Dear Reader,
This will be a different post you’ll find at Lack of Taste, but certainly, an important one that I’m hoping won’t be emulated in the near future.
I’ve already written an introduction of what happens on here, but scroll down and you’ll find that part of why I opened up shop was because I lamented the declining quality of film criticism. Since the post, a lot of things have progressed and I feel that I want to address the urgency of what’s been happening.
Readers may have heard the resignation that struck The New York Times, with editor Bari Weiss jumping ship. In her letter, Weiss alleged experiences of frequent bullying during her time as the paper, as well as the vapidly ideological agenda that permeated its pages. During Weiss’s departure, the paper published articles on classical music being racially biased and a glowing profile of Taylor Lorenz, a tech reporter who pretends that the banning of TikTok had little to do with national security and more to do with xenophobia. Before this, there was l’affaire Tom Cotton, the reckless history of the 1619 project, and worst of all, the doxing threat of the man behind the Slate Star Codex blog, which resulted in its eradication.
In the wake of this, some film writers on Twitter have exposed their true colors. Matt Zoller Seitz, who is the editor-at-large for RogerEbert.com, went on a rant dismissing Weiss’s claims and slamming her as a conservative, then going on to say that she deserves to be at an outlet like National Review. Seitz’s smug perception is contradicted by the fact that Weiss is against the 2nd Amendment, is pro-choice, and was initially hired by The New York Times for the reason that the previous outlet she worked for, The Wall Street Journal, was in favor of Trump, whom she did not support.
Previously Seitz had another thread about Weiss, when the Tom Cotton op-ed saga occurred, calling for her firing and a lesser-known black woman to replace her. His tweets perfectly demonstrate an example of what Wesley Yang coined “The Successor Ideology,” where progressive-sounding language coming from elites presumes a sort of inequitable power through shame and intimidation.
But this is not a one-off. This has long been the game.
Scott Tobias, who once wrote a long piece for a movie studio that once held an outlet I wrote for, chucked a tantrum when Armond White had the audacity to tag Kelly Reichardt in his harsh review of her film First Cow. Certainly, White should have understood the proper etiquette of Twitter: that you shouldn’t simply @ a celebrity and say I don’t like your movie. But it speaks further volumes for Scott Tobias, whose pretense for proper etiquette is thick as bricks. When the letter of a hundred Harpers signatories circulated on Twitter, he went on the defense of Vox’s Emily Vanderwerff, even as she comically published a post to her employer Matt Yglesias claiming that his name on that letter makes her feel unsafe.
When Rebeller began (and later folded), the reception was mostly positive. Yet the backlash was fierce because it didn’t abide by the same beliefs RogerEbert.com, Pajiba or other legacy media outlets have amplified. Cinephiles shamed writers because they choose to get their articles published there. Others mocked the website’s brand, alleging that its name upheld the Confederacy and was funded by the CIA. All that, and not a single person either read the article or spoke against any of their arguments. In the case of Tobias, nothing was spoken about White’s review. Instead, he complained that First Cow was put into “an imaginary culture war,” despite many reviews speaking breezily on how it took on masculinity, with the director Kelly Reichardt going so far to say that:
It’s still so shocking to me that in current times the big, white, strong man with the big voice holds any appeal to anybody.
Film criticism has always been an intellectual niche, accommodated only by the few, and not as many. As technology shifts and becomes more democratic, it welcomes mediums that would expand the form from writing to video and even experimental filmmaking. But it has succumbed to the same stigmas surrounding journalism in general. It has faced narrower structural incentives than it did in the past. Yet it doesn’t excuse the notion that writers are choosing to play it safe or are entertaining woke ideals they overzealously (or don’t) believe. On Twitter, tastemakers have promoted violence, scold people with differing views, and meanwhile suck up to fellow mutuals for any degree of pushback against them. Or they can drop their critical faculties whenever they’re mutuals with Rian Johnson. It’s one thing to call this groupthink, and another to call it careerism for anyone who wishes to score a lucrative gig at The Little AV Collider Comment Club. This is malicious tribalism and it should be rejected, no matter what.
If these are merely opinions that are strongly disagreeable, as published in an article or tweet, this would be another story. But these are slanderous claims that mindlessly stick for multiple digit metrics, and people who object to this behavior, need to stand up for those affected and themselves if they are ever caught in the midst of the fray.
That is why Lack of Taste was built, but also why this post should be a chill pill. As we are seeing more media outlets become interested in telling subjective truths, the best way is to walk away and build better alternatives. Andrew Sullivan rebooted his blog into The Dish to Substack, after resigning from New York Magazine for the same reasons as Weiss at The New York Times. It is a refreshing antidote to the frenzied spiral of Twitter, no matter how many critics he’ll attract. For any aspiring writer who wants a healthy readership, you should take note and begin your own newsletter.
Here are the principles I will abide by and if ever you catch me straying away from them, please let me know. I will not be dogmatic to any fashionable orthodoxy and remain independent. I will not succumb to clickbait or stray away from discussing difficult topics, as long as I have the thorough research. I will seek to be civil and care for justice in a proper manner. I will cover films, old and new, widely released or screened at an arthouse cinema. But most of all, I will refuse any mob who will threaten my ability to curiously write like the individual I want to be.
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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you in the next piece.