How much stock do we put in Twitter? As a social networking website, it’s nothing short of brilliant. You may love or hate Twitter, you may not even understand it, but it fills a need by piggybacking (initially, that is) on the Facebook status update. Nowadays, Twitter has become a weird place where a regular Joe can interact with stars like Russell Crowe or Tom Hanks, but it’s also become a place for entertainment writers and critics to air their dirty laundry. It’s on Twitter that we find out what apparently matters to a number of these online journalists and how narrow their gaze is. Recently, there arose such a clatter (I’m in the Christmas spirit already!) over one web critic’s negative review of 127 Hours in Twitter form and its potential harmful effects of the film’s awards future.
Is there a scenario in this world where one film critic's opinion could sink a film and ruin its chances at Oscar glory? Sure. The critic is named Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael, or Vincent Canby, and the year in 1975. With the proliferation of the Internet, anyone can be a film critic. You don't need to go to film school, you don't need to have a journalism degree, and you don't need to have decades of experience. Some of you read that and think only negative thoughts. And I can't blame you. There are, without question, bad film critics in the world; lucky for us, most of them aren't well-known and don't know a truly good film if it were to walk up and slap them in the face. Some of the bad critics are well-known; Ben Lyons is Public Enemy, No. 1 to me.
But there are so many voices online that wouldn't have been heard without the World Wide Web. Box Office Prophets wouldn't have existed, and it's the same for most other film-geek havens. Is every critic worth reading? No. Is every critic influential? Absolutely not. (Hey, I’d love to have more power - who wouldn’t - but I’m a realist.) In fact, with so many critics available, it's hard to say that even those working for the most established sources--the A.O. Scotts and Michael Phillips of the world, for example - are influential. I'd also sincerely hope few intend to be influential. A good critic wants to have his or her voice heard, and wants to be considered as a valued source, but not as an all-knowing arbiter of quality. The critic whose review was called out by the many writers and critics who love 127 Hours - still unseen by me, mind you - was bewildered to see how much of an issue was made of 140 characters.
Can Twitter be more powerful for being so damn small? Absolutely. Maybe we've come to a point where a critic who - while extremely talented, mind you - very few people in the world have heard of can say something in 140 characters, and a film's awards future is affected. Or maybe we've come to a point where people need to take their heads out of their asses.
My point in all of this is that critics are always going to be sources of opinions. 127 Hours, as an example, has been getting mostly high praise. The critic who thought ill of the film disagrees; not only does he have every right to do so, but he has every right to do so in written form, whether it's Twitter or a blog post. Is his opinion more valid than that of those who love the film, or less valid? Depends on the reader. The more pertinent question is whether this critic’s viewpoint should be tempered on Twitter, simply because he’s on Twitter. On the one hand, we’ve all heard horror stories about people posting highly sensitive stuff on Facebook or other social networking sites and getting fired. But this guy’s job is as a critic, and his Twitter post was just that, not a full review.
And even if it had been the full extent of his review, are we really so far gone to think that should justify an Oscar voter’s opinion? “Hmm, I heard a bit about this movie 127 Hours. Most people say it’s good, but…wait a second, this one guy on Twitter says it sucked! No Best Picture nomination for you, 127 Hours!” The people who make these claims, unfortunately, end up criticizing something far bigger than what they may have initially meant. Maybe those who attacked this critic online thought they were just focusing on a tiny issue, but they’re really assuming a level of importance they do not have. As much as I’d like to think otherwise, this site and the countless other film sites aren’t ever going to be as popular as Google, Yahoo, or any number of the highest-visited places online.
The people writing for these sites are as unlucky as I am, in that very few people know us by name. You may know my name because of how long you’ve read this site, and you may know the names of some well-known online film writers, but most people do not. Just as most people watching American Idol couldn’t tell you who the executive producers are, most people reading about movies online probably don’t know who’s writing the content, or don’t care. Even on Rotten Tomatoes, among the hundreds of available reviews to read, how many authors do you know? And you can’t name me anyone I haven’t already mentioned. More than likely, the number of people whose names you know offhand is low.
This doesn’t automatically mean that awards prospects aren’t sunk by insiders whose names you don’t know. Based on the way movies are campaigned for Oscars, it’s likely that Crash and Shakespeare in Love won the Best Picture Oscar thanks to the public relations people working behind the scenes, but those are people who, in Hollywood, have a lot of power. While it is absolutely vital to continue film criticism even without newspapers dominating the media, we have to remember that film criticism really doesn’t have the power it used to have when there were fewer people playing at being gatekeepers. Twitter is an important tool, and it can be abused, but it’s absolutely insane to think, legitimately, that a single post from one critic can destroy a film’s chances at the gold. (Josh Spiegel/BOP)
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Today’s debate stems from a single incident a couple of months ago wherein a person tweeted their opinion of a movie then was denounced for the action. Neither the circumstances of that quarrel nor the players involved are relevant here and I doubt that even if the people involved read this column, they would be aware that they were the causality of it. The reality is that internet arguments comprise approximately 50% of all web traffic that is not porn or sports related. And if we created a sports-porn web site, it would probably look a lot like SportsByBrooks.com. But I digress.
Who said what or why someone else is bothered by it is irrelevant here. What matters is the underlying issue. Is there a fundamental problem with someone who is presumably an expert in film criticism stating their overall opinion of a feature in 140 characters or less? As someone who is guilty of just this behavior (You can guffaw at the idea of me qualifying as an expert if you like…go ahead, I won’t mind.), I say absolutely not.
Why do I feel this way? Over time, I have made my piece with the media’s process for information distribution as well as the consumer’s desired methods of consumption. Giving away my age a bit, I vividly recall how much CNN was denounced for their decision to create Headline News. People were horrified by the idea of a canned 30 minute replay that was only updated a few times during a day. They felt that Ted Turner had gone too far with his tactics in dumbing down the news viewing public. I would maintain that the colorization of black and white movies was a much darker path he traveled, but independent of where you stand on that issue, we can agree on this. Turner understood consumer behavior and their desire to swallow the dissemination of information in tiny capsule form. We appreciate the impact of this now as we watch modern media outlets celebrate the repetition of words like “Favre” and “GaGa”.
This is exactly why the soundbite became the law of the land in politics. Most people do not want to know the detailed policies at play in political disputes. They want a quick quip that they can parrot to others, sounding informed all the while (at least to their minds). Yes, I recognize that these are strange words to type on a web site that prides itself on examining underlying mechanics rather than saying, “Movie X must have bombed because there was rain this weekend.” We at BOP pride ourselves on attempting to understand consumer behavior, which is why what I’m saying is not a mixed message. We have chosen to go a different route than what would be more commercial. We are all too aware that we are intentionally alienating many people who like movies and other forms of entertainment but prefer them with brevity and little to no math. Our celebration of what The Simpsons once described as The Dennis Miller Quotient notwithstanding, terse is what the majority of people want.
There is a natural laziness to our expectations of entertainment. Having to read a lot in order to determine someone’s opinion of something is quite simply more effort than a lot of people are willing to put into the process. You and I may not like it, but until we are given broad powers of deity-like (or Sims-like) behavioral change, this isn’t up to us. The reason why Twitter has exploded into the public consciousness is exactly this. A frustrating number of people do not treasure the sparkling word play that has defined Roger Ebert’s career. They just fast forward to see what he does with his thumb. (Don’t make it dirty, freaks.) Siskel and Ebert were among the first movie critics to recognize this, which is the reason why they introduced the thumbs system in the first place.
While we are on the topic, I will even make a confession here. I rarely read full movie reviews posted on Rotten Tomatoes these days. I simply go to their site and check to see the fresh rating of a film, particularly the top critics’ score. Then, I look at the various pull quotes and select the ones that grasp my attention the most. And I say this as someone who has written several hundred movie reviews. Imagine what the average consumer’s reader behavior is if someone like me largely reads only the writings of people I trust (read: people here at BOP) as well as the ones that have the best quips on Rotten Tomatoes. I was using a form of Twitter before Twitter existed. Of course I understand and accept the appeal of it.
Am I concerned that this is a form of intellectual de-evolution? Absolutely. I do find myself wondering how popular a cavemen movie review twitter feed would be. “Movie good, make Grog sad but in good way” sounds ridiculous yet that probably would fill a niche to those who find Grog posts funny and come to appreciate that the person writing it has respectable movie taste. People are largely looking to attain feedback from those whom they trust about modern cinema. The medium itself used in disseminating the information borders on irrelevant. If they want to know more, they can always ask. “Movie good” may sound insipid but everyone is clear on the message, which is the end all be all, like it or not. Tweets are the tech-savvy iteration of the Thumbs System. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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