Are negative reviews biased?

Oh-oh, thread closing coming in 1,2,3...

Since you're counting up instead of counting down, does that mean the thread won't be closed after all?

Ha

I'd posit that "objective review" is an oxymoron, to the extent that opinions are not fact and a review is just a synopsis unless it contains opinions.

There's a whole lot of synopsis-reviews at IMDB, they retell the entire movie from beginning to end but the reviewer never gives their own opinion. I hate those kind of reviews. Then there's the subjective synopsis wrote in a flippant tone, 'Two guys take a road trip and stuff happens.' I hate those too.

I'd posit that some reviews are more subjective than others.

Reviewer A announces his standards in advance, standards which are widely recognized and respected among fellow critics, and offers reasoning and evidence in his review, detailing how well a film meets those standards.

Reviewer B has no standards apart from feeling the moment. He arbitrarily links events from his own life to what he sees on the screen (e.g., he had an abusive father who worked as a chef and so will randomly give negative reviews to cooking movies). This critic only tells us how he "feels" about a film, and has no interest in providing his reader anything more.

Both critics might serve as a useful frame of reference for us, to the extent that we might make ourselves familiar with their taste. However, with Reviewer B, we can only report THAT the liked or didn't like a film, whereas with Reviewer A we can not only offer an account of WHY, but a why which includes a justification (i.e., reasons).

HYPOTHESIS: To the extent that we can mark a useful distinction between Reviewer A and Reviewer B, we may also reasonably speak of "objective criticism."

> Then there's the subjective synopsis wrote in a flippant tone, 'Two guys take a road trip and stuff happens.' I hate those too.

Maybe stop reading amateur reviews? At least professionals know how to convey their thoughts about a movie.

The only objective criticism I can imagine would be the factual one like if the makers of Pearl Harbor had the Japanese attack happen in July of 1940, or the American response being with jet aircraft. Granted there are degrees in this, once a movie is made, dialog is written, plot lines made quick enough for a run-time, fiction creeps in one iota at a time.

Beyond that, it just keeps getting to be more a matter of preference, like how did an actor portray a character, especially a fictional one, that nobody else has seen, not to mention a historical one.

Everybody brings an opinion to the task. My wife doesn't like war movies. I don't like westerns. Attitudes color everything we do, in spite of our claim to objectivity.

You're still thinking absolute categorical terms. Is reviewer A more or less objective than reviewer B?

Always nice to have a post that sends us all back to ground zero where it once again needs to be repeated that absolutely no one is making a case for purely objective movie criticism.


It's already been repeatedly addressed that this is not a thing.



But sure, let's just keep walking in circles. That's always a fun thing to do.

As I always say: yes, everything is subjective, no, you cannot prove or disprove an opinion. But that's not a Get-Out-of-Being-Informed Free Card. Because you can still be more or less thoughtful, more or less intelligent, within your subjective experience.

Example A: "This film was tense. The director used tight shots and handhelds to constrict our view and create a documentary-style feel. Subtle strings and conspicuous pauses ramped up the tension."

Example B: "This film made me nervous. I don't know why."

Are these both equally subjective? Or is one grounded in a mix of fact, theory, and cinematic knowledge that renders it far more useful, informative, and insightful than the other?

Also, let's just assume everybody's a reasonably intelligent adult who understands subjectivity and doesn't need to have it explained to them, let alone more than once. If your contribution to a thread is just to remind people that things are subjective, it's probably not worth replying. You can and should assume that, unless the OP sounds wildly ignorant of even such basic things, that's already being accounted for and the question is being posed within that understanding.

Calling this constant move towards claiming everything is subjective, therefore everything is equal, a "Get Out of Being Informed Free Card" pretty much sums up my frustrations.


Because that's sure how it's starting to read. Everything just becomes real easy if we can throw our hands up and say, oh well, nothing matters anyway, so why should we even try.


It's honestly not all that unlike those who believe we really live in the Matrix, and how this absolves them of any of their bad behaviour because "nothing really matters, maaaaan"


It's all basically grade school nihilism being trotted out as an intellectual stance. But it's really all just kinda embarrassing.


But I'll settle for "Get Out of Being Informed Free Card" in the meantime. That's the cleaner way to put it.

Still, this is an important sort of therapy. Our subject matter is difficult. It does not admit of simple answers we can find in an almanac or simple Google search. Subjectivity not only feels threatening, but is like working with high explosives. We sometimes despair of the possibility of reasoned discussion in these matters. We sometimes cheat, by trying to escape a challenge by igniting the explosive
We sometimes equivocate about subjectivity in the attempt to gain leverage. We sometimes feel so strongly about an opinion we proceed as if it were purely objective.

And there are different stances we may attempt to justify. You appear to see an exercise which lacks epistemic justification, at bottom, but which still admits of intelligent/intelligible meandering. We will never arrive at our destination, but the journey itself admits of the conditions we will never attain about an aesthetic claim. I see the quest a bit more hopeful. I see it as partially objective as aesthetic questions as aesthetic claims tend to break into sub-claims which vary in terms of their level of objectivity. I think we can, at least withing certain intersubjective frames, aspire to arrive (at least momentarily and provisionally) at the best warranted regarding an aesthetic claim. In short, I see hope for the destination too.

If the question keeps popping up, it seems we must challenge ourselves to refine our own answers. That stated, it's for the mods to dictate when the perpetual question derails a conversation.

The only honest opinions are uninformed opinions. If one spends time reading all about the movie and what the director/writer was trying to achieve, then one taints their own opinion. Shooting from the hip is the most sincerely honest form of reviewing.

No more biased than positive reviews. Both toxic negativity and positivity (Which in itself carries a negative tone ironically enough) are hideous roadblocks when it comes to criticism.
The only types I regularly can't stand are the ones relying on condescension (Trying to shame you into liking/disliking something) and those more preoccupied with complaining about others' opinions than voicing their own.

Agreed on both those points. I also can't stand a review totally built around someone's own personal political/social views which usually involves chastising a movie for not catering to their own world viewpoint.

I'm down with mentioning subjectivity as a caution against certainty or overbearing opinions. Appeals to humility will always be thoughtful and welcome. But appealing to humility works best as an addendum to a thoughtful opinion, rather than a substitute for one.

Yeah, and we can work with that. "Objectivity exists" and "we should discuss as if objectivity can exist" end up looking pretty similar in practice.

Yeah, that's basically where I'm at: I see it popping up a lot, from the same people, in the same way, and I think at a certain point it's just being obtuse. Let's assume people are not stupid and that the question is being asked from within the super obvious caveat that basically everyone is aware of.

I'm not sure I agree. If something makes you mad, but you stop and consider and it lessens your anger...is your response more or less sincere than just lashing out? I don't see snap judgments or reflexes as synonymous with sincerity, because the thing that makes us who we are is not our first emotional reaction to something, but what we do with that feeling. Do we analyze it, rationalize it, indulge it, etc.

I also don't think that a first reaction is any less tainted than the informed one, it's just that the ways in which it's tainted are unconscious and harder to identify or unpack.

I agree that someone can end up outsourcing their opinion by just reading other people's and parroting them, however. That's just a pitfall of criticism that people have to guard against.

It's a personal preference of mine not to over analyze my own reviews as I end up being caught in second guessing my own thoughts. I guess I'm more the stream of consciousness type poster. But yes I can see what you're saying.

I don't often read reviews of movies that I'm going to watch, I usually prefer to go in blind. Actually I don't read many reviews at all but if I do I will sometimes read a smattering of 10/10 reviews at IMDB then a few 1/10 reviews before deciding if I want to watch a movie that I'm undecided on. I will mentally throw out the overly bombastic reviews and the reviews that only say fluffy stuff like, 'I love it, everyone should see it' or conversely the 'It sucks don't waste your time' type of reviews. Parsing through a few 10/10 and 1/10 reviews that are written in a way that they convey what the person thought of the movie often gives me enough info to decide if I want to watch that movie.

Earlier today I was thinking about why I can strongly dislike a movie, then watch it again years later and end up loving it. My reason for that, more often than not, is that I had expectations of the movie that weren't met. Not meeting one's expectations is a sure way of being disappointed which then can lead to a negative review.