“That’s the best song ever” “That’s the worst film ever” or “How can you like that?”
Opinions, that’s what it all eventually boils down to, whether you think something is ‘good’ or whether you believe that something is the worst thing in the world at the end of the day it’s all subjective. Reviews for films, games, books, music etc are just a single person’s viewpoint and opinion. Sure they might try to be as unbiased and objective as possible to help give a general view but I find that ridiculous, how can you look at something like…oh, off the top of my head ‘The Dark Knight’ and say that it’s a good film or that a song is bad when different people will get something different out of it. One person might enjoy blood and gore in films or a simplistic melody in a song while another will enjoy the storyline and a more complex melody, this is all down to the individual so I’ve never really understood when people have said things like The Godfather is the best film ever or just recently I watched a show which stated that Snow Patrol- Chasing Cars is the best song of the decade while Top Gear is the best TV show of the ‘Noughties’. There is no such thing as ‘best’ or ‘worse’ as it’s all subjective.
I spoke to someone earlier who grew up reading Marvel/DC Comics and watching the Batman videos through their eyes would have been completely different to somebody who had seen the batman movies for the first time. Lets say that the our Comic person says that “The movie was awful as they messed up the portrayal of a specific character and that they performed a lot of ‘out of character’ moments and the movie isn’t faithful to the source material. The newbie says that “The characters were intense and they were sucked into their personality and the story was really good”. Different people view things in different ways, it’s all a matter of perspective, so why do people insist on saying things like “Those movies sucked after the third instalment”. I’m aware that every has their own take on things but it bothers me so much that I keep hearing the statements people make as “facts” and besides, how do you measure something objectively?
Opinion (noun)- A personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty
Objectivity (noun)- Judgment based on observable phenomena and uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices
Ok so as I understand it, this makes it quite hard to review certain forms of media because very few things are quantifiable and can be looked at objectively i.e X-men 2 is longer than X-men 3, that’s being objective, you cant argue with that, we have clear defined rules about length of time so saying something such as that well it can’t be argued with, 10 is more than 9, 59 is more than 34, 133 minutes is longer than 104 minutes. You can’t convince me otherwise, don’t piss on my head then tell me it’s raining.
But this is where the problem starts, apparently the public don’t want to be told stuff like that, being told the facts of a movie, book or film isn’t consider a ‘good’ review. The public are dumb creatures that need to be told how to feel about something, because they can’t make up their own damn minds. So reviewers review and give recommendations and scores to these things yet bitch and moan about a reviewer giving a negative review about something they liked or about them not liking what is critically acclaimed or popular (Remember kids, popular =/= good but also remember that popular =/= bad either).
So we’ve established that people need reviews and critics for reasons I can only fathom as laziness (Not saying it’s a bad thing but…), so critics criticise and reviewers reviewise review and people are happy. The critics nudge the public towards ‘good’ stuff such as Ellie Gouldin, Plants vs Zombies and deter them from things like Soulja Boy Tell’em and the Twilight saga and then wars are fought over matters which neither side can possibly win and it’s always 2 sides, those who like it and those who don’t, you can’t be in the middle for some reason. This in itself is illogical because how do you define ‘like’ and ‘hate’? What if a person who ‘hates’ Twilight likes a certain chapter because Edward dies in it or something does this mean s/he likes the book albeit for different reasons in contrast to a person who ‘likes’ the book…anyway…what was I saying? Oh yes, when you say something like The Simpsons is better than Family Guy (which seems to be the general consensus in some places), that’s where we reach another problem because everyone has different perspectives on a matter which is 100% subjective.
Lets say The Simpsons has traits which I’ll label ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ while Family Guy has traits labelled as ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ and we ask people what traits they like. Person 1 says I like C’s and person 2 likes B’s so Person 2 will probably find The Simpsons better because it has B’s but Family Guy doesn’t. This doesn’t mean any one of the two is better than the other when it’s all a matter of perspective, that’s why it irritates me when people act snobbish and claim something is better than something else and state it as if it were a fact e.g “Melee is better than Brawl” “Fifa is better than Pro Evo” “Mainstream music sucks and underground is 10x better”, that’s not a fact, that’s an opinion, learn the difference people, it’s not that hard. I’m a firm believer of the belief that the only person you can speak for in this world is yourself.
I’ve also had people use the retort when I state my feelings on a particular item “yeah but lots of people like it”. SO WHAT!!! That again means nothing except maybe that it’s popular which like I said isn’t indicative for how good something is. A song sells millions and becomes the best selling record of all time, does it make it a good song? On that fact alone, the answer is no, no it doesn’t because its all based on what society deems as ‘good’ which leads nicely into morals but I think I’ll leave that for another post.
To be honest I’m stating such obvious stuff which a lot of people say they know this already and believe things are subjective as well but it just doesn’t seem to bother them as much as it does me the pointlessness of it all. The reviews, the discussions, the ratings all on these things telling you that this is good and you should buy/do/listen/play it…I’m just fed up with it all, which is why I don’t read reviews anymore and if I do, it’s just to find out what something is about rather than how it should make me feel and whether it worth giving a go.
To finish this off, let me just say that everyone should watch Sherlock Holmes if you haven’t already…it’s a good film…9/10…
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