University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Re-crafting criticism in an algorithmic world

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Re-crafting criticism in an algorithmic world

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Content RE-CRAFTING CRITICISM IN AN ALGORITHMIC WORLD
by
Rafiq Taylor
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL FOR COMMUNICATION AND
JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(PUBLIC RELATIONS AND ADVERTISING)
May 2024
Copyright 2024 Rafiq Taylor

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Table of Contents
Abstract..................................................................................................................................................iii
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................1
The Cinema Criticism Industrial Complex ...........................................................................................1
Chapter One: Pop Culture Origin Stories of Criticism..............................................................................3
Pre-Cinema Criticism ..........................................................................................................................3
Chapter Two: Criticism in Cinema...........................................................................................................6
Criticism in the Silent Era....................................................................................................................6
Criticism and the Introduction of Sound...............................................................................................9
Diagnosing “Status Quo Criticism”.................................................................................................... 12
Criticism Gets Serious....................................................................................................................... 15
Chapter Three: Resurrecting Pauline Kael ............................................................................................. 17
Criticism’s Modern Languish............................................................................................................. 19
Chapter Four: Criticism as a Rotting Tomato ......................................................................................... 21
Chapter Five: Criticism as a Cultural Whip............................................................................................ 24
The Road To CinemaSins.................................................................................................................. 24
Mystery Science Theater 3000........................................................................................................... 25
CinemaSins....................................................................................................................................... 26
The CinemaSins Resistance ............................................................................................................... 27
Case Study – Avatar: The Way of Water............................................................................................ 30
Chapter Six: Criticism as a Critic Killer................................................................................................. 32
The Decaying of A.O. Scott............................................................................................................... 32
Chapter Seven: Case Study - Barbie ...................................................................................................... 35
Barbie and Hollywood Expectation.................................................................................................... 35
Barbie and The Flames of Fandom .................................................................................................... 36
Chapter Eight: Criticism as Human Connection ..................................................................................... 38
The Glory Days of Criticism.............................................................................................................. 38
The Top-Form Critic ......................................................................................................................... 40
Chapter Nine: Criticism as a Revolution ................................................................................................ 41
Chapter Ten: Breaking the Cycle ........................................................................................................... 44
References............................................................................................................................................. 45

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Abstract
Film criticism is commonly understood as the art of viewing films and interpreting them
within the context of their impact on both the individual level and as cultural phenomena. That
said, the role of criticism has changed over time under different contexts. This paper argues that
with each new variation of criticism, there’s an even newer set of unforeseen consequences that
impact the social fabric of communication as it relates to culture. To prove this, the potential
origins of criticism will be examined as well as criticism’s multiple reinventions during the silent
film, early sound, early television, and current eras. It will also address the decline of
deliberative, thought-provoking criticism in an era of technological convenience and the
algorithmic illusion of instant gratification. Finally, there will be a proposal of an ideal form that
criticism can take, how the criticism styles of the past and present distort that ideal, and the
potential ways to radically restore that ideal in resistance to the algorithmic forces that keep our
social fabric disconnected.

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Introduction
Imagine a world where the adage “Everyone is a Critic” is a legitimate truth. If you can’t,
perhaps it is already here in its own way. Discourse itself aspires to be one of the defining
communication dilemmas of the information (or disinformation) era. The nature of discourse has
long been an element of interest in the history of the world, but now, it is becoming increasingly
democratized and interconnected on an international scale. Many more people can share their
voices. Everyone is a critic. Contrary to what the phrase implies, this is not a problem. The
problem with the nature of today’s critical discourse is a power struggle between the humans
who used to control it, the algorithms that control it now, and the poor souls who ought to take
control.
The Cinema Criticism Industrial Complex
Analyzing the entire history of critical discourse is a nebulous task that would likely
require a lifelong effort. That said, I will confirm my power struggle diagnosis and suggest a cure
by directing my vision toward an industry understood to be one of the most structured and least
nebulous in its criticism structure: film. The way we talk about movies has been manipulated by
the motivations of this industry for a long time, and the history of this form of art criticism has
evolved as both a mirror and an influence on the culture of the media ecosystem. How does that
historical influence impact cinema discourse today? The democratization of critical selfexpression is further destabilizing film criticism's homogeneity in public space. Ideally, this is a
liberating force. Anyone can share their thoughts on any work of art. Yet, in practice, the old
establishment ghosts are trying to maintain their influence, the ambitious new communities
support their niches with a seemingly unshakable passion, and the impulse to search for a
collective of voices to join has eroded the most important thing about art criticism: The

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individual. To make matters even worse, even the identities of the critics themselves are eroded
through the forces that attempt to gamify what, at its core, is a version of the most personal
expression of an individual’s sense of self and humanity. I think we need to break out of our
discourse silos, and we do that by looking within, instead of looking without. It’s about time
someone watched the watchers, and it’s about time to try a different lens.

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Chapter One: Pop Culture Origin Stories of Criticism
To criticize criticism there first needs to be an operational definition of what “criticism”
is under the context of the public consumption of popular media. Over time, the nature of
criticism has taken different forms. On the path to what can be considered the criticism of our
current era, several conceptual relationships serve as constants. In this review, we will be
analyzing criticism’s relationship with the authoritative entity, the culture of fandom, and the
evolution of technology.
Pre-Cinema Criticism
One interesting early instance of consequential art criticism begins as early as 1642. This
year marks the beginning of the First English Civil War and an important piece of legislation
regarding the practice of theatre. For eighteen years, by order of the Long Parliament, every
theatre in London was closed to prevent public discord in wartime (Fretz, 2018). When Charles
II reopened them, he awarded a monopoly on all theatrical productions to a limited number of
theatre owners, setting a precedent that would last 200 years. This resulted in only two London
theatres being legally allowed to perform the works of William Shakespeare for the same 200
years: the King’s House and the Duke’s House.
Samuel Pepys, who was living in London, kept a detailed diary between the years 1660-
1669. A lover of theatre, he attended the first performance of Romeo and Juliet at Duke’s House.
“It is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted I ever saw these
people do, and I am resolved to go no more to see the first time of acting, for they were all of
them out more or less” (Pepys, 2024). This historical diary entry is emblematic of what
“criticism” can be defined as. Much of what is admired about the most memorable pieces of

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criticism is that they reflect the critic’s self. At its core, criticism is a confessional, but in this
way, criticism becomes art.
However, criticism is not only limited to being an art. Criticism can be an instrument of
power. This is demonstrated by what happened in London two hundred years after Pepys saw
that horrible rendition of Romeo and Juliet. On the verge of the Victorian Era, the theatre
landscape looks different. Small theaters are now popping up in distant locations at affordable
prices. Unhappy about this, the owners of the King’s House and Duke’s House attempted to
eliminate their competition by evoking their exclusive patents and shutting the other operations
down. More specifically, the established theatres attempted to maintain exclusive rights to
perform the works of William Shakespeare. In their pleas to Parliament, they attempted to
weaponize the power of criticism. They expressed grief over the secret performances of
Shakespeare happening in the “illegitimate” theaters, and how they tarnish Shakespeare’s legacy
in their mediocrity (Schoch, 2005, pp. 112-113). While Parliament was not convinced by this
argument at the time, the attempt is significant. It is an example of criticism’s relationship with
authority. Criticism can also operate as secret appeals to authority in the halls of power.
At its core, criticism is an art. Two hundred years later, it has become a tool. In 1849, it
became a catalyst for discord and a mirror for society’s sentiments. “On Thursday evening, May
10, 1849, Macbeth was performed by noted English actor William Macready at New York’s
Astor Place Opera House. Before the night was out, perhaps as many as twenty to thirty or more
people had been killed and hundreds wounded” (Hershkowitz, 2006, p. 4). The Astor Place Riot
occurred in an era where it was not uncommon for the audience to express either its pleasure or
distaste for performers by throwing objects onto the stage. The War of 1812 ended only a little
over thirty years ago in the young United States, and the popularity of Shakespearean

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performance permeates both the theatres of London and across the pond. Attached to this
popularity are the two main players in this drama: actors William Macready and Edwin Forrest.
At the time, Macready was considered the greatest British actor of his generation, while Forrest
had firmly established himself as one of the first major American theatrical celebrities. These
actors had an intense public rivalry, and their fandoms had been at odds over who was the better
performer. “Macready has supposedly ‘hissed’ Forrest when he toured England in 1845-46.
Forrest promised retaliation when the English actor came to New York. When Macready
appeared on the New York stage in October 1848, some of the press were very hostile”
(Hershkowitz, 2006, p. 10).
The Astor Place Riot acts as an origin point for not only the phenomenon of “fandom”
but also the way public criticism can be a communal experience. In the extreme case of the Riot,
one can easily paint a mental picture of the anti-establishment sentiments in a country that had
recently fought two wars against their forbearers. That said, the echoes of fandom-based,
establishment-challenging criticism have a presence even now. Personal art. Authoritative tool.
Social catalyst. These are the forces that remain in constant conversation with each other over
time.

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Chapter Two: Criticism in Cinema
Now that some pre-cinema origin points have been identified, it is time to begin
reviewing the history of cinema in relation to cinematic criticism. This is an interesting task to
attempt because crafting a consistent thread of film criticism over time is, frankly, complicated.
The reason for this difficulty has to do with the nature of the early 20th
-century political climate.
Even on a global scale, divergent perspectives were often muted and diluted by a post-American
Revolution establishment of nationhood. National pride was codified within the diplomatic
practices of European imperialism, which then became the catalyst for World War I, after which
the largely apolitical, mostly experimental, fantastical nature that characterizes the earliest silent
motion pictures transformed into something of a societal mirror.
Criticism in the Silent Era
Arguably, this shift starts at the precipice of the turn of the century. In 1889 Georges
Méliès directed The Dreyfus Affair, a silent film that would be banned by the French
government for 50 years. This film is the first docudrama to ever exist and is an example of not
only the emergence of the film director as a cultural critic but of film as a societal mirror. The
film closely follows the story of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French artillery captain who was
falsely accused of leaking military secrets to the German military. After being sentenced to life
imprisonment, he was paraded through the streets amongst crowds that hurled vicious antisemitic
insults. Two years later, French authorities discovered the actual leaker, and soon after Dreyfus
was pardoned and fully exonerated. Dreyfus even went on to serve in World War I. Méliès’ film
followed the initial trial and pardon as it was happening. His work became a symbol of France’s
political divisiveness, even causing riots to erupt at showings. This disorder is what caused the
film’s 50-year ban (Daitch, 2011). The film itself serves as a cultural mirror and is the earliest

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example of criticism concerning cinema that catalyzes discord. While it is still far removed from
the world of criticism as it is understood in the current day, there are parallels with both the
Astor Place Riot and the function of art amid extreme political division.
Jumping forward into the post-World War I era of cinema, we see the establishment of
Hollywood in the California desert. As film was becoming codified as a business in the United
States, much of today’s critically acclaimed and universally revered silent era works were being
produced in Germany at the time. These works are seen as uncritically excellent classics,
tirelessly taught in the cinematic academic canon. I am speaking of works like Die Nibulungen,
Metropolis, and Nosferatu. It would be outright foolish to deny the artistry and significance the
films of silent era Germany have had on the development of the cinematic vision. However, I
still wonder what the trajectory of their influence would look like if there were critics as we
understand them to exist now, publishing their unregulated critiques of these films.
In his 1990 essay titled “Silent Cinema,” Anton Kaes directly challenges the canonization
of silent-era films with a specific focus on post-World War I German cinema. “A study of, say,
The Golem or Nosferatu will have to take into consideration iconographic and narrative
representations of Eastern Jews in Germany after 1918; both films are fictional responses to
deep-seated German fears of alien forces threatening the damaged self-identity after the lost
War” (Kaes, 1990, p. 251). Masterpieces actually aren’t timeless. They are just as tethered to the
social climates in which they are made as any modern film would be.
On episode 69 of Still Processing, New York Times cultural critics Wesley Morris and
Jenna Wortham reflect on and analyze depictions of whiteness in the media of 2018. Eventually,
their conversation turns its gaze to the recently released John Krasinski film, A Quiet Place. “But
as the movie goes on, you start to realize what they’re really protecting themselves against.

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These monstrosities that are brown; that will attack you for the smallest mistake and the mistake
being an auditory misstep… That’s the central anxiety of the film.” The review and discussion
they conduct serve as an excellent example of advanced, modern critical commentary that did
not exist in the earliest days of cinema. Interestingly, the cultural commentary echoes the candor
of the cultural commentary expressed by Kaes, rightfully placing the films within their historical
and societal contexts.
The perceived novelty of “cinema’s birth” obscures the necessary historical context we
can glean from critical analysis. The silent German film from the 1920s becomes a strange, everpresent, uncritical universal masterpiece. Now, when there are valid and necessary connections
made about silent cinema, they become unseen academic artifacts that are immediately
overshadowed by the hegemonic pull and mystique of a “classic cinema canon.” Post-World War
I silent cinema from Germany is revered for featuring the first examples of artful cinema that
challenge a movie padawan’s notion of what artistry looks like in cinema. This obscures the
historical reality that a number of these movies also acted as a tool that reinforced the
antisemitic, xenophobic, propagandized fears of the German populace post-World War I. There
was no Wesley Morris and Jenna Wortham present in Germany to make these connections in
real-time. As a result, this art slips through the cracks and becomes a widely unquestioned truth,
leaving important re-evaluations to fight an enormously unfair battle against a zeitgeist that is
treated as universal law.
“I envision future work in early German film history to be increasingly informed by
current trends of cultural theory, social history, and the historiography of everyday life. These
methodological frameworks will reposition film as part of the cultural productivity of a period –
not as a mirror of social norms” (Kaes, 1990, p. 251). Unfortunately, within the context of film

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history, this degree of critical insight and analysis won’t even emerge as an evaluation of currentday cinema for nearly 50 years, at least as far as American cinema criticism is concerned.
Interestingly in the silent era, the role of the cultural critic in the world of movies is at best the
same as the role of the film director, and at worst is consequentially absent.
Criticism and the Introduction of Sound
In the history of Hollywood cinema, one of the most folkloric and commonly referenced
turning points is the transition from silent movies to films with sound. This is the first instance
where criticism begins to thrive in the public sphere and can be seen as a possible origin point for
film criticism as we now understand it. However, this style of critique should not be considered
parallel to the thoughtful, culturally rich film criticisms that journalistic establishments
understand and embrace now. Conversely, this can be considered an origin point for what can be
described as reactionary criticism. Reactionary criticism is the kind of criticism that tends to
emerge when the art of cinema experiences a major transition. Silence-to-sound is arguably the
largest transition in cinema history. In her 2009 evaluation of this major change, Jessica Taylor
conducts an anthropological examination of the history of the voice in its relationship with
reactionary criticism. “There is no necessary connection between the voice and the body on
screen… this connection is created through the techniques of cinema and the discourses
surrounding it” (Taylor, 2009, p. 6).
During this time, Hollywood studios were conducting experiments in sound for the actors
in their films. One of the techniques being implemented was the usage of two actors: the film
actor who mouths the words, and the voice actor who dubs over them. Nonetheless, adding
sound to film was an expensive endeavor and this arrangement was considered not optimal or
cost-effective. This led to the advent of the sound test, where actors and actresses were brought

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into the studios and systematically evaluated on whether their voices “matched” their
appearance. Understandably, these kinds of evaluations in themselves were reflective of the
social acceptability politics of the time. Taylor quotes Hollywood director William DeMille here:
“Many delightful young women lose all their charm the moment their voices are heard; stalwart
‘he-men’ may shed their virility with the first sentence they speak… uncultured enunciation
destroys the illusion created by beauty” (Taylor, 2009, p. 8). The major concern of this
transitional period is the breaking of the imagined reality on the screen by the literal voice of the
actor in it. For the film actor, this transition was a formidable hurdle. The sound of the voice
could make or break entire careers: and did.
The impact of criticism in the sight-to-sound transition created a series of norms and
expectations that have ripple effects. These expectations are what the film industry, and more
specifically Hollywood, reckon with to this day. Famously, actor John Gilbert’s career was
destroyed by the transition into sound, due to the reactionary criticisms of his naturally higherpitched voice. Taylor quotes: “Gilbert’s voice! You heard it in ‘His Glorious Night.’ It is highpitched, tense, almost piping at times. His friends have known for years that it was completely
unsuited to the strength and the fire of the man” (Taylor, 2009, p. 14). The critics then were not
critical analysts, but they sure were reactionary. It was the critics of the talkies who, perhaps
unknowingly, crafted a detailed tapestry of character tropes and identities that fall into (or are
based on) gendered and racial stereotypes. In the case of poor Gilbert: “A certain genre of
masculinity is therefore equated with a certain timbre of voice and a mismatch generates instant
disapproval” (Taylor, 2009, p. 14). Similarly, in examining the film sex symbol of his day,
Rudolph Valentino, critics and historians posit that he would have been resoundingly laughed out
of the business and out of his devoted female fans’ hearts had he lived long enough for them to

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finally hear his less-than-masculine tones. The world-famous screen idol famously declared,
“Women are not in love with me but with the picture of me on the screen. I am merely the
canvas on which women paint their dreams.” But critic/film historian Eric Stott noted in 2006:
“If you think John Gilbert had problems transitioning into sound as a great lover, Valentino
would have only had moreso. In a way, Rudy died just in time.”
The codes that these critics established can be described by the characterizations of the
deep-voiced action star, the soft-spoken ingénue, and more insidiously, the jive-talking minstrel.
If one were to decode these codes, they become: “This is what a real man should sound like,”
“This is what a desirable woman should sound like,” and “This is how black people
communicate.” The criticism of the past that enforced these false truths appeared at a
foundational moment in Hollywood history, when the studio system established a repeatable
business model for creating popular films. The very nature of this shift toward a cyclical
Hollywood business model reinforced the preferential treatment and repetition of these
audiovisual character identities. Criticism can be a codifier of convention and an enforcer of the
status quo. The DNA of this codification of vocal expectation in cinematic media exists within
the controversies and the cinematic art we consume in the modern era, particularly with
Hollywood blockbuster films.
This style of reactionary criticism based on predetermined expectation seems to be in a
kind of revival period when we look at the social identity of modern-day cinema criticism. What
is notable about this particular parallel is that these social states of reactionary criticism correlate
with eras of major technological advancement. In both instances, the criticism acts as a tool of
the established forces in the film industry to determine the value of artistic expression, even
before the art reaches the general audience. The commentaries during the sight-to-sound

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transition also introduce the idea of criticism as a form of punishment and a tool to police which
works of art are or aren’t allowed to be disseminated into the public conscience.
This situation shares a similar identity with the issues presented by the canonization of
post-World War I Germany’s silent era films. However, in this historical instance, the criticism
acts as an enforcer and even a creator of questionable norms. Unlike the revered films of the
Silent Era I’m referring to; the very existence of explicit reactionary criticism can be seen and
responded to. The connection between the art that was created and how film critics within the
industry responded can be more easily reflected on and judged by the modern cinema historian.
This is because silence-to-sound is viewed as a shift within an already flourishing industry, and
doesn’t carry the inherently sentimental, folkloric mystique of being an origin story of the entire
craft. Additionally, the reactionary criticism of this era is what created the expectations moving
forward when conducting the business of Hollywood filmmaking. When present-day criticism is
absent, the art itself becomes unquestioned when it ought to be. Conversely, when the criticism is
present but only exists in a reactionary form that focuses on shallow, cosmetic aspects of the art
in question, the result is the formation of established norms and practices that move forward
unchallenged when they ought to be.
Diagnosing “Status Quo Criticism”
In this way, the criticisms leveled against the Silent Era actors whose voices failed to
match their appearance became an ever-present force that continues to inform the practices of the
Hollywood industry in terms of both casting as well as marketing. The ghost of this historical
criticism haunts not only the expectations of the industry but also hinders the willingness of the
public to accept even minor deviations from these antiquated rulesets. That’s how embedded the
silence-to-sound reaction has become. The seeds of this reactionary criticism are so thoroughly

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implanted that challenging them requires a deliberate and strategic awareness from those who
create cinematic art.
There are many examples of status quo-affirming reactionary criticism rearing its head at
different points in time in cinema history. Each one of these controversies unknowingly harkens
back to the fateful moments when the vocal and visual expectations of film’s transition to sound
were codified into a set of in-grown rules established by the reactionary criticisms of that era.
One of the more blatant examples that proves this to be true occurred in 2019 upon the release of
the trailer for the blockbuster film, Captain Marvel. In it, Brie Larson leads, playing pilot-turnedsuperhero Captain Marvel. After the trailer was revealed, she instantly became a subject of
controversy for committing the feminist crime of not smiling while piloting the plane in the
movie’s trailer. At the time, the controversy was written off as just another instance of bargain
bin misogyny (Schoellkopf, 2009). Perhaps it is: the unsmiling woman does have her
womanhood questioned for it in real life.
In 2015, there was another movie trailer for a different blockbuster that resulted in a
similar outrage. Its cause? The introduction of a new hero in a beloved franchise. I am talking
about Finn, played by John Boyega in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. After his reveal trailer,
Boyega and the production became the subject of online vitriol; the “purity” of the franchise
being questioned and derided as “anti-white propaganda” (Lee, 2015). Was this simply an
unsettling racist outburst from a vocal online minority? Perhaps it is.
A year after that: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones
were cast as the Ghostbusters. This caused a similar outrage to the other examples. Was this
simply a consequence of being released during the year of the 2016 US Presidential election?
Perhaps it is. Director Paul Feig seems to think so (Fink, 2022).

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In June of 2023, Idris Elba, an A-list actor and People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive”
in 2018, spoke on how he was in serious consideration to become the next James Bond.
However, he immediately lost the motivation to play the role the moment the conversation
veered into one about whether this decision was “racially correct” (Sharf, 2023). He wasn’t
trying to be an activist; he just wanted to be James Bond because it would be cool and fun for
him.
When looking at all of these examples, it is very easy to write them all off as cyclical
casualties of an allegedly unique modern-day culture war. It would be foolish to deny that the
late 2010s political climate that American society still seems to be trapped in contributes to and
amplifies these controversies. But I sense something ancient under the surface of this pattern.
These films dared to depict black men as sophisticated heroes and women in positions of
masculine labor. The critics of the talkies were vocal and powerful. They knew who they
expected their heroes to be. They knew how they expected cinematic women to act. Hollywood
codified these rules and followed them in fear of social consequence for nearly three and a half
decades under the Hays Code: a privately enforced set of “moral” guidelines dictating
Hollywood’s self-censorship. The Hays Code is the grandfather of the current content rating
system for American films. During its time it was used to police artists to keep in line with
hegemonic social expectations. Interestingly, this same period is considered to be Hollywood’s
Golden Age.
So, is it any surprise that the reactively critical cinematic expectations codified in the
Golden Age bled into standards of the Blockbuster era and beyond? I don’t think so. The strange
rules are still the strange rules, and John Boyega puts it plainly in a 2020 interview with GQ
when reflecting on his character’s treatment by Disney during his time playing Finn: “You knew

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what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelley Marie Tran, when it came to John
Boyega, you knew fuck all… They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy
Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not
exposing anything” (Famurewa, 2020). The set of expectations charged by the nature of reactive
criticism during the introduction of sound in the origins of Hollywood are embedded.
Unfortunately, reactive criticism reviving itself in the face of every deviation from the expected
cinematic norms established during the transition to sound is a feature, not a bug.
With Boyega’s response in mind, an important question demands to be asked. If these
“reactionary rules” are an actual, genuine embodiment of criticism as an unreasonable authority
that sneakily enforces a social control over art in a way the Duke and King’s theatres tried and
failed to grasp in the 1800s, how does John Boyega even land an interview at a publication that
gave him the freedom to be candidly critical of Hollywood’s Golden Age ghost?
Criticism Gets Serious
As it turns out, another film-related golden age was brewing in lockstep with the most
turbulent era in modern American history. I am speaking of the era of Civil Rights, the explosion
of television, and the entry into the Vietnam War. I consider this the Golden Age of not only film
criticism but the first Golden Age of American criticism. This was a time defined by social
justice and revolutionary thought. Ironically, part of the fuel for this shift involves a transition in
criticism that can be considered a complete inverse of the criticisms that characterized the
cinematic transition from silence to sound. Unlike the critics of the late 1920s, this audience has
a keen eye for narrative depth and a thirst for daring creative ideas.
“Television replaced radio as the dominant broadcast medium by the 1950s and took over
home entertainment. Approximately 8,000 U.S. households had television sets in 1946; 45.7

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million had them by 1960” (“1920s - 1960s: Television,” n.d.). The rapid expansion of television
into millions of American homes became an obvious and formidable threat to the film industry.
Additionally, it revolutionized the appearance of journalism. Suddenly, there was a new medium
other than radio and print available to consume the news of the world; and it became a direct
competitor of the newsreels that would be shown in the movie theaters. All of America could
bear witness now. What was being witnessed? The assassination of President Kennedy, the
horrors of the Vietnam War and the civil injustices happening at home.
Under this context, the movie theaters had no choice except to become more daring in
their content offerings. This began with technical adjustments: innovation in color, sound, and
wider screens (“The Threat of Television,” n.d.). This was not enough. The large studios began
to languish, allowing for an opportunity for independent filmmakers and filmmakers from
outside the US to encroach. Accompanied by the dissolution of the Hays Code, a radical new era
of art was blossoming, and as the sharp edges on the blades of creativity began to cut more
precisely, so did the discerning eyes of the audience, forged through the fires of a newly chaotic
America.

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Chapter Three: Resurrecting Pauline Kael
“Los Angeles is only 400 miles away from where I live and so close by jet that I can
breakfast at home, give a noon lecture at one of the universities in LA, and be back in time to
prepare dinner. But it’s the city of the future, and I am more a stranger there than in a foreign
country” (Kael, 2012, p. 3).
Operating in the middle of this period of intense questioning and astonishing “in-themoment” visual imagery emerges the voice of Pauline Kael. A child of Jewish emigrants from
Poland, planted in San Francisco when she was eight, Kael grew to become a -- arguably the --
changemaker in the world of film criticism. Kael’s words emerged as an opposite and equally
powerful force in conversation with the suffocating grip of the norms-enforced reactionary spell
that the industry can’t seem to shake. One common consensus is that Kael’s work embodies an
entirely new vision and vitality for the world of cinema because she changed the nature of movie
criticism from an economy of social rules to an art form. I think this assessment is both right and
wrong. What Kael actually represents is a super-charged, public-facing return to form. I’m not
speaking on the history of cinema in this instance; I’m speaking on the history of criticism.
Pauline Kael is a representation of the personally pure, simple style of Samuel Pepys, fused with
the revolutionary fangs of 1960s America. Together, this creates something entirely new, but
entirely familiar on a primal level.
One of the foundational works I’ll be using to address this evolutionary issue presented
by the rise of the algorithm is I Lost It At The Movies, a series of essays about film written by
Pauline Kael between the years 1954 and 1965. When taking a historical view of modern cinema
criticism, Kael’s combination of depth and candor still resonates. I view the philosophy of
Pauline Kael as a necessary framework to adhere to in my evaluations of the cinema criticism

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ecosystem. Kael’s perspective on the cinema ecosystem is based on the premise that criticism
itself is meant to be an art and not a science. Kael offers a unique approach to the state of film
criticism, suggesting that the erosion of nuance from the analysis of films is antithetical to what
the process of movie reviewing ought to be.
In her 1961 essay “Commitment and the Straitjacket,” Kael aptly speaks about trends,
noting that even critics are not immune. More specifically, she questions the dominant criticism
styles present in mainstream cinema-related publications like Sight & Sound. “The tired
businessman doesn’t want to get involved in the work or to care about it – it’s just supposed to
aid his digestion. But suppose the play or the film tells you why your stomach is sour – or excites
or upsets you so that you can’t rest easily that night. Well, most critics, wanting to keep you just
as you are… will caution you against it” (Kael, 2012, p. 70). While Kael is mostly focused on the
criticism style of Sight & Sound, her questioning of the commodification of art criticism carries
greater implications that resonate even now. The critics’ artistic desire to challenge who they are
sharing their critiques with is still, and might always be, directly at odds with the corporate desire
to cater to the sensibilities of the audience. Today, there are more sources of criticism than there
were in 1961, but the pressure to curate a piece of criticism is even greater now.
Collective interest in a single cinematic work has eroded due to the development of
communities controlled by the audience, and not by the studios. Now the consumer exists in their
own media web that can and is being targeted by the products and philosophies that their social
media activities align with. If a piece of cinema challenges that notion, the consumer has the
option to elect not to engage with that work anymore. Or, more intensely, build a collective with
others to push against the art with a reactionary criticism campaign. It is easier to pander than it
is to challenge. The very notion of a “target audience” complicates the existence of criticism

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because, in being in art, it is not immune from becoming just another repeated voice within the
echo chambers of those exposed to it. This is not to say critics who appreciate a challenge don’t
exist, but they exist in an algorithmic bubble, whether they wish to or not.
Criticism’s Modern Languish
Sometimes, this kind of social catering is even incentivized by modern publications. The
tendency to prepare a critical viewpoint before engaging with the content has not gone away and
has become even more intense. In the August 29, 2023 episode of Into It: A Vulture Podcast,
host Sam Sanders conducted an interview with essayist Brandon Taylor about his newest novel,
The Late Americans. At first, the conversation takes on the identity of what one would expect
from an interview with a prolific author. They speak of the characters, themes, and setting.
Toward the end of the discussion, the topic shifts to the nature of book criticism.
This shift was sparked by a negative Slate review of The Late Americans, claiming that
the primary flaw of the book is that the language does not match the candor of Brandon Taylor’s
tweets. Sanders alludes to the unchecked control that Goodreads gives to readers. (Note that
Elizabeth Gilbert’s cancellation of her new novel before it was even published due to “review
bombing” had recently happened.) Also discussed is how the Internet has increased the
accessibility of criticism as an art to anyone who has access, and how the expectations for
creators have shifted thanks to the communicative immediacy of social media. “Before, I was
only participating as a person who read books and sort of also was hoping to write them. Then I
became a person who reviewed books in legacy publications and front-facing venues and… I do
think that because of the way the Internet has reshaped media there is a governing ethos of
argument-driven writing… it does feel like there is a renewed emphasis on it to the point that the
argument doesn't even come after the book has been read and engaged with, but the argument

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has to come first and then you read the book with that lens. That to me is so contrary to how I
was taught to read” (Sanders & Taylor, 2023). Multiple forces feed into the issue within criticism
that Taylor is speaking on, and these are not limited to the realm of book criticism.

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Chapter Four: Criticism as a Rotting Tomato
Enter a new wave of criticism that took hold with a vengeance: Rotten Tomatoes. This
site, founded in 1998 by web designers Senh Duong, Patrick Lee, and Stephen Wang began as a
simple hobby. A movie lover, Duong would prowl the internet for reviews of films, sampling
different criticisms to determine what was worth watching. Eventually, he realized this digging
would be easier if the reviews were all aggregated in one space. That space became Rotten
Tomatoes (Lazarus, 2000). On its face, the aggregation of movie reviews seems like a
convenient barometer of quality, especially for audiences. For critics, artists, and marketers, this
numbers game has become a suffocating force on the evolution of art and criticism.
In September 2023, Lane Brown and Luke Winkie published a piece in the entertainment
news magazine Vulture that places Rotten Tomatoes under a critical microscope. The article
describes how Bunker 15, a movie marketing firm, found a way to game the Tomatometer. The
Tomatometer is the primary formula used to determine the quality of a film through a loose
aggregation and averaging of reviews. During the 2018-2019 movie season, Bunker 15
systematically approached numerous Rotten Tomatoes-approved critics, enticing them to review
their client’s film, Ophelia. At first, this doesn’t seem like an unusual ask. However, Rotten
Tomatoes operates using the power of aggregation. Its pool of approved critics review and score
the movies they watch, and it is averaged into a comprehensive Tomatometer score, with any
film scoring above 60% becoming “fresh” and any film below that range designated as “rotten.”
Ophelia was sitting at 46% in 2018 after 13 early screened critic reviews.
From a publicity standpoint, this was perceived as a mark of death for the film, which
was still in search of a distributor after its Sundance Film Festival premiere. Realizing that this
low score could be changed with more positive reviews, Bunker 15 reached out to several

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obscure, often self-published critics to increase the number of positive reviews. “In another break
from standard practice, several critics say, Bunker 15 pays them $50 or more for each review”
(Brown, 2023). The result of this campaign increased the number of Ophelia’s reviews by eight,
driving up the film’s score to 62%, placing it in the “fresh” threshold. Shortly after, IFC Films
acquired Ophelia for US distribution.
The fact that Bunker 15 was able to pull off this criticism heist indicates that there is a
vital flaw in Rotten Tomatoes’ aggregation methodology. How could such an influential force in
the movie industry allow this kind of manipulation to occur on their platform? More importantly,
what cultural forces would drive a movie marketing company to pay off reviewers to actively
manipulate a film’s initial Rotten Tomatoes score? Aren’t there more creative ways to popularize
and generate interest in an artistic work?
I think there are, but the score on the Tomatometer has become such a dominating
presence in the film industry that it alone becomes an arbiter of preemptive judgment. “The site
was conceived in the early days of the web as a Hot or Not for movies. Now, it can make or
break them – with implications for how films are perceived, released, marketed, and possibly
even green-lit” (Brown, 2023). With the Tomatometer score impacting the stakes of whether a
film gets a cursory glance from audiences and distributors alike, of course the staff at Bunker 15
is going to do everything in their power to make sure the score is above 60%. The situation is
such that gaming the Tomatometer is a necessary evil for studios. The Tomatometer itself
directly contributes to the virus that is preemptive criticism, yet it has become the dominant
metric and marketing tool for judging artistic quality. It has taken the unique analysis of the critic
and erased it, reducing every individual, complex review to a fraction of a highly manipulatable
percentage that can determine the entire life cycle of a film. Aggregating reviews in itself

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muddies the perception of the quality of art in the name of convenience. “The role of the critic is
to help people see what is in the work, what is in it that shouldn’t be, what is not in it that could
be” (Kael, 2012, p. 308). The Tomatometer has replaced the critical artistic guide with a
grotesque chimera of underseen thoughts, distilled into a numerical value: and that smells pretty
rotten to me. That said, we live in the age of the internet. While Rotten Tomatoes has filled the
“Siskel and Ebert” role, its influence on movie-making industry practices is not equivalently
impactful on the theatergoing public, who now has an increased cultural autonomy. The average
audience member can seek out criticisms that suit their interests and genre preferences.

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Chapter Five: Criticism as a Cultural Whip
However, not even the realm of modern guerrilla criticism is immune from the pull of
numerization. Additionally, the problem of preemptive criticism is even more intense, and
inherently encouraged by the algorithms that curate the echo chambers of radical online thought.
“There is, in any art, a tendency to turn one’s own preferences into a monomaniac theory; in film
criticism, the more confused and single-minded and dedicated (to untenable propositions) the
theorist is, the more likely he is to be regarded as serious and important and “deep” – in contrast
to the relaxed men of good sense whose pluralistic approaches can be disregarded as not
fundamental enough” (Kael, 2012, p. 271). One of the dominant entities in the guerrilla cinema
criticism space operates as a combination of both the cold systematizing of the critical spirit and
the dangerously flawed cultural specter of preemptive judgment. I am speaking of CinemaSins.
The Road To CinemaSins
Before diving into defining what CinemaSins even is, we need to revisit the ghost of
reactionary criticism. More specifically, we need to travel back to the 1970s era of cinema. At
this point, three very distinct ideological forces are taking up space in the criticism rung of the
film industry. The first is the criticism of authority. This is the criticism that quietly enforces
structural discrimination. It is still around, but this decade is where it is at its weakest point.
Next, there is Kaelic criticism. This is what is currently thriving on a national, professional scale.
This is the period when Kael is writing for The New Yorker. But this ‘70s era of cinema in
America is the era where huge, expensive, rehearsed studio productions are far and few between.
In between those betweens, the theaters are showing the works of the experimental, the
independent, and the foreign filmmakers.

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There is an entire counterculture that interacts with and is inspired by the rustic charm of
these cheaply made, unapologetically exploitative works of cinema. But I am not talking about
Quentin Tarantino and his ilk, who recognize and proselytize the primal power of exploitative
cinematic choices. They were also reading Kael. I’m talking about the audiences who treat the
cheap B-movie like the clumsily made sideshow that it is. I’m talking about a criticism that
focuses on the play of punishment and finds a giddy pleasure in the acknowledgment of a film’s
misgivings. I’m talking about the people who attended the drive-ins during their decline: the
connoisseurs of laughing at trash. Traditionally, cheaply made B and C films are often beyond
critique. What is there to say about a film where the appeal isn’t the story at all but instead is the
giant killer ant? It is absolutely impossible to put a giant killer ant within a proper, critically
analyzed sociopolitical context.
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Well, almost impossible. By the late 1980s, criticism found a way. That way took the
form of a small television show with a dedicated cult following. Mystery Science Theater 3000
was a show that sprung up on November 24, 1988. This show took its ideological cues, possibly
unintentionally, from the postmodernist art movement. The plot? Joel Robinson is a custodian
who is shot into space and forced to watch bad movies as a sick and twisted subject of an
experiment testing the impact of bad movies on the human psyche. To maintain his sanity and
fight back against his overlords, Joel must do the only thing that he’s able to do: make fun of the
films (Holtzclaw, 2010, p. 181).
Considering the immense number of poorly made and low-quality films that exist at this
point, this is a genius premise. Mystery Science Theater 3000 can be credited with
commercializing an entirely different and novel form of criticism. The postmodernist critic

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invites the audience to watch as they criticize. In this style, the criticism itself becomes the
presentation. This explicit awareness of the self as a participant and even a performer provides a
brand-new layer and flavor to what is considered criticism. This style would go on to inspire a
particular imitator that not only distorts the purpose of this new form but creates a much more
insidious cinematic reality in its bastardization of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 formula.
Enter CinemaSins.
CinemaSins
Since its founding on YouTube in 2012, CinemaSins has grown into a powerhouse of
critical influence in the criticism space. As of today, the YouTube channel has over 9 million
subscribers and several offshoots (CinemaSins, 2023). What the channel specializes in and is
most famous for is its “Everything Wrong With” series of film criticism videos. The goal of
these videos is to act as equal parts entertainment and criticism, just like Mystery Science
Theater 3000. A CinemaSins video is an implicit acknowledgment of criticism as an art that
serves to entertain and inform an audience, right?
Unfortunately, these videos follow a strict and easily replicated format. Every thumbnail
is a still from a film with a caption that reads “Everything Wrong with ______ in ______
minutes.” They immediately begin with a reiteration of this image and word pairing, and then the
tear-down starts. The snarky narrator rambles off perceived flaw after perceived flaw at the pace
of a bullet. A small ping rattles after every point of “criticism” is made: some points take a more
serious stance, while others operate as attempts at humor. A counter sits in an upper corner of the
screen, increasing by one for every “Cinema Sin” committed with absolutely no sense for or
explanation of the methodology used to determine what counts as “Cinema Sinful.”

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From that description alone, one can see how CinemaSins is the fusion of the rushed
numerization of critical perspectives and the expected-but-flawed preemptive judgment trend.
The key, insidious difference here is that this is shared as art in itself to millions of potential
viewers twice a week. No time is allotted for dissection and contemplation in a CinemaSins
presentation. At best, this is the criticism equivalent of paint-by-numbers. At worst? It is one of
the most dangerous contributors to the decay of criticism as an art.
The CinemaSins Resistance
The primary criticism of CinemaSins is that it has become an enigma that dilutes the
beauty of criticism to form a cheap style of entertainment and that the way the organization has
gained and maintained relevance in the cinematic space has been by actively abusing the
YouTube algorithm’s tendencies to its advantage. Some of the common strategies it uses are
releasing new entries in the “Everything Wrong With” series of videos in anticipation of
upcoming wide releases of Hollywood movies. Additionally, including the number of minutes in
the video in the title has helped CinemaSins’ SEO (bobvids, 2017).

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Figure 1: A screenshot from the CinemaSins YouTube channel, found under the "Videos" tab.
The CinemaSins ecosystem has become so large that it has spawned an anti-CinemaSins
ecosystem, creating a microcosm of the grander societal feud over who gets to control the
definition of reality. The existence and massive success of CinemaSins in the YouTube
environment proves that even within spaces that aren’t directly touched by industry forces,
depth, meaning, and insight cannot compete with the immediate draw of Pavlovian convenience.
In the space where film criticism ought to be in its most creative, most individualistic form, it is
still reduced to a number, and the philosophies fueling it are just as, if not more prone to, the
specter of preemptive judgment within echo chambers.
The decisions that the CinemaSins creators took upon themselves to make in the name of
maintaining a form of internet relevance are disgraceful to the art of criticism. This is proven
frighteningly true when the social mechanics of the CinemaSins operation are directly compared

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with the social mechanics of Mystery Science Theater 3000’s postmodernist cinema criticism.
The first offense that needs to be addressed is the actions taken by the orchestrators of
CinemaSins to remain competitively relevant in YouTube’s algorithm.
Picking the most recent films to discuss on a social media platform makes a lot of sense if
your goal is to draw attention and stay relevant. It’s standard practice for many organizations. In
the case of CinemaSins, this becomes a major cultural boon. Mystery Science Theater 3000 was
executed with the wisdom that movies have a range of quality. Knowing this, the films on the
program are curated not based on relevancy to the general public, but the opposite. Mystery
Science Theater movies are movies that in many cases, never contained any semblance of
cultural relevance to the public conscience. Genuine harm cannot be inflicted on something that
might as well have never existed. CinemaSins, in its greed, shamelessly and lazily applies its
vitriolic reaction formula to every current, culturally relevant piece of cinematic work it can fit
into a twice-a-week schedule. The actions of Mystery Science Theater 3000 send the message
that a specific subset of films is horrible. The ambulance-chasing energy that CinemaSins brings
into its endeavors implies that all of today’s films are horrible because of their desperation to
prioritize the visibility of their brand over the consequences of their criticism.
The second crucial difference between the postmodernist criticism styles is that
CinemaSins lacks an identity and a purpose other than the furthering of its own media empire
ambitions. The magic of Mystery Science Theater 3000 lies in an acknowledgment and selfawareness that the activity of criticism Joel Robinson must engage in is part reactionary, part
performance. Within the fiction of the show, a man is trapped, and he is trying to escape with his
sanity intact. This inherent need fuels the metatextual interaction with the media he is being
forced to consume. In any other circumstance, he wouldn’t know about or even care to seek out

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the films that are being put in front of him. Part of the humor is the fact that he must endure the
mediocre films. This element of fiction in itself helps Mystery Science Theater 3000 maintain an
undercurrent of love. Love for movies. Love for the craft of making art. It is not an objectively
necessary addition; it is an artful one. The fictional framework operates in a way that transforms
the act of criticism into an art as Pauline Kael would describe it. The reaction has a purpose.
The reactionary postmodern criticism enacted by CinemaSins has a framework that lacks
specificity and gamifies the art of criticism to the point of meaninglessness. The entire operation
has become so rote that all senses of individuality, all senses of perspective, and all senses of
artistry become mechanized, soulless, and utterly loveless. This is even more insidious than the
criticism of established authority that originated with the criticisms made during Hollywood’s
transition from silence to sound. That was an establishment of the disagreeable social norms and
perspectives that still haunt the industry. CinemaSins represents an establishment of the entirely
impersonal, coldly scientific, unreasonably desperate appeals to algorithmic forces that know
nothing of the beauty or the ugliness of art. The callous codification of criticism in this way is
entirely antithetical to every iteration of criticism that has existed in the entirety of human
history. This is not only plainly unacceptable: it’s a sacrilege.
Case Study – Avatar: The Way of Water
To fully understand the mechanics of CinemaSins’ film criticism codification, I will
analyze their “analysis” of the recent James Cameron-directed blockbuster, Avatar: The Way of
Water. Per usual, the title of the video is “Everything Wrong With Avatar The Way of Water in
25 Minutes or Less." The video itself has over 800,000 views. It was published on November 28,
2023, almost a year after the movie premiered in December of 2022. The video opens with an
immediate, snarky criticism of James Cameron for the gap between the original film and its

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sequel. This is counted as a criticism of the film even though it has nothing to do with the content
of the film. The counter at the top dings. Immediately after that, the film is criticized for
reintroducing the setting.
Not even a minute has passed in the video, and the first two “criticisms” are directly in
conflict with each other. James Cameron was already criticized for waiting too long to release a
sequel, and now reintroducing the setting to the audience after the gap is, somehow, also wrong?
The counter at the top dings again, and it is clear the viewer isn’t supposed to have the time to
point out any inconsistencies. The video proper doesn’t start until 38 seconds after the
advertisements, and it contradicts itself within 15 seconds. This is a 26-minute video, and by the
end of the lazily crafted attempt at humor and/or criticism, Avatar: The Way of Water is saddled
with 170 Cinema Sins. I’ve yet to see a single critic or comedian produce 170 things to even say
about a single topic, let alone tell that many jokes or make that many criticisms of a single work.
In Mystery Science Theater 3000, flaws are found by an actual viewing of the film and the
reactions inspired by the experience.
In CinemaSins, the goal is to tear down as many aspects of the art as possible, regardless
of whether such criticisms are warranted, relevant, or logical. It is the destruction of art as
entertainment. Other sins Avatar: The Way of Water allegedly commits include: the use of
narration, the sea not having ocean pollution, and the inclusion of a visual effect. Only the
second of these criticisms has an explanation, and that explanation is a cold, cynical judgment
that does not consider the world of the film. A fictional setting not being Earth is not a flaw, it is
the definition of a fictional setting. The formula is the same every time, and the spirit of criticism
is suffering from this refusal to genuinely engage with art.

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Chapter Six: Criticism as a Critic Killer
Now, this deadly cultural combination of algorithm and criticism has not only been
recognized by the anti-CinemaSins crowd but by current-day establishment cultural critics as
well. In March of 2023, after over two decades of working as the dominant film critic at the New
York Times, A.O. Scott departed from that role. As it turns out, the grievances of the antiCinemaSins community are the same grievances that caused Scott to exit the world of cinema
criticism: the same grievances that express how art criticism itself has become technologically
tailored and siloed. Like A.O. Scott, the anti-CinemaSins mentality toward the simplification of
the art of criticism to draw eyes without drawing conclusions is to vigorously fight it. “I’d
always thought that thinking, or criticism, or whatever we’re calling it, would be strong enough
to withstand the forces of demagoguery and ignorance and stupidity… It’s a draw, you can fight
it to a draw.” (Scott & Maron, 2021). So, let’s take a closer look at the downfall of A.O. Scott.
The Decaying of A.O. Scott
The beginning of the end for Scott began in 2012 when he wrote the one review that
would place a public target on his back in the years to come. This review was of Marvel’s The
Avengers. As a whole, the review did not completely disparage every element of the blockbuster.
It did include lines like “The light, amusing bits cannot overcome the grinding, hectic emptiness,
the bloated cynicism that is less a shortcoming of this particular film than a feature of the genre”
(Scott, 2012). Clearly, A.O. Scott already had reservations regarding the ambitions of the Marvel
Cinematic Universe, which had been operating under the Walt Disney Pictures umbrella for two
years at that point. It was this review that inspired Samuel L. Jackson to personally insult Scott
on Twitter, giving the entire Marvel fandom a name to revile and a “forever war” to fight. Scott’s
very first encounter with the culture of fandom was a declaration of war, and this moment would

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serve as a catalyst for an ongoing wariness and distaste for the culture of fandom that he would
carry with him for the final decade of his film critic career. Even in his self-exit interview, he
finds himself issuing a ghostly warning about what he believes to be the “fascistic” power of
fandom. “Fan culture is rooted in conformity, obedience, group identity and mob behavior, and
its rise mirrors and models the spread of intolerant, authoritarian, aggressive tendencies in our
politics and our communal life” (Scott, 2023).
The key takeaway from all of this is that this seasoned critic, in attempting to pick a fight
with the cultural shift toward homogenous, obedient preemptive judgment, lost that fight because
he failed to realize how his war against “fandom” only served to add yet another silo for the
algorithmic forces to exploit. The idea that this significant shift in cinema criticism culture is
something that must be “fought” is what did him in. This is because the oversimplification and
even demonizing of “those other people” who consume art differently also falls directly into the
trap of preemptive judgment. A.O. Scott recognizes the same ideological conundrum that fuels
our societal preemptive judgment machines. However, what is baffling about this particular
assessment is how limited his perception is regarding the scope of the impulse. Scott unfairly
condenses the entirety of the judgment issue to a single audience subgroup that is known to enjoy
a single subgenre of blockbuster movie. He then only looks partially inward regarding the
Hollywood establishment’s taste for preemptive judgment: admitting to how said impulses have
until recently, mostly excluded the creative works of marginalized identities. Is this not the same
fascistic impulse that he recognized within the culture of fandom that operates in the Hollywood
circles Scott is familiar with? Does this not prove that the Hollywood industry carries some of
the same cultural baggage?

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It is also important to note that another major reason behind A.O. Scott’s resignation
from cinema criticism was his feeling of displacement in the face of the mathematization of
movie recommendation. “If you don’t pick it, they’ll pick it for you, and that encourages a kind
of passivity… When movies were a little harder to see, it meant something” (Barbaro & Scott,
2023). This further proves the fact that the modern critic struggles to compete with the
convenience of algorithmic comfort. That aside, I believe that Scott’s resignation from cinema
criticism is largely a result of the mentality he chose to adhere to when confronted with the
Marvel explosion. Framing cultural change itself as a “fight” or a “war” is a self-fulfilling
prophecy. One cannot be certain if A.O. Scott recognized this fact at the very end, but had he
chosen to be an observer of the shift and not a warrior fighting a tidal wave, I believe Scott’s
tenure as a cinema critic would have continued into the now.

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Chapter Seven: Case Study - Barbie
Now we are left with one very pressing question: what happens when all of the forces of
criticism that cannot be defined as artful converge into a single major moment? What are we to
make of the $1.36 billion, female-directed unquestionable smash hit of the year 2023: Barbie?
(Rubin, 2023). Well, in the absence of the insights and criticisms that can inspire a genuine
understanding and personally affecting assessment of this economic juggernaut of a film… We
make a mess. A huge mess. The Barbie movie is a cultural artifact that presents only an illusion
of unification. The variety of audience reactions all together perfectly demonstrates how in the
absence of a culture that encourages discerning individual expression, our society has developed
deep, complex ideological silos.
Barbie and Hollywood Expectation
The massive marketing campaign of Barbie involved a variety of likely and unlikely
corporate partnerships. Despite its unquestionable success, the nature of Barbie’s marketing fails
to challenge the strange rulesets put in place by the critics of the talkies at sound’s origin point.
Traditional Barbie herself is a controversial symbol of ubiquity. Is it okay to like Barbie? Is it
okay to not like Barbie? What happened to the conversation surrounding the Barbie movie’s
diverse casting? Was it actually a conversation to begin with, or was it just a smaller-sized
version of the same ghost of reactionary criticism that happened to John Boyega in The Force
Awakens? It is difficult to tell. On one hand, Issa Rae does receive positive coverage describing
how people call her “President Barbie” when she walks down the street (Pina, 2023). On the
other hand, Ryan Gosling’s rehearsal of “I’m Just Ken” is the post-Barbie marketing artifact that
achieved virality, collecting over five million views on YouTube (Shanfeld, 2023). Is this just
coincidental, or is the ghost of the talkie critic injecting the bias of old expectations? Back in the

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summer of 2023 Oliver Stone said in what I imagine to be a deep, masculine voice of an earlytalkies actor that Ryan Gosling was “wasting his time” dancing around in Barbie. That was the
unspoken criticism talking. But then renowned director Oliver Stone watched the movie and
issued an apology right after (McClintock, 2024). Is this apology Oliver Stone giving a bizarre,
paternal stamp of approval, or did Barbie successfully conduct the actions of a female
Ghostbuster? It is impossible to tell. It is a paradox. Preemptive, faux-authoritative reactionary
criticism is a paradox now.
Barbie and The Flames of Fandom
Additionally, because this is a paradox, our society also has absolutely no idea what to
make of the decisions of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who gave Barbie
eight nominations including Best Picture. The adamant fans of Barbie truly believe they know
what to make of it because they see the ghost of the talkies clear as day. How come? Ryan
Gosling received a supporting actor nomination while Margot Robbie did not receive a
nomination for Best Actress, nor did Greta Gerwig receive a nomination for Best Director
(“Oscars Nominations,” 2024). The fierce fandom points at the ghost of old reactionary criticism.
Others take the A.O. Scott approach: lamenting the ravenous outrage without acknowledging the
historical significance of unspoken leftover Hollywood norms. Still, others point their fingers at
the enraged Barbie fans for the cruel way they treat or disregard the other, more historically
significant nominees that don’t fit the visual demographic of what a Best Actress nominee would
look like in 1930.
The icing on this disastrous cake is the role of the algorithm. It is collecting and looping
and recodifying the patterns and paradoxes that plague the entire Barbie conversation, turning
our internet into an endless looping pink feminist purgatory. You can take yourself out of the

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loop, but it is still looping and trapping someone, somewhere. This is not a society of
polarization. We are most definitely all unified. Unified… by miscommunication. Justified… in
our predictably cherry-picked perspectives.

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Chapter Eight: Criticism as Human Connection
“In a recent interview, Quentin Tarantino, whose next film is reportedly called The Movie
Critic, admitted he no longer reads critics’ work. ‘Today, I don’t know anyone,’ he said (in a
translation of his remarks, first published in French). ‘I’m told, ‘Manohla Dargis, she’s
excellent.’ But when I ask what are the three movies she loved and the three she hated in the last
few years, no one can answer me. Because they don’t care!’” (Brown, 2023).
So far, we have established the details of how the state of film criticism has deteriorated
from the person-focused practice it used to be. We have also drawn a connection to the increased
accessibility for the masses to engage with art as critics. Additionally, we have brought attention
to the ways a culture of technological convenience and preemptive judgment have mathematized
the human spirit when it comes to the question of how audiences receive recommendations in
both the establishment and guerrilla criticism realms. But what did Tarantino mean when he said
“Today, I don’t know anyone?” What was criticism like when he was making a name for
himself? Fortunately, in November of 2022, Tarantino published Cinema Speculation, a series of
movie reviews that double as personal, autobiographical meditations on the history of cinema as
he experienced it. In it, he includes a manifold of personal thoughts and insightful reflections on
his relationships with movie critics: people he distinctly remembers by name.
The Glory Days of Criticism
The most interesting personal critic relationship Tarantino describes is with a person
who, in any description, could be accurately described as an arch-nemesis. This nemesis is
Kenny Turan, who was working at the Los Angeles Times during Tarantino’s earlier years as a
filmmaker. His reviews of Tarantino’s works were never favorable in a particularly targeted way.
Turan was a man with a vendetta against everything Tarantino represents as a filmmaker. This

39
creative enmity ran so deep that even in Turan’s unrelated essays, Tarantino would always be
brought up as an example of what kind of work is “ruining” cinema. At first, the intensely
antagonistic nature of this professional relationship might be seen as an argument against
amplifying the human element of cinema criticism. Turan’s vendetta could also be read as a
textbook example of preemptive judgment. However, even that impulse, while it was there for
this particular relationship, became nullified by the very human interactions between them.
“When you share an antagonism with one critic for as long as Kenny and me, you end up having
a strange personal connection with each other. The few times we bumped into each other at an
event, we’ve shared a moment of professional mutual rejection that bordered on intimacy”
(Tarantino, 2022, p. 142). This proves that no matter how strong a potential preemptive judgment
may be, the critic must be an identifiable entity. One cannot have an intimate relationship of any
kind with an aggregation of thoughts wrapped in tomato skin. One shouldn’t. The tomato will
always win. Even when the critic is seen as the enemy of specific artists, they are engaging in an
art of their own. Denying them that truth is denying human connection and denying human
connection leads to social discord.
It is also important to note that Tarantino’s attachment to the critics of old is not limited
to his nemesis. He demonstrates a playful familiarity with a whole rogues’ gallery of critics. He
reminisces about Pauline Kael and her fandom of “Paulettes.” He groans about how Charles
Champlin treated new movies like he was selling used cars. He remembers eating in the
company of Manhola Dargis and John Powers and making fun of Sheila Benson at those same
parties. Yes, the power of face-to-face connection may seem old hat in a 2020s world, but
looking at art and responding to it is one of the most human things a person can do. Criticism is
an art in itself, and every critic is an artist with a soul who deserves more than to be aggregated.

40
The Top-Form Critic
Out of all of the critics Tarantino familiarized himself with, his favorite and choice for
most impactful was Kevin Thomas. He was a second-string critic at the Los Angeles Times, and
he is viewed so fondly by Tarantino that the chapter he is celebrated in is titled “Second-String
Samurai.” Being second-string, Thomas’s role was to look at smaller movies and review them.
What Tarantino describes as his best quality is his boundless generosity and love of his work.
Thomas’ enthusiasm for film radiated off the page.
Unlike the common and not entirely inaccurate cliché of the “critic who ruins careers,”
Thomas was known for starting them. Agents and executives used Thomas’s reviews as a
guidepost for where to find and acquire capable new talent. “The art of the critic is to transmit
his knowledge of and enthusiasm for art to others” (Kael, 2012, p. 308). Kevin Thomas is
revered as a master of this transference, and I believe that is naturally what a critic hopes to do. I
also believe there is no shortage of Kevin Thomases out there. They don’t have the institutional
power they ought to: operating outside of institutional spaces, reviewing movies no one has ever
heard of. I believe the industry must embrace them. Tarantino even goes out of his way to
highlight some of his favorite Kevin Thomas reviews of exploitation films. “Malibu High is
often awkward and crude yet too awkwardly compelling to be dismissed as the trash it would
seem to clearly be… Malibu High is a seedy, sleazy little gem best appreciated by cineastes”
(Tarantino, 2022, p. 154). This conclusion comes at the end of a long, and detailed analysis of
the psyche of the protagonist for a film that was made for a meager $100,000. When Tarantino
went out to see the movie on his own, he was similarly moved. That is what critics are capable of
and ought to be their ultimate objective: helping audiences experience as they do with a
generosity of spirit and a keen eye.

41
Chapter Nine: Criticism as a Revolution
So how do we make this fake math a real art again? How do we temper the violence of
preemptive judgment and connect on a human level? First, we need to kill aggregation.
Aggregated review scores need to die, arguably in all creative spaces, but especially in film.
Now, I’m not saying get rid of point and star systems that go with movie reviews; I’m saying get
rid of the aggregation model. It actively dehumanizes and obscures the spirit of individual
perspective. It erases the “why” and creates a lie. If a movie score is the result of the thoughts of
a variable number of unidentifiable any-bodies, it becomes truly meaningful to nobody: Adding
wasteful fear, panic, and pressure to the creators and marketers. The aggregation game drives
Bunker 15s to bribery. It scares HBO’s CEO into drafting a small army of fake Twitter accounts
to attack television critics (Roundtree, 2023).
In combination with this, there needs to be a professional push for broadening the identity
of the “movie review” beat. In the era where everyone is a critic, there is also an abundance of
specialists who deserve to be acknowledged for their specialties in a professional capacity. A
cursory search for the term “horror movie” in Apple Podcasts brought up 25 results alone. The
public is out there connecting over the movies they share and even exercising the courtesy to be
specific about the kinds of films they enjoy, and yet the criticism industry still has not adapted to
the cultural catering dictated by algorithms. We expect a fact check to be a suitable replacement
for what is supposed to be a reality check, and in doing that, disregard the lived experience and
minimize the “art” of criticism. A.O. Scott’s fatal flaw was that he truly believed his 20 years of
experience alone granted him the eyes to “see through.” He was determined to fight like hell
against what he perceived as a movement toward anti-intellectualism when the notion of a
“fight” in itself tends not to imply an intellectual approach.

42
In an era where the vastness and variety of artistic interests operate in an algorithmically
deterministic media landscape, universal value as a concept needs to be reimagined. The
impression that the movie establishment is receiving is that intellectual challenge exists less and
less in the activity of consuming films. With that in mind, it is important to ask whether this is a
response to anti-intellectualism, or if it’s a response to the modernization of how common
interest and popularity are designed. The issue is not the erosion of intellectual challenge, it is
that navigating between curated experience and public existence has become the intellectual
challenge. When it comes to the enjoyment of art, private identity has become shared identity.
What has historically been assumed to be a working universal knowledge: as determined by
critics, has become a tapestry of targeted knowledge.
What is a cultural critic to do when culture is increasingly moving away from monolithic
judgments? Fight like hell? I don’t think so. The critic-at-large needs to accept the challenge of
existing in the in-between. The establishment critic needs to not view their eyes as above this
leveling of the critical playing field. The only way the critical analytical cinema establishment
can navigate the new algorithmic space without appearing antiquated is through the work of
discovery and the embrace of the diversity of what satisfies people, without the specter of
predetermined thought. This adjustment in philosophy needs to occur sooner rather than later
because without the critics operating in the space between, the algorithmic simplification of our
artistic value system will only serve to polarize our society even further.
Critics no longer need to be a crusader or even an adjudicator as they historically have
been… The critic needs to be reimagined as a connector and an explorer. Criticism itself needs to
appreciate the way it interacts with the siloing of human interest and engage with a generosity of
perspectives in relation to its own, just as a community of artists would. It’s not like the stakes

43
are that high: I’m just talking about movies. That said, I can’t shake the feeling that maybe the
revival of human connection through genuine curiosity starts in this space. Maybe the “Culture
War” can only be won by everyone at once. Maybe it’s time to let the tomatoes rot away, stop
counting sins for sport, and have some real conversations…
“Criticism is an art, not a science, and a critic who follows rules will fail in one of his
most important functions: perceiving what is important and original in new work and helping
others to see” (Kael, 2012, p. 295).

44
Chapter Ten: Breaking the Cycle
Living in the paradox phase of a preemptively judgmental, instantly reactive, and
repetitively blundering society seems like an impossible position for any public relations
practitioner to navigate without breaking a few eggs. That’s because it is. The algorithm isn’t
going anywhere anytime soon it seems, nor is the slippery specter of the improperly reactionary
past. These two forces are in cahoots, conveniently obscuring each other and wreaking havoc on
the societal psyche. However, here are three pieces of advice that I think can be applied to break
paradoxical hate spells…
Ask questions. Even if you don’t want to. Even if you think you already know the answer
you will receive. Ask them from a genuine place of curiosity. Make them personal. The most
powerful thing about a well-timed question is that it forces the recipient to do the thing that
makes us all uniquely human… to think.
Stop making sense. The algorithms that fuel the hate cycles of society thrive off of the
little logical steps that lead to expected collective conclusions. If you’re struggling to break your
client out of a cyclical round of societal attacks fueled by the algorithm, you need to break the
algorithm, not the people trapped in it. How do you do that? Think of the stupidest thing you
could possibly say that is ultimately completely benign and go for it. Derailment can be good,
and distraction provides adequate space for a mental reset.
Remember you are an artist. Science demands conclusions. Art demands a journey. A
critical analysis is not a clinical analysis, even when it’s backed by data. The easiest way to
remain trapped in a paradoxical cycle of reactive judgment is to believe there is a single correct
conclusion to be drawn. Criticism is an art. PR is an art. Speak artfully. Stay curious. Inspire
others to do the same. The solution to our polarization may only be a few good questions away.

45
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract Film criticism is commonly understood as the art of viewing films and interpreting them within the context of their impact on both the individual level and as cultural phenomena. That said, the role of criticism has changed over time under different contexts. This paper argues that with each new variation of criticism, there’s an even newer set of unforeseen consequences that impact the social fabric of communication as it relates to culture. To prove this, the potential origins of criticism will be examined as well as criticism’s multiple reinventions during the silent film, early sound, early television, and current eras. It will also address the decline of deliberative, thought-provoking criticism in an era of technological convenience and the algorithmic illusion of instant gratification. Finally, there will be a proposal of an ideal form that criticism can take, how the criticism styles of the past and present distort that ideal, and the potential ways to radically restore that ideal in resistance to the algorithmic forces that keep our social fabric disconnected.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Taylor, Rafiq (author)

Core Title Re-crafting criticism in an algorithmic world

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Public Relations and Advertising

Degree Conferral Date 2024-05

Publication Date 04/04/2024

Defense Date 04/03/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag algorithms,cinema,Communication,fandom,film criticism,film history,Hollywood,internet culture,movie critics,OAI-PMH Harvest,Pauline Kael,pop culture,public discourse

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