Everybody’s a critic

Does anyone remember the old PBS program Sneak Previews, with Siskel and Ebert? Thousands tuned in to their lively weekly debates on the ­latest movies, ending with thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Both reviewed films in the Chicago Tribune, but Roger Ebert had the greater reputation as a tough critic, all the way until his death in 2013. He occupied such a prestigious chair that older readers may be surprised it disappeared after his successor Michael Phillips took a buyout—gracefully stepping away, as he told Spencer Kornhaber for The Atlantic, from a “career path that no longer exists.”

Print journalism is laying off or phasing out critical staff, whether book, music, theater, film, or art. Even such venerable relics as The New York Times have reassigned many of their erudite reviewers. Criticism has migrated to the masses on Goodreads (for books), Letterboxd (movies), Beli (restaurants), or Rate Your Music. These are amateurs, some of them educated and perceptive, though most probably just know what they like. There’s nothing wrong with gushing over one’s latest enthusiasm online, as long as readers can tell the difference between useful criticism and other kinds. But can they? Can we?

That’s the question lurking in Kornhaber’s Atlantic piece titled “Traditional Criticism Is in Trouble.” Traditional critics knew their stuff, such as Jay Nordlinger, recently of National Review. His passion for classical music took him to the annual Salzberg Festival and the Milan Opera House, not to mention countless hours of comparing recordings from world-class symphony orchestras. I might not agree with him about Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, but I could acknowledge his opinion was a step up from my simple WOW.

Today’s critics pontificating on YouTube might not be as discriminating. Kornhaber discovered this through experience: “For every second of insight a video essay provided, there were 10 more seconds of filler: platitudes, plot summary, sponsor shout-outs. TikTok’s algorithm started swamping me with humanities grad students of varying cogency.”

Reaction videos are even less cogent, as they show the reviewer responding to the latest Taylor Swift album or Marvel Universe movie trailer with exaggerated facial expressions, like real-life emojis. Once they achieve a level of popularity, YouTubers or TikTokers may be paid for a favorable review, so there’s no way of knowing how impartial their opinions are. Meanwhile, a stream of amateur content from self-published authors, garage bands, and hand-held video cameras clogs the pipeline and makes it hard to separate wheat from chaff. Even intelligent, self-educated critics who care about their music or movies are “at the mercy of the algorithm” that determines who sees what.

A glut of content conceals a more subtle problem with video and podcast reviews. As one popular Letterboxd reviewer admitted, “You get better at film criticism by reading it, not watching videos.” One music maven followed by hundreds of thousands on YouTube and TikTok complained about dumbing down his reviews for nonreaders: “It really does seem like people are getting stupider.”

But is this another thing Christians should be concerned about? Don’t we have enough already?

Two considerations: For one, Christians (or artists influenced by Christianity) have produced the bulk of classical Western art, and we should have at least a passing acquaintance with their work. Two, we are all creators, whether it’s a square picture frame or a satisfying meal. Creating (or appreciating) work that is true, good, and beautiful means distinguishing it from that which is merely comfortable, safe, and pretty.

One of my colleagues at Redeemed Reader, a review website for children’s books, weighted this distinction over Keeper of the Lost Cities, a popular fantasy series among Christian teens. Her subtitle asked, “Is it Safe? Is it Good?” Yes to the first question, at least until recently, when the author introduced LGBT content. To the second question—a lack of nuance, clichéd writing, and a flawless main character make for a quantified No. Such works are “organic mac and cheese: free from offensive ‘ingredients’ that crop up in many teen fantasy series but still boxed mac and cheese.” Fine as comfort food, but not a nourishing literary diet.

Christians rightly recoil from art intended only to shock, but art that challenges and stretches lies somewhere between shocking and safe. Determining what is excellent and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8) makes critics of us all. We may as well try to be discerning ones.