers and traditional media outlets are continually cutting both the word counts assigned to critics, and the sections in which their reviews feature. In the second instance, individual people are gaining continually easy access to platforms from which they can project their own criticism, through avenues such as social media profiles or independently hosted blogs. I think that both of these factors - and the various ways in which they each manifest - are together serving to destabilise what we perhaps might perceive a “critic” to be. I wonder if the notion of a “qualified” critic is perhaps slipping away? I personally don’t mind if I’m reading criticism from someone who has been writing for an established outlet for two decades, or from a teenager self-publishing through the medium of instagram captions; I am interested in what they have to say, what they feel, and how they arrived there. This is a feeling that seems to be shared by people within my own echo chamber; there’s a desire to actively reject the notion of “gatekeeping” in any aspect of the arts, criticism included.
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I had assumed that self-published criticism was a more modern development, concurrent with the changing relationship between modern society and social media or online access. A recent WordPress site that I stumbled across told a different story. In June 1979, composer Beth Anderson attended the ‘New Music, New York’ festival, which provided a “comprehensive review of current developments in new music.” (Report From the Font, 2019). Her work wasn’t programmed, so she decided to review the festival. Over the nine day run, every evening she typed up her thoughts on various panels and concerts, interviews that she had conducted, and submissions that she had solicited, “honestly and provocatively laying out her critiques of both downtown luminaries and fellow unknowns.”. She then Xeroxed them, and handed them out the following day “eliciting ire from organisers and fascination from audiences”. Anderson called the reviews “Report From the Front” and the approach “guerrilla criticism”; speaking in an interview earlier this year, she explained “John Cage said, ‘Anybody who says they’re a composer is a composer.’ So I said, ‘I’m a critic,’ so I’m a critic.”. Anderson’s approach really interests me - I think that hers is a notable manifestation of capitalising on any resources or platform that one has - but it is her attitude - the notion that, by simply saying “I’m a critic”, one can make themselves a critic - that most captivates me.
Report From the Front. (2019). About. [online] Available at: https://reportfromthefront.wordpress.com/about/ [Accessed 14 Jun. 2019].