Wednesday, September 3, 2008

The Movie-Going Public

Recently, a fairly innocuous comment posted to my scathing review of “Traitor,” at The House Next Door made my blood boil. The commenter suggested that I was speaking from an elitist point of view, that the film’s important themes needed to be put across through the director’s decidedly non-highbrow means in order for the general public to be able to absorb the message. The reason I found this comment so offensive is that it assumes the “movie-going public” to be somehow “dumber” than those of us who publish our takes on the movies. That “they” somehow don’t deserve any better. And I consider this an absolutely condescending, elitist POV.

To read more visit The House Next Door.

And stop by Spout for my colleague Steven Boone's companion piece Film Critics & The Audience: Peeing on the Professionals.

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