Today’s entry is going to be a little shorter then some of the other entries I have worked on and that is largely due to the fact that I am traveling back home for Christmas today. This is a topic I hope to address in greater detail later, but I hope you all will enjoy my thoughts on something that has been on my mind as of late.
Introduction: A Difference of Opinions
You are being sold a pack of lies! It was pretentious and in no way an accurate portrayal of actual historical events. They played it safe and it was bland with awful direction and choreography. One note and overly simplistic. All these statements are ones movie critics had about one of the most successful films to come out at the end of last year. That film in question is the feel good family musical, The Greatest Showman. Loosely based on the life of P.T. Barnum, the founder of what would eventually become Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus. This was the little film that could. After mixed at best critical reception with a good handful of them absolutely condemning the film, the film had a rather forgettable performance at its opening weekend at the Box Office. At that point, the highly negative critics likely figured the film would go away within a few weeks and if it was lucky, it might make its production budget back. After all, the film came out right about the same time as Star Wars Episode IX. It should have gotten swallowed. As it turns out, it did not go quietly into the night.
Audiences loved the movie and many went to go see it multiple times. By the time it finished its theatrical run, the film had grossed almost $175 Million in the US alone. How could the critics and the general public have such a difference in opinions? Could it be perhaps because critics and audiences have different values in what they uphold in films? As both a fan of movies, and someone who loves to watch films with a critical eye, I firmly believe that when critics and general audiences have such a big difference in how they view the quality of a film, it is due primarily to critics and the public having fundamentally different views of what makes a good movie.
Critics and Fans: A Case Study
In the case of a film like, The Greatest Showman, the majority of negative reviews I saw were levied at the fact that while the film was marketed as based on the story of P.T. Barnum, the film really did not do much to explore the life and real history of P.T. Barnum. They were mostly disappointed because they felt the movie did not have anything to say about the type of man P.T. really was. Many also felt the songs were too generic and merely pop corn fluff songs that did not add or comment on the events of the film. What struck me as a fan of the Musical genre of film was how much the critics were focusing on the technical and historical aspects of the film, and how little they talked about how the film dealt with emotions and the overall narrative of the film. A lot of these critics seemed so fixated on the overall construction of the film that they lost sight of the movie’s overall purpose, to make people feel good and to give the audience a fun time. Audiences did not come into the movie expecting a hard hitting factual biopic about the life and times of P.T. Barnum. They just wanted to see the character that Hugh Jackman was playing go on an understandable and relatable character journey where he learns what really matters in life set to fun an catchy music that captures the essence of a crazy circus. For most audiences, that was exactly what they got and many could not wait to see the film a second or third time just to feel that good again.
This same phenomena is not merely limited to films that critics hate and fans love. The opposite can be true as in the case with the Star Wars The Last Jedi. Critics on the whole praised the film for its technical prowess, its satisfying action, its willingness to change up the Star Wars formula, and its overall epic feel and scope. Many fans on the other hand absolutely hated the film, feeling it was a disgrace to the legacy of Star Wars and that director, Rian Johnson, did not even consider the existing lore as he wrote his film. Fans were also so upset at the way the character of Luke Skywalker in particular was used, calling him wasted and asserting that Johnson had assassinated Luke’s character after what had done and gone through during the original trilogy. To a lot of the fans, The Last Jedi, just did not feel like a good Star Wars movie. Their expectations and hopes were not just not met, it felt like they were intentionally slapped in the face by the movie.
A Country Club of Critics
Now that we have established that there are distinct times when the critics and the audiences completely disagree with each other’s assessment of certain films, the question I would like to address is why. At the end of the day these are all just opinions, so why would critics and general audiences have such widely polarizing views on certain films. I would argue, it is likely because while critics have the tendency to look at films more as art and general audiences tend to look at films as entertainment. More often than not, a movie critic’s job is to analyze a film’s value based on whether or not the movie sets up a premise and characters, establishes why the characters react the way they do, and whether or not the execute well on the narrative they establish. This is how they make a living so it makes sense that they would want to hone their craft, creating an almost scientific approach to grading films as good or bad.
This certainly is not a bad thing as by establishing a set of guidelines as to what works and what does not work in a film is a good way to help filmmakers and general audiences alike know if people connected to the heart and message of each respective movie. The problem comes when critics take so much ownership over the craft of reviewing films that they forget that at their hearts, films should be entertainment first and foremost. I am not saying critics do this all the time, but there definitely do come times when critics view technical flaws and inconsistencies as condemnations with more weight than the simple questions of does the film execute on the premise it sets up and is the movie entertaining. When you take a film like The Greatest Showman and evaluate it on the grounds that it is trying to tell the story of P.T. Barnum, then of course it fails at being a realistic and accurate portrayal as to the man’s life. However when you view it from the perspective of, this film sets itself up to be a feel good family friendly musical with catchy music where a man learns to understand the value of people versus wealth and things, then you see that The Greatest Showman executes on its intention quite well. It is not that the critics were wrong in their assessment, it is that their system of assigning valued differed from that of the general public. They valued the assessments in their heads over the heart of the film.
The Cult of Fanaticism
Do not think that the general audience gets away scot free in all of this. Sometimes they are arguably worse than the critics when it comes to how they view films. In a previous blog post, I wrote about the fandom culture present in Fantasy Sports and mentioned how when people become fans of teams, they tend to emotionally attach themselves to that team, so the team’s wins feel like their wins and the team’s losses feel like their losses. They have emotionally invested in the team and their vision, and when it seems like the vision of that team is off, they take that as a personal offense because they feel they have stock in that team’s success and failure. This same culture of fandom also works for films. General audiences want to be entertained by films; they want films to make the feel things. The problem for movie fans really comes once they start attaching themselves to movie franchises and movie brands. Like with sports teams, once fans attach themselves emotionally to the point where they invest a part of themselves into film franchises or brands, then anything that is perceived as a threat to the continued success or vision of the franchise that they are committed to is seen as a grave and heinous offense.
This is precisely what happened to The Last Jedi. Fans had a certain vision for how they wanted to see the general story of the movie play out, but when Rian Johnson purposefully inverted fan expectations, a lot of people who were so committed to the direction the franchise was taking in the previous film, The Force Awakens, were extremely and in some cases violently upset. Their problem is the exact opposite of the problem the critics had in the case of The Greatest Showman. They were so sure of what they wanted to see, that when those expectations were not met, it did not matter that they story was solid or that the action and effects were great, or that the acting and emotion were on point and well done for the majority of the film. No amount of beauty or solid story and world building was going to stop the rage of fans who did not have their hopes and dreams for a series they were invested in met. It was fine to not enjoy the direction the film took, but because fans are more driven by emotion, emotion unfortunately causes people to respond and behave irrationally.
Closing Thoughts
As someone who considers myself both a fan of movies and a critic, I definitely feel both sides have merit. My personal opinion is that critics and fans alike, need to learn the difference between reactions and reviews. Reactions are about how did the film make you feel and what elements of the film made you feel that way. Reviews are about what works and what does not work about a film; did the film execute well on the story it set out to tell or did it not. There is a place for both reviews and reactions, but conflicts seem to occur most readily when either critics let their reactions, how they feel about the film, affect their reviews, what worked and what did not work about a film or fans let their reactions to a film, become their reviews of the film as a whole. Critics and fans alike need to stop being prepared to die on their respective hills. Fans sometimes act irrationally, that is their nature, but when critics fire back at fans in an effort to defend their opinions and reviews, they only add more fuel to the fire. Critics at the end of the day are people who love the craft of movies and are passionate towards that. It does not make them bad people when they write a review that is overly reactionary. All this means is that we are human. What is really important is whether or not we choose to treat each other as such.