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There is, or should be, a difference between a critic and a reviewer. It's possible for the same person to do both jobs, but they're not the same job. TL;DR: R
by msla 9y ago
There is, or should be, a difference between a critic and a reviewer. It's possible for the same person to do both jobs, but they're not the same job.
TL;DR: Roger Ebert was almost always a reviewer.
A critic applies a critical theory (that is, a theory of what art is, does, or should be, and how it hangs together) to a piece to extract something from it, be it "meaning" or "social consciousness" or some other aspect not apparent on the surface. They're not concerned with whether a piece is good or bad, but with what it's possible to extract from it, and how it fits into some context.
A reviewer is either a consumer protection advocate or a marketing shill. Their whole job is the thumbs up/thumbs down shtick, and telling you whether something is worth consuming.
Is it possible to be both at once? Yes, but the critical part and the reviewing part must be separate in that whether something is interesting critically is a very different question from whether it's enjoyable to consume.
- yesenadam 9y agoIt seems you're presenting 'what a critic is' as if it's the definition, not presumably what it is - one of a large number of different/competing ideas of what critics are/should be. E.g. (spends 2 seconds googling) Wikipedia says "art criticism, which is concerned with establishing a relative artistic value upon individual works with respect to others of comparable style, or sanctioning an entire style or movement from the standpoint of its history and of its major scholars." - ok, not authoritative, but at least establishing that a view/understanding contrary to yours is widespread: criticism is centrally concerned with whether the piece is good or bad. And the sentences on reviewers seems resentful, even angry. But I'll give you a Thumbs Up :-)