Everyone’s always saying shit like, “Bitch if you’re watching, you’re a fan” or “If you don’t like me and still watch everything I do, you’re a fan.” Okay, sure. “Fan” can be a broad term—one that doesn’t necessarily mean blind devotion. Yet that’s precisely what many fan cabals have come to interpret their “job” as. That to critique or speak out in any way against the one they “love” is tantamount to the ultimate sin. And the same goes for anyone else who would dare to. Talk about idolatry.
This frequently levied “doctrine” that if someone is paying attention to what a certain celebrity or other public figure is doing automatically makes them a “secret” fan as opposed to just an observer or a fan who doesn’t see everything in black and white is a misguided notion. After all, to live in the world since the advent of cinema is to essentially be given no choice but to absorb mass media. And since we are absorbing it on a 24/7 basis whether we want to or not, it’s actually important to be critical of those who are given a constant microphone to say whatever they want within the lens of that media dissemination.
What’s more, criticism is exorcism. If we all just accepted what famous people did at face value without questioning it or engaging with it beyond simply the decrees of “good” or “bad,” we’d be, well, exactly where we are: in a land of dummos. Some will say to critique is to vomit one’s own “bullshit” onto everyone else. That’s a convenient way to brandish some Psych 101 rhetoric, but it’s about more than that—at least for the truly fearless critic. There are varying degrees of the critic, to be sure. And some are, let’s say, less intellectual in their approach than others. Take, for example, the form of critic that rose to prominence in the 00s with the likes of Perez Hilton via the “gossip blog.” The entire name of the game was literal branding of celebrities (in deliberately crude, childish “handwriting,” in Perez’s case) with words like the old chestnuts, “slut” or “hot mess.”
Perez a.k.a. Mario Lavendeira was the internet pioneer no one wanted, nor were they ready for. Least of all in terms of how it set off an avalanche of any “ordinary” mortal saying whatever they wanted about celebrities with “real feelings.” Yes, gone were the days of protecting the Hollywood elite from scandal. Joan Crawford certainly wouldn’t have survived in the aughts. For the new normal was thrusting the famous right into the calumny-laden fray. That was the only way to make some cash, after all. Particularly for then-relevant tabloids that could also be viewed as their own baser form of “critical theory.” Including the infamous “Stars—They’re Just Like Us!” section in Us Weekly.
Among many celebrities to weigh in on how Perez cruelly reinvented the wheel of criticism when online outlets were still “shiny and new” was Mila Kunis, who posits that, until Perez, the “whole concept of trolling really didn’t exist.” Perhaps as a direct result of this, those who don’t agree with any kind of “mean” sentiment lobbied at their celebrity of choice grew particularly uppity over time at the sight of any “nasty” words stated about their version of Jesus. Because yes, pop culture long ago usurped actual religion in the modern era (in short, John Lennon wasn’t wrong when he was misquoted as saying The Beatles were bigger than Jesus).
Perhaps precisely because of the internet, it’s an unavoidable reality that the days of more thoughtful criticism, in the vein of, say, Susan Sontag, are gone. And with the climate of “don’t say the wrong thing, therefore say nothing at all,” the potential for criticism to flourish as a field has all but disappeared—because, honestly, who wants to deal with the public flogging that goes hand in hand with being a critic (even if a middling, unknown, unpaid one)? “Public flogging” here usually meaning derisive comments about how the writer of the piece is full-stop trash, with no actual consideration of what they’ve said merely because it contradicts the reader’s worldview. It’s a thankless “job,” often done solely because the person delivering the critique actually does care about society and how its “conventions” affect life overall for the majority of the population (that is, those Western world cunts with a Wi-Fi connection).
To further stifle the proverbial critic, there’s an entire genre of songwriting directed at shutting them down. Take, for example, Lily Allen’s “URL Badman,” during which she quite effectively mocks the average white male blogger playing at “critic” by embodying his persona with the lyrics, “I work at home in my parents’ basement/I don’t troll, I make statements.” Then there are those who hit back at the critics with vindictive panache in the style of Madonna with “Human Nature” or Britney Spears with “Piece of Me.” Ah, and who could forget Lana Del Rey’s bizarrely vitriolic lash-out at Ann Powers, who gave her Norman Fucking Rockwell album what was considered a positive (if not passive aggressive) review?
Maneuvers like Del Rey’s are indicative of the ever-increasing trend of trying to suppress anything but positive commentary as opposed to that of the “hurtful” variety. Such attempts at manipulating opinion ought to be an indication that one shouldn’t be in the business of entertainment, where everything thrust forth into the public space is up for assessment. And, based on the aforementioned three songs, perhaps the plebeian critic has actually pushed artists to put out some of their best “I’ll show you, fuckers” work. So it bears declaring, in the face of ridicule, condemnation and being told to shut up and “get a life”: don’t kill the critic, they’re just the messenger saying what no one else will. Which means it takes a very specific kind of cojones to “deign” and “dare” to be a critic at all. The so-called dregs of society, lowest of the low, etc.
