Fan Rant: Critics of 'The Dark Knight' Are Allowed...
Fan Rant: Critics of 'The Dark Knight' Are Allowed to Hate
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SexiVixxEN 45 days ago
Look, I thought The Dark Knight had a lot of strong selling points: Combine a deft pace with thoughtful characterizations and a whopping IMAX design that turns the entire experience into a plot-driven theme park ride, and you've got one hefty dose of Batman adrenaline.
Still, comparisons to The Godfather Part II notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn't foolproof -- in fact, no single movie in history is foolproof. The subjective experience of movie watching ensures that nothing can be universally liked by everyone, and rules of civility insist that humanity respect that truism. It's acceptable to feel passionately about a great work of art, and defend that perspective with rigorous argumentation, but much of the outrage over the minority perspective that The Dark Knight isn't any good has made such practical thinking impossible.
Deemed the first critic to pan the movie, New York's David Edelstein went out of his way to list the allegations against him sent along by various Batman fans. The House Next Door editor Keith Uhlich, meanwhile, fielded over a hundred rants in the comments section following his astute critique of director Christopher Nolan's questionable portrayals of violence. What's particularly shocking about this frightful deluge of negative responses is that many of these people began posting their disapproval before they even saw the movie.
As House Next Door Founder Matt Zoller Seitz points out, a lot of people lashed out after David Fear's Time Out New York review ran last Tuesday, before the film opened. "That's scary," writes Matt. "Is there a collective yearning for a masterpiece out there? Is it a Heath Ledger RIP thing? Or is it groupthink, aided by Warner Bros. hype -- a hive mind phenomenon in which ecstatic love for the film has been unconsciously agreed-upon in advance as the only acceptable response to this film, which in turn means that anyone who dares deviate, and ask for something not necessarily better, but different, is an enemy of the people who must be crushed?"
Whatever the cause, it's shameful. The entire critical practice is founded on the freedom of expression, not to mention the unlimited prospects open minded discourse. That doesn't mean you shouldn't speak out if you disagree with someone -- but use some tact, people. Consider the fascinating, deeply contemplative response to Uhlich's review recently posted at Only the Cinema. Let it serve as an example, lest the Orwellian groupthink Seitz detects winds up dominating the marketplace.
Still, comparisons to The Godfather Part II notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn't foolproof -- in fact, no single movie in history is foolproof. The subjective experience of movie watching ensures that nothing can be universally liked by everyone, and rules of civility insist that humanity respect that truism. It's acceptable to feel passionately about a great work of art, and defend that perspective with rigorous argumentation, but much of the outrage over the minority perspective that The Dark Knight isn't any good has made such practical thinking impossible.
Deemed the first critic to pan the movie, New York's David Edelstein went out of his way to list the allegations against him sent along by various Batman fans. The House Next Door editor Keith Uhlich, meanwhile, fielded over a hundred rants in the comments section following his astute critique of director Christopher Nolan's questionable portrayals of violence. What's particularly shocking about this frightful deluge of negative responses is that many of these people began posting their disapproval before they even saw the movie.
As House Next Door Founder Matt Zoller Seitz points out, a lot of people lashed out after David Fear's Time Out New York review ran last Tuesday, before the film opened. "That's scary," writes Matt. "Is there a collective yearning for a masterpiece out there? Is it a Heath Ledger RIP thing? Or is it groupthink, aided by Warner Bros. hype -- a hive mind phenomenon in which ecstatic love for the film has been unconsciously agreed-upon in advance as the only acceptable response to this film, which in turn means that anyone who dares deviate, and ask for something not necessarily better, but different, is an enemy of the people who must be crushed?"
Whatever the cause, it's shameful. The entire critical practice is founded on the freedom of expression, not to mention the unlimited prospects open minded discourse. That doesn't mean you shouldn't speak out if you disagree with someone -- but use some tact, people. Consider the fascinating, deeply contemplative response to Uhlich's review recently posted at Only the Cinema. Let it serve as an example, lest the Orwellian groupthink Seitz detects winds up dominating the marketplace.
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