Diversity in Film Critics is About Money, Not Art (And That’s Okay.)

I’m writing this in a response to Alissa Wilkinson, who was responding to Justin Chang, who was responding to Brie Larson, which sounds like a game of 6 Degrees of Separation gone horribly wrong, but in case you’re wondering who these people are and what they said, here it is:

Brie Larson, an actress, wants more diverse film critics. She insinuates that critics who aren’t the movie’s target audience won’t completely get what the film is trying to say.

Justin Chang, a film critic, disagrees with her. He says that more diverse critics are nice, but movies aren’t for a particular audience and that everyone can relate to them.

Alissa Wilkinson, another film critic, disagrees with him. She also thinks that we should have more diverse critics, but the reason is because critics create art and art needs diverse voices.

I, a writer of fiction and a complete nobody, will now disagree with everyone, just to be ornery.

I already wrote my opinion of Justin Chang’s article, so now it’s Alissa Wilkinson’s turn. It should be noted that my experience with the film industry begins and ends with reading reviews, so take that into consideration as you read my unexpert analysis of this complex situation.

Reviews Are Not Art

 The crux of Alissa Wilkinson’s article, “The real reason we need more diversity in film criticism,” is whether film reviews are for commerce or art. Spoiler alert: Wilkinson thinks they’re for art. Which is fine. But she goes further and says that film reviews are not just writing about art but are art in and of themselves.

“It’s an art that’s usually funneled through the medium of journalism,” she says, “but criticism is still fundamentally an art form.”

Film reviews are art? As soon as I read it, I wanted to reject that notion. But out of fairness, I read the rest of the article.

Wilkinson continues, “The art a critic makes is a review or an essay, something that is less about ‘supporting’ a movie and more about drawing on an individual’s experience with a film to make an argument about that movie. It includes evaluation of the film, but it also, done well, is a passionate argument for the importance of art itself.”

Now I don’t argue that there is a lot of work in writing a review. Some of the best reviews will make you think about art, life, and what it means to be human. That’s why I love to read them, even when I have no intention of seeing a movie.

But they aren’t art.

Art, fundamentally, is about creating an experience. The artist can be subtle or can practically shout, “This is what my work means!” Either way, it is an experience and the person who views it, interprets it. Art is all about showing.

Reviews are not about creating an experience, they are about commenting on an experience. They are about telling. There’s nothing to interpret—you agree or disagree. They are necessary to carry on the conversation. I’d even go so far as to call the best of them philosophy.

But they are, as Wilkinson herself says, essays.

Go ahead and tell a high school student that they will be doing an art project in class, assign them an essay instead, and see how well that goes over. Essays may be creative. Essays may require the writer’s imagination. Essays may be well-crafted, thoughtful, and personal. But they are not art.

Diverse Voices are Already Out There

Putting aside the quibble on what is or is not art, there is a valid argument for the need for diverse critics. While some actresses insinuate that critics are meant to support films, Wilkinson disagrees.

“Critics try to read a film through the lens of their own unique experience, and that gives life to the work of art. Even when we all sit in the same movie theater, we all watch a different work of art. Adding those perspectives to the chorus can only enrich and expand the movie.”

All right. Different critics will give us different perspectives on movies. This is needed to expand and deepen the conversation. Fair enough.

But who’s to say we don’t already get them?

A lot of people see movies, and, thanks to the Internet, almost anyone can post their opinion on them. Whereas, back in the old days, you might be limited to the film critic writing for your local newspaper, now you have access to all the professional critics, as well as all the amateur ones. That’s why I go to Rotten Tomatoes—to read as many as I can. And, if I find a critic I particularly like, I can keep coming back to him or her.

So, even if white male critics are in the majority, it’s not as if I don’t have other voices I can consider. There are no gatekeepers—anyone’s voice can be heard. If you want, for example, a black female’s perspective on a Wrinkle in Time, go out and find one. It can be done.

Reviews Make the Studios Money

Now I use movie reviews for two purposes.

Sometimes I read them to get a greater insight as to what the movie means, to learn how other people interpreted the movie, to see what people like or dislike, to grasp what ideas are being presented, etc. etc.

Other times, I use them to decide whether or not to see a movie.

And for this, I go to Rotten Tomatoes https://www.rottentomatoes.com/ , note the percentage, read the critics consensus, and glance over the excerpts. If I’m thinking about seeing a movie and the reviews are high, I’ll be more apt to see it. If the reviews are terrible (or even middling), I may give it a pass. This is why movies want good reviews. The better the reviews, the better chance that people like me will go and see it.

And while the people who make movies (like actresses, for example) may appreciate having many voices contributing to the conversation, they don’t care if no one goes out to see the movie in the first place. And whether Alissa Wilkinson likes it or not (and she doesn’t), good reviews sell movies.

But where does diversity come in?

As Alissa Wilkinson points out, “The fact that a movie has content that the critic agrees with or characters that look like the critic doesn’t mean it’s a good movie. And just because a movie is marketed to a particular audience, there’s no guarantee it will be successful in speaking to that audience. Critics who belong to that audience segment are not automatically going to love it.

I agree. I think that if a movie is great, most critics will acknowledge it, irregardless of gender, ethnicity, politics, religion, geography, or sexual orientation. Critics are professionals and they know what makes a good movie. That’s why movies with 90% critic approval rating catch my eye. Likewise, if a film is terrible, critics will also know it, and you will get dismal 20% scores. When a movie is “great” or “terrible” most critics can agree.

It’s when the film is “middling” that it gets more complicated. Because at that point, you have to decide whether you liked it or not. And it is feasible that certain things may appeal to one group over the other. Female critics may like Twlight more than males. Male critics may like Transformers more than females. Neither have a great Rotten Tomatoes score, (49% to 57%), but if you look at the Transformers movie, it has a slightly higher score—very close to being a “fresh”: pick at 60%. Is that because more film critics are males and thus betray a slight preference for the latter?

It’s an iffy claim at best.

But to people who make movies, every dollar made is important and helps decide what kinds of movies get made and who gets to make them. So I can see actresses, who have far fewer roles available to them than actors, wanting more diverse critics, in hopes of getting slightly better reviews, in hopes of making that extra squeeze of money, which will ensure more roles they can star in. And in a time when movies are becoming either record-shattering events or huge money-losing bombs, you bet they care if a movie makes money or not.

Film Critics Need to Eat, Too

It’s hard to feel too much sympathy, I suppose, for big Hollywood moguls and actresses who get paid the equivalent of a house for a few months of work. But film critics are more down-to-earth. They’re regular folks like you and me.

And while Alissa Wilkinson wants to talk about how film critics love art, she does slip some economic realities into her tirade. “Critics generally tolerate Rotten Tomatoes because it can drive traffic toward a review, and in this economy, traffic is how most writers make a living. But the reason people go into film criticism is that they love movies, and they want to talk about them and write and think about them and explore them.”

Let me repeat this fact. Critics make money because of traffic. Whenever you click on their website or watch a YouTube video, ads are launched and money goes into the critic’s pocket. Money they will probably use to buy groceries or make rent.

But the problem is that to get that high traffic, you need to have access to the movie ahead of time. After all, most people want to see the review before the movie comes out—to know whether or not they should see it. And in order to get those special early screenings, you need to get invited by the studios to see those films.

“Part of the reason why critics of color can’t review more movies is because they’re denied accreditation or access to screenings,” Latina critic Monica Castillo wrote following the release of the study. “Invitations to advance screenings don’t usually find their way to underrepresented journalists and critics’ inboxes as easily as they do others.”

In other words, studios deny access of early screenings to women and people of color, and this limits their ability to get traffic and thus make money. This has nothing to do with making your voice heard or contributing to the conversation. You can say your opinion before or after the movie comes out—it doesn’t matter. It does matter whether you can make a living doing what you love.

Why Aren’t We Talking About Money?

I don’t know why it sounds better to say we need diversity so that we can “hear more voices.” It sounds pretty, but it feels empty. Everyone has their own voice, everyone’s voice is unique in some way, and everyone has the right to be heard. And everyone can be heard. If you want to share your perspective, there are multiple ways to share it.

What is more important to me is having the opportunity to make a living doing what you love. Which is, after all, one of the principles of the American dream—the pursuit of happiness. The Internet has opened the doors for all sorts of film critics. Anyone with a blog or a You Tube channel can review films—if they have early access to the film. It seems like all movie studios need to do is send out a few more invitations. So what is the problem?

Most people involved in the arts don’t like to talk about money. It feels dirty and wrong. I get it. I hate talking about money. I don’t write novels because I’ll become rich. Far from it. But at the end of the day, I need money so that I can continue to devote my time and energy to the work I love to do.

What’s wrong with that?

What’s wrong with creating more dream jobs for all kinds of people?

Why can’t we just be open about it?