New Ethics For The B Word
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People don’t really read criticism anymore. I don’t blame them. Why listen to a jaded jerkoff who’s paid to watch movies or listen to records when you can hit Amazon product reviews and get the opinion of someone like you? People who pay for their entertainment and understand the value of things. No, I get it. The gap between criticism and straight up opinion has narrowed over the last two decades or so. If everyone can be heard, why would someone matter?
Well, I’ve always prided myself in doing the small things that matter. For example, I’ve been trying my hardest for the last decade not to use the B word: boring. Because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a lazy word that people use when they don’t intellectually or emotionally engage with a work of art and others constantly bail them out of using it because they enjoy using it too. Saying something is boring is usually a convention for people who don’t want to make efforts.
For better or worse, I haven’t used the B word in years. But when you do things seriously in life, you eventually realize that everything and every word has a purpose. Whether you like it or not. So, today I want to rehabilitate this word for criticism. Whether I like it or not there is a context when you can call art boring. For better or worse.
When it is not OK to call art boring
If you don’t understand it… Being entertained often means reacting to a story being told. Whether you’re relating to the protagonist’s struggle or simply creating your own narrative from the experience you’re being exposed to. Horror often functions like this: you’re deliberately not being told parts of the story, so that you fill up the blanks with your own fear. But it’s not every story’s meant to be understood and experienced in a straightforward manner.
Take David Lynch for example. The dreamlike logic is the fucking point of his movies. Part of the pleasure of watching them is figuring out what the fuck is happening and what it all means. They’re meant to engage you on a playful intellectual level. It’s not the same experience as watching Avengers : Endgame when you just have to sit and take it all in. If you’re not doing the work because you don’t think you should be doing the work, you can’t put the blame on the art.
There is more than one way to do things. Instead of calling art you don’t understand boring, you can call it difficult, challenging, frustrating or any other word that explain you have to work for it.
If it’s not meant for you…. This one is a pet peeve or mine because I was guilty of it for many years. Not everything is meant for you to enjoy or be moved by. It doesn’t mean you can’t be. But it’s going to require you to contextualize a work of art in order to appreciate it and familiarize yourself with that context. Occidental art got us used to four minutes songs, two hours-long movies, and three hundred pages novels. Guess what? Other formats exist.
For several years I was the world’s greatest hater of the band Radiohead. I did not fucking get it and for the love of everything beautiful, I did not see what was the beauty in it. But guess what? A critic I’ve read recently claims the beauty of Radiohead lies not in seeing, but in having seen. It made a lot of fucking sense to me. Some art, you don’t get until you understand the world differently. Until you’ve broadened up your outlook on life enough.
Some things take time, effort and experience to appreciate. Instead of calling art that isn’t tailored toyour liking boring, you can call it slow, different, idiosyncratic, impenetrable or any word that applies to your own shortcoming rather than the artists.
When it’s OK to call art boring
If it’s being shamelessly derivative… If you’re watching a movie or reading a novel for the first time and you know exactly where this is going, it’s a problem. You know what I mean: if you know that the beautiful woman is going to eventually double cross the brooding antihero and you know exactly when it’s going to happen, a work of art is not filling its promise to tell you a story. It’s using a story you already know to trick you into appreciating it.
There are instances where it is OK. Detective novels all use the same format, but they rely on complex and original characters in order to provide a unique point of view. A detective novel written in 2021 that features a wisecracking, alcoholic dick without proper context is gimmicky and derivative. The movie The Last Days of American Crime is a good example of art that is shamelessly derivative. There are sexy people committing a heist for moral reasons.
That’s it. I’m sure you’ve heard that one before.
That is why a lot of art fails to engage. Because it has no personal emotion invested in it. It just relies on tropes other people have created.
If it doesn’t renew itself with original ideas… This one is about movie or book franchise more than it is about standalone work. It doesn’t really concern recording artists, because the format of what they do is more accessible. I listen to a Motörhead song when I want to feel a certain way. I don’t watch the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe when I want to feel a certain way. The only reason I’d put myself through it would be that I’d crave entertainment.
The biggest culprit of that would be the Star Wars franchise, which I gave up halfway through its contemporary run. The Force Awakens was literally a retelling of the first Star Wars. Rogue One (while being good) again went to the well of the original trilogy. How many times can you want to live the same thing over and over again? Will you really rewatch these movies or just simply rewatch the originals because they’re associated with your good memories?
You don’t have to wallow in the same experience forever. It’s OK to call art boring when it deliberately turns its back to novelty. The important thing to remember here is that your boredom has a source: find it, name it, explain it. A work of art is never boring in and of itself unless it’s incompetent. If you can’t establish a relationship to it, there are usually reasons. Good, fruitful negative criticism is about finding these reasons and breaking them down for your readers.
