“I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.”
That may seem like an odd statement for a critic to make. We’re somehow supposed to be above everyone else, full of knowledge of every “important” piece of media from Shakespeare and Tolstoy to the Beatles and Picasso. Is my opinion less important because I don’t see Romeo And Juliet or “Bohemian Rhapsody” as the greatest works ever? That I prefer Jules Verne over H.G. Wells (although I do like The War Of The Worlds)? Or that I don’t agree with what this or that media format “should” be?
That word: “should”. It’s a word I feel is horribly misused by critics and the critical. “Should be allowed” I could deal with, or “it should be this for me to enjoy it”. However, it gets used more like “this should be what I think it should be or it isn’t art, and thus shouldn’t exist because it’s taking space away from what I think it should be”. This is the usage of a close-minded, almost snobbish if not full-on snob, perspective on what media should and shouldn’t be, which means if you want to create something that doesn’t match this criteria, regardless of the quality of the performance, writing, or talent on display, these people want nothing to do with it and will not only rob themselves of a more relaxed experience but would rob you of it as well, whether you like it or not. Let me give you the three examples I tend to see most often in discussions.
