| Wright said: The thing went as follows: we were discussing about cinema critics. My friends ended up saying that critics should be objective. I argued back: objective is something you can't achieve (yet you can come close to it), but a criticism falls under the category of subjectivism in itself. There's no such a thing as an "objective criticism", aside from making obvious statements (like, if a movie has audio issues, saying the movie has audio issues is objective). But how can we categorize whether the movie (or game, as I'm trying to bring this discussion to this theme) is "fun"? "Enjoyement value" should be a metric? Or a critic should just relegate himself to tell whether the movie works or not? But how can you analize whether a movie works or not? Should we employ an universal metric? |
There's a confusion, here, as to the intent of the word "objective".
When people say they want an objective review or criticism, what they're saying is that they want the reviewer to provide information about the film in a form in which anyone can insert their own subjective viewpoint, rather than being given the reviewer's subjective viewpoint.
It's the difference between "the story involves a love triangle between John, Katie, and Patrick, but I didn't find it believable because it seemed to me as though Patrick really was more into John than Katie. The dialogue felt a little disjointed as characters seemed to respond in ways that felt like they were talking past each other rather than to each other. You might like this movie if you're into complicated romantic entanglements, but don't go in expecting the epitome of romantic drama." and "The love triangle wasn't believable. I think Patrick is gay based on how he seemed to react to the other characters, but he's meant to be straight. The actors didn't make the dialogue feel real. I say that this is a bad movie."
Notice the difference? In the former case, there is subjective opinion incorporated into the critique, but it's done in a way that leaves the reader with the ability to decide for themselves. The details are provided to make clear what the issues were, and an attempt is made to provide what is necessary for those who have different opinions to make their own mind up. In the latter case, even where detail is provided, it's provided in a form that doesn't permit alternative viewpoints. The former attempts to provide objective information, the latter revels in subjective opinion.
And that's what, I believe, most people mean when they say they want objective criticism - something that allows people to insert their own biases and subjective perspectives, rather than something that avoids any form of subjective opinion.
Another way to think of it is by analogy with colouring books. A completely objective review would be like an art book - blank pages. The kind of review that annoys a lot of people is pre-coloured, there's no room for alternatives. What people want is a book that has the outlines done, provides the structure, but then leaves it to the user to put their own colours into it. They want a review that provides that basic structure, that sense of what it's like, but then leaves it to the reader to imprint their own views.
