words is expected to include a
“tl;dr” at the end; even “too long;
didn’t read” is too much to type
or read.
In this environment, it makes
sense that review aggregators
like Rotten Tomatoes have
become the coin of the realm.
They reduce a movie’s quality to a
single and easy-to-understand
metric, and serve as a focal point
around which debate and
discourse might unfold. There is
no need to get tied up in debate
about nuance, because there is a
single score that encapsulates
the general mood around a film.
Whether a film is good or bad can
be reduced to a single metric.
Sometimes that metric might
take the form of a number, but it
might also be reduced to
something as simple as the
“fresh” and “rotten” dichotomy.
There is no room to discuss the
merits of the work in question, no
openness to debate or
discussion. The number is a cold
hard fact, calculated through
simple mathematics, even if the
scores underpinning it were not.
It has just enough of the
appearance of objectivity to
count.
“Objectivity” is an important word
here, given how casually the
accusation of “bias” is thrown
towards individual critics who
disagree with the consensus.
“Objectivity” imposes a sense of
order upon discourse, and also
imposes rigidly-defined
boundaries on discussion. It
provides an agreed-upon
shorthand that strips out any
sense of subjectivity or any
concession that opinion is not
fact.
It is no surprise that movements
like Gamergate, which are
consciously designed to impose
boundaries on discussion and
participation, use the word
“objective” in their critical
aspirations. Gamergate is the
product of a culture that was
raised on the importance of a
hundred-point scale, a grading
curve anchored in scores of “8.8.”
The number is not a subjective
argument, it is an objective
statement. Objective is always
superior to subjective, because it
provides concrete validation of
an opinion without any need for
qualification or elaboration. effort to reduce something
wondrous and magical down to a
loose assemblage of numbers
and statistics.
This obsession with “objective”
criticism is perhaps reflected in
modern internet spoiler
culture. Modern critics have
come to dread “spoiler-phobia”,
where internet commenters
object to the relying of even basic
plot or character information as
part of a review. This fits with the
internet’s fixation on reducing
criticism to statements perceived
as verifiable fact; calling out
“spoilers” in reviews is often used
as a silencing tool, to limit and
control debate by reference to
something more concrete and
grounded than opinion. “People in this country have had
enough of experts,” argued
Michael Gove in the lead-up to
Britain’s referendum on leaving
the European Union.
It should be noted that Rotten
Tomatoes is ultimately the
standard bearer for a much
larger cultural emphasis on
ratings and rankings. There are
any number of metrics that might
inform an audience member of a
film’s worth: the more curated
critical score on Metacritic, the
user-voted score out of ten on
IMDb, the simplistic “thumbs-
up”/“thumbs-down” grade on
Netflix. Picking a movie to watch
can often feel like sorting through
a collection of baseball cards, an
The Rotten Tomatoes score
becomes the “tl;dr” of internet
film criticism.
It turned out that Gove was
correct. The “Leave” campaign
narrowly won the referendum,
despite countless experts
advising the public of the risks to
Britain should it depart the
European Union. In the year since
the vote, the British public have
repeated been confronted with
problems and crises that were
clearly articulated by experts in
the lead-up to the vote, but which
the public chose to ignore.
Public discourse has become a
lot more polarised in the twenty-
first century. Surveys have
demonstrated that American
politics are more polarised than
ever. In 1960, only 5% of
Americans would object to their
children marrying a member of
the other political party; by 2010,
49% of Republicans and 33% of
Democrats would have
objections. That is a substantial
increase.