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Critics have a political agenda, they overrate movies with “a message”, the message being always leaning Californian. The movie industry is a massive sector wit

Critics have a political agenda, they overrate movies with “a message”, the message being always leaning Californian. The movie industry is a massive sector with lobbies, and paid critics are no stranger to that. And as the sibling says, audience pays to see a movie. The audience, the people, are more politically balanced. There is no bias or selection: It’s the democratic components, including people that the “in” lobbies don’t like. If only we could get rid of this damn audience!

actionfromafar 1y ago
Your OP just gave examples of bias.
- Hendrikto 1y ago
  Obviously individuals still have preferences and biases. The idea is that they are less aligned than critics, so they average each other out somewhat.
  - jibal 1y ago
    The claim was "There is no bias or selection". And there's no evidence for "the idea". Also the "audience" reviewers are self-selecting, and in my experience tilt towards shallowness and bigotry. My own preferences are generally better aligned with the top critics.
jibal 1y ago
If I weren't already well familiar with the diverse critic reviews on RT, claims that the critics are "woke" (or equivalently, have a "Californian" "political agenda" that "overrates" movies with a message) would be reason for me to value their views over self-selecting "audience" reviews, which I find to be mostly shallow and uninformed, and with a good dose of provincial bigotry as part of the "political balance". I personally am not looking for "political balance", certainly not as that currently manifests itself in the U.S. And if paid critics are no stranger to lobbies (or the movie industry as a massive sector with lobbies ... it's a bit hard to parse), I see no particular reason to expect them to have a political agenda that overrates movies with a message--I don't think those are the ones that make big bucks for the massive sector. (I'm more interested in indie fare, or at least stuff with more character and depth and less CGI and juvenile superheroes vs. supervillains.) Much more likely is that this spew reflects a political agenda.
- vintermann 1y ago
  I thought "Californian bias" was a great term precisely because it isn't quite the same (or as shallow) as "woke". How could the movie industry not have a Californian bias? So much of it is made in that very peculiar culture, peculiar even by American standards. And yet if you hated that sort of thing, why (or how?) would you become a movie critic? Can you imagine being a classical music critic and intensely disliking Vienna? (Another damn peculiar, damn influential culture, by the way).
  - Gareth321 1y ago
    I agree. It is clear and self-evident that movie critics have a California bias. I cite Emilia Perez (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/emilia_perez https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/emilia_perez) with a 71% of critics recommending the movie. This movie won *91 awards* this season. This is, by any objective and subjective metric, an atrocious film. Audiences gave it 17% on Rotten and 5.4 on IMDB. Why did this movie win so many awards and positive reviews from critics? Because it has a trans person as the lead. That's it. The bias is on full display with this movie.
    - vintermann 1y ago
      But that is more about "woke" than California. My point was that California is peculiar in far more complicated ways than merely being more trans-positive. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't seem especially "woke" to me, but he seems very California. Scientology is hardly "woke", but it's very California. Steve Jobs, same. Utterly weird culture, if we hadn't been so extremely exposed to it. We think of so many things as normal, even though they're not normal at all in our actual lives where we are, but they're normal in California. (Well, more normal). That was Vienna too. It goes way beyond a simple culture war dichotomy.
      - viridian 1y ago
        I completely agree. Feels a bit ironic that not only do anti-woke conservatives seem to implicitly believe California = woke, but this unnuanced read is apparently held a plurality of liberals as well.

actionfromafar 1y ago

Your OP just gave examples of bias.

Hendrikto 1y ago
Obviously individuals still have preferences and biases. The idea is that they are less aligned than critics, so they average each other out somewhat.
- jibal 1y ago
  The claim was "There is no bias or selection". And there's no evidence for "the idea". Also the "audience" reviewers are self-selecting, and in my experience tilt towards shallowness and bigotry. My own preferences are generally better aligned with the top critics.

jibal 1y ago

If I weren't already well familiar with the diverse critic reviews on RT, claims that the critics are "woke" (or equivalently, have a "Californian" "political agenda" that "overrates" movies with a message) would be reason for me to value their views over self-selecting "audience" reviews, which I find to be mostly shallow and uninformed, and with a good dose of provincial bigotry as part of the "political balance". I personally am not looking for "political balance", certainly not as that currently manifests itself in the U.S. And if paid critics are no stranger to lobbies (or the movie industry as a massive sector with lobbies ... it's a bit hard to parse), I see no particular reason to expect them to have a political agenda that overrates movies with a message--I don't think those are the ones that make big bucks for the massive sector. (I'm more interested in indie fare, or at least stuff with more character and depth and less CGI and juvenile superheroes vs. supervillains.) Much more likely is that this spew reflects a political agenda.

vintermann 1y ago
I thought "Californian bias" was a great term precisely because it isn't quite the same (or as shallow) as "woke". How could the movie industry not have a Californian bias? So much of it is made in that very peculiar culture, peculiar even by American standards. And yet if you hated that sort of thing, why (or how?) would you become a movie critic? Can you imagine being a classical music critic and intensely disliking Vienna? (Another damn peculiar, damn influential culture, by the way).
- Gareth321 1y ago
  I agree. It is clear and self-evident that movie critics have a California bias. I cite Emilia Perez (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/emilia_perez https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/emilia_perez) with a 71% of critics recommending the movie. This movie won *91 awards* this season. This is, by any objective and subjective metric, an atrocious film. Audiences gave it 17% on Rotten and 5.4 on IMDB. Why did this movie win so many awards and positive reviews from critics? Because it has a trans person as the lead. That's it. The bias is on full display with this movie.
  - vintermann 1y ago
    But that is more about "woke" than California. My point was that California is peculiar in far more complicated ways than merely being more trans-positive. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't seem especially "woke" to me, but he seems very California. Scientology is hardly "woke", but it's very California. Steve Jobs, same. Utterly weird culture, if we hadn't been so extremely exposed to it. We think of so many things as normal, even though they're not normal at all in our actual lives where we are, but they're normal in California. (Well, more normal). That was Vienna too. It goes way beyond a simple culture war dichotomy.
    - viridian 1y ago
      I completely agree. Feels a bit ironic that not only do anti-woke conservatives seem to implicitly believe California = woke, but this unnuanced read is apparently held a plurality of liberals as well.