What is DemoCritic? Does it criticize demos? Democracy? Is it some sort of tiresomely left-leaning political take on everything from James Cameron to Lolcats? Fortunately, no to all of the above.
The elevator-pitch answer is that it's a blog of cultural criticism for people who don't like being told what to like. It's democratic (small d), as in "doesn't think critics are smarter than people who actually view art, at least not smarter than people who will read something that describes itself as 'cultural criticism' in the third line."
Artists over the last 150 years have been sprinting ahead of critics who don't have the faintest about what art is. And technology — for anywhere from 20 to 600 years — has been making us question notions of expertise while geopolitics has demonstrated that informed societies function better than indoctrinated ones. Ideas like "truth," "right," and "quality" have been spun around.
Yet the power to appreciate art is still invested in a dictator. The critic is a bully in a tweed jacket declaring who is in and who is out and what the rules are. He knows. He's an expert, and he's here to tell you what's right. Every social circle has an adolescent-type who makes art a matter of personal identity and draws lines in the ego-sand. East coasters can't like country music. Gay men can't like sports movies. Hip people can't like romantic plots. And that makes it easy to navigate a vast and challenging world of creative endeavors. To have someone telling you. But, excuse me, I think that sounds shitty.
This blog offers a place where one guy looks at art and then tells you how he sees it. I revel in the subjectivity. My best moments engaging with art always come as I'm walking away with a fellow visitor and finding out how he or she saw it, especially if he or she saw it differently from me. I love the discussion. I love remembering the specifics of what I saw, pondering them. I love perspective-shifting.
I'm not here to champion popular entertainment against coastal elites, but, if I think a movie is fun, I'll tell you. I'll tell you even if I think it's stupid but fun. I'm likewise not here to eschew bourgeois sensibilities, but I'll put avant-garde play in creative context if I can. I'll put it in creative context even if I don't think it works as an artistic whole. I'm going to talk about themes I picked up on, techniques I liked, weird things I noticed and am wondering about. What worked for me and what didn't. And then you can decide what you're in the mood for, if you happen to be hunting through this thing wondering what you can bring your Midwestern cousins to.
You decide. Democratically.
FAQs
The elevator-pitch answer is that it's a blog of cultural criticism for people who don't like being told what to like. It's democratic (small d), as in "doesn't think critics are smarter than people who actually view art, at least not smarter than people who will read something that describes itself as 'cultural criticism' in the third line."
Artists over the last 150 years have been sprinting ahead of critics who don't have the faintest about what art is. And technology — for anywhere from 20 to 600 years — has been making us question notions of expertise while geopolitics has demonstrated that informed societies function better than indoctrinated ones. Ideas like "truth," "right," and "quality" have been spun around.
Yet the power to appreciate art is still invested in a dictator. The critic is a bully in a tweed jacket declaring who is in and who is out and what the rules are. He knows. He's an expert, and he's here to tell you what's right. Every social circle has an adolescent-type who makes art a matter of personal identity and draws lines in the ego-sand. East coasters can't like country music. Gay men can't like sports movies. Hip people can't like romantic plots. And that makes it easy to navigate a vast and challenging world of creative endeavors. To have someone telling you. But, excuse me, I think that sounds shitty.
This blog offers a place where one guy looks at art and then tells you how he sees it. I revel in the subjectivity. My best moments engaging with art always come as I'm walking away with a fellow visitor and finding out how he or she saw it, especially if he or she saw it differently from me. I love the discussion. I love remembering the specifics of what I saw, pondering them. I love perspective-shifting.
I'm not here to champion popular entertainment against coastal elites, but, if I think a movie is fun, I'll tell you. I'll tell you even if I think it's stupid but fun. I'm likewise not here to eschew bourgeois sensibilities, but I'll put avant-garde play in creative context if I can. I'll put it in creative context even if I don't think it works as an artistic whole. I'm going to talk about themes I picked up on, techniques I liked, weird things I noticed and am wondering about. What worked for me and what didn't. And then you can decide what you're in the mood for, if you happen to be hunting through this thing wondering what you can bring your Midwestern cousins to.
You decide. Democratically.
FAQs
- Is this blog discerning and does it hate hard enough for me to take it seriously? Absolutely. Those who know me in personal life know I can be quite curmudgeonly. OK, this is maybe the one claim that the current format of criticism has: it'll let you know when something is really good. But criticism has been watching its compliments so stingily that it actually ruined its own relevance: most people, if they even bother to read a critic, say things like, "well I read her, but I don't agree with her." This isn't political Op-Ed, and there's no prize for getting disagreed with. So let's be real clear here: I have opinions, strong ones, and I'm going to share them. I have nasty things to say about everyone from Isaac Newton to Vladimir Nabokov. I'm just going to do my best to question whether I'm making an identity call rather than an art call before I start typing.
- Oh come on, let's get real. What are your biases? I'm not a front for a producer or a director or a network, if that's what you mean. But I will admit to a pro-appreciation bias. I think (whoa! sincerity alert!) making art — and viewing it — is akin to religious experience, and you're not living a fulfilling life if you're not engaging with art at least once per week. Read a book. Study the shading in a Garfield cartoon. Get font-nerdy on a billboard for all I care, but take in the creations that almost all other humans want to make on some level. I believe that saying you only watch the newest Bulgarian avant-garde cinema is like believing you have to go to church once a week to get into Heaven but refusing to worship outside of Saint Peter's. And living in the U.S. while you do it. You're willfully ignoring a lot of genius and more almost-there brilliance than you could ever hope to consume in several lifetimes and endangering your soul in the process.
- What kind of art do you look at? Primarily: movies, TV, photography, theater, and non-fiction writing. These are the ones I consume most often or have studied most in-depth. I also do fiction, poetry, painting, and some other stuff. I don't do music.
- So if you're not a front, then who are you, tall, dark, and handsome blogger? For now, let's just say I'm a New York–area writer and editor. And no, outside of this blog, I'm not freelance. Somebody actually pays me to write, often about art, and several tens of thousands people a month read me (if you believe the advertising kit, which I don't). I will admit, though, it usually goes better when somebody else is doing the copy editing. I have a BA in the humanities, and so I'm a good reader of/viewer of/thinker about art, but I'm not necessarily well studied in every form. This blog is a labor of love. Or maybe something I have to do because I lost a drunken college bet. Frankly, I don't see why it can't be both.
Also I justify my margins. Deal.
