After an interesting conversation with a friend, I was stimulated to think about the differences between scholarly criticism and that type of commentary from the media. Borrowing from my conversational companion, is the role for those voices located in the media more to promote and market the artist's work, leaving the scholar-critic to inform and interpret?
In the large, Midwestern city in which I live, there is something of a tradition in the media of promoting art and being either kind with criticism or veering away from commentary and providing lightweight education if the subject matter is thorny or difficult and perhaps inspired but less than well executed. This type of criticism is often witty, but not necessariy terribly complex or deep; no 21 paragraph analyses of the artist's oeuvre here in the Heartland. Get 'em out to see the thing, then let the chatter commence.
A recent post in the Chicago Tribune by a reader states, "...I long for the days when critics (such as Frank Rich) could write reviews as well as any playwright could write a play, and create a criticism that was not bound up in what appears to be an insatiable need in today's reviewers to be celebrity critic whose words are quoted in newspaper ads and on the backs of published scripts." (12/5/07 - postscript to Jones' review of the NYC staging of Osage County)
I would tend to agree with this comment. Attending a large chunk of regional theater, I find opening night is cluttered with critics who are there as much to see and talk to each other as to drink in the staging and craft gorgeous commentary that enlightens us as to what we can expect or how we should think about the experience.
So I await and expect from scholars what I thirsted for from others.
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5 comments:
Thanks for the entry. It raises a number of interesting issues about criticism in the arts, especially in today's postmodern world. Here are a couple of observations/reactions. I may retract them later, but here goes.
First, criticism in the arts seems to be in crisis--a notion gaining momentum in various conversations and writings. One sees this problem most clearly in drama criticism, especially the popular sort. Said differently, criticism as a discipline doesn't seem to have a clear vision of its own purposes, including the principles and precepts/axioms that activate its practices. All this has been made complicated by the rush to cultural theory with its fancy speculation. No wonder many many popular/populist drama critics live in limbo. Who knows what the heck is going on.
Looked at from another angle, what we now have is a world where standards and their attendant practices have been blown to bits--much of it by the reformist crowd, the tradition haters, along with the rabid champions of pluralism and diversity. The result of the onslaught has been a decline/loss in meaningful standards with their attendant applications, now departed as private property into the interpretive eye of a single beholder. In other words there is little shared foundational knowledge to anchor critical practice. This situation/condition has affected all disciplines in the humanities, including all branches in the arts.
The actual critical results speak for themselves: a smörgåsbord of analytical descriptions and judgments located all over the map--much of which tends to dumb things down, celebrate surface realities, affirm half-baked ideas, seek a non-controversial middle ground, offer a "be nice" attitude, while providing fodder for advertising. No meat, just pudding.
Then there is the other side of the coin--the militants who distort texts, abuse the facts, affirm non-supported political positions, push particular ideologies/agendas rather than deal in depth with the actual art/plays/productions set in front of them. This represents another "pluralism" of sorts. Granted there are exceptions to such caviling. And pluralism has its place. But the positives do not obviate a problem.
Second, and connected to the prior discussion, any talk or inference among philosophers and critics suggesting that there is "good and bad" at work in in the arts [be it in art making or in critical writing]is assumed to be a "bad" idea. Such evaluative talk is deemed pejorative and judgmental. While there is some merit to this point, over time this viewpoint gets to be a restraining force on standards, thereby begetting in practitioners fear to make a judgment. But judgment and the judgmental are not the same phenomena, even though some assume they are. Anyway, many of the people who push around evaluative language develop apprehensions about using ideas or criteria related to "good and bad," "worthy and unworthy, "effective and non-effective." The apprehension in turn makes some critics feel they need to protect themselves, that is, fend off potential judgmental attacks by envisioned pejoratives who carry a big stick. This in turn pushes them in the direction of side-tracks, bypaths, dumbing down--all the nonsense fears are party to. But all such maneuvering does not really solve the basic problem. Criticism is an evaluative enterprise. Eventually the critic has to deal with good and bad in some form. And talk of "excellence" does not get one off the hook. Granted it is difficult to call a spade a spade and too few critics are willing to do it. It might "hurt" someone. Damage a career. Get negative press. Hurt the readership. But with some care, one can till the ground of good and bad, and do so with integrity and depth. This naturally assumes a good eye, a bucket of knowledge, skills in thinking, and a nose for truth. Enter Frank Rich.
In sum, specific evaluative words [and many of their cousins] quickly get people/critics into a sweat since many of the traditional words are now labeled inappropriate, elitist, non-democratic, non-caring, politically incorrect--the list of objections seems endless. Granted, no one wants to be "measured," nor does one want to be offensive. Still, it is just such pressures become restrictions that kill insight and make life difficult inside the whole critical apparatus. Not unexpectedly, then, too many critics [unlike Frank Rich] run for cover, that is, they hedge, compromise, stutter, sputter, waver, dodge, go bland, pick the shallow, offer short-shrift, find sidetracks, look for byways, check in with slack, go militant. So what we have going much of the time is a non-incisive thought process, coupled with a dose of cowardice, and an unresolved moral issue. Yikes.
But help is on the way. Think positive.
Is it not the case that journalistic writing about a play will almost always concern a particular production, while literary/academic writing about it will tend to address the text of the written work alone, or that but in some larger context of genre, or author's oeuvre or movement?
Even quotidian film critics have less of a moving target to shoot at, since the released cut of a film (even one that is remade over and over) is something that can be viewed again in the far future. (And even among these there is a continuum of seriousness from a Jonathan Rosenbaum right down through a Rex Reed or Richard Roeper).
Maybe today I'll choose to celebrate that there are still some critics in journalism who take their role seriously enough to do their homework, make the tough calls, and stand up for the artform and the audiences. Lord knows their employers (and a great portion o their audiences) can't tell the difference.
Thanks Anonymous.
A couple of quick questions for you. First, what is the character of/definition of "journalistic criticism?" In other words, how broad/small is your concept--how much conceptual ground does it cover/take in, and of what kind?
Second, What do you mean by "literary" writing? Does that kind of writing necessarily only cover the academic mode/response to the handling of ideas? What, in fact, is the meaning of "literary?" In particular, what is the meaning of literary as used here?
To push all of this a bit further, are the two writing alternatives you pose the only alternatives [that writing is either this or that]? What might a fusion of the two alternatives posed look like? And what kind of context/set of circumstances would be needed for this fusion to work/function?
Bite off any question you like. Love to hear from you.
I am thinking here of a phrase I heard Richard Rodriguez use in a Public Television broadcast, namely, "public intellectual." How might that term apply, if at all, to what we are discussing?
i found this interesting reading on the subject of journalistic criticism in particular
http://www.keith-miller.com/writing/journalism.html
I would sincerely appreciate a few thoughts by you on your views of journalistic criticism. Earlier I noticed the critics you listed. Have you a special interest in film?
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