Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
So, recently, I posted my thoughts on Terminator Genisys and, to be more precise, on the onslaught of bad press it’s getting. Undeserved and blind. I stand by everything I’ve written in this article, and having used pretty strong words the reaction was of course mixed. Hell, it even got called clickbait. But there’s one reaction that really made me think. Someone angry because I dared to say that, objectively, Terminator Genisys is a good movie.
Mind, the anger wasn’t because I said that TG is good, but because I used the term ‘objectively’. And I realized this isn’t the first time I had someone mock me or get angry because I dared propose that professional critics should strive to be objective, more often than not while being involved with #GamerGate. So, I have to ask, why do a lot of people hate the very idea of objectivity?
Is it really so alien? Is it really too much to ask that you separate your personal feelings and relationships regarding someone’s work to give your readers/viewers the most complete and honest report on it, to help them decide how to properly spend their money?
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Apparently, it is for some people. The two school of criticism against this sin I encountered are as follows:
1) Objectivity is impossible because there are no meters to use
This is getting old and tired. I’m sorry guys, but there are meters to use. In every medium, particulary in cinema. For example, returning to Terminator Genisys, it’s clear as the sun that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Emilia Clarke give a better performance than Jason Clarke and Jai Courtney. The first two’s characters are just more interesting and give off more emotion and energy. If anyone tells me that there are no bad performances in cinema, I’ll direct you to The Room. Thank you very much.
Then, there’s special effects. Again, this is a place where objectively you can say if a movie does it well or not. There are movies like Avatar, Jurassic Park and Pacific Rim who have great special effects which won’t age anytime soon. And then we got movies like Food Fight and The Phantom Menace. Again, objectivity is possible because we get examples of both good and bad results to compare.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Or even more, there’s directing. We live in an age where people seem to forget that cinema is a visual medium. Its greatest strength is being able to tell something without using dialogue, but then we get flicks like Man of Steel where people just can’t stop talking about how important this psychopathic incarnation of Superman is. And then we get Mad Max: Fury Road, where just opening a valve for water tells us everything we need to know about its world. Or again, Terminator Genysis, where twenty seconds with no dialogue tell us everything we need to know about how the Guardian’s relationship with Sarah Connor has evolved in the 30 plus years he’s been alone.
So, I’m sorry critics, but there are some meters you can use. And even if there weren’t any, that’s no excuse to say…
Continues on the next page…
The post Why do people hate Objectivity? appeared first on Meinos Kaen.
