Patrick Stoner welcomes your questions about movies and the people who make them. Send your questions to pstoner@whyy.org. Here's the current question and answer:
Q: How has the new Broadcast Film Critics Association gotten into controversy already?A: Jealousy.
Whenever someone seems to dislike someone or something for no apparent reason, or the extent of their outrage far outweighs the offense, you can usually sniff the acrid scent of jealousy in the air.
Let me explain. There was a story on NPR the other day about those people who are overquoted in movie ads. I won't list the usual suspects; they're the ones who are there week in and week out, usually in several ads at once. I'm not talking about the famous critics. Obviously, the movie companies want to get Siskel and Ebert in their ads if they can, or any of the other network names. I'm talking about people whose credit lines are as obscure as they are ubiquitous.
Now, there are several print journalists who are overquoted, but you seldom, if ever, see them mentioned in the periodic stories about this subject (which, by the way, I dealt with before in a previous question). The media types taken to task are always tv and radio critics. I can't think of an exception to this rule in any story that I've seen on the subject, and I've seen a dozen or more since I started reviewing in 1979.
There's a reason for this: a FEW print journalists detest their electronic counterparts--not personally, as far as I know, but as a class. The general theory goes something like this: "Those of us who write for newspapers and magazines have training and standards; radio and, especially, tv types are shallow, incompetent, and occasionally corrupt."
Why would anyone hold an opinion that, when written down, appears to be the ranting of a bigot? Well, it has a lot to do with how the world has changed in the past generation. For most of movie history, the print journalist/critic was king. Then, with the rise of radio and--infinitely more--with the rise of tv, attitudes changed. No longer could representatives of even the most prestigious papers or magazines count on that intimate one-on-one interview with the biggest stars. No longer did the public depend on the print journalist for most of their information, nor did they treat them with the same respect that they once did. Television is a seductive medium; it makes stars out of anyone who shows up on it--at least compared to the dignified anonymity of a newspaper column. Who wouldn't be a little resentful?
Some are a little more than a little, however. So, when the most recent spate of articles began to appear talking about people who are in ad after ad, constantly extolling the virtues of films you have to assume they couldn't love THAT much, experience prevented me from being surprised when our fledgling Broadcast Film Critics Association got dragged into the discussion.
What connection does this new group of radio and tv critics have to do with the subject? Nothing, except that the worst examples are from the electronic media and the organization is limited to members of that media. Consider: among my fellow presenters at our awards luncheon in L.A. on January 20 were Leonard Maltin and Joel Siegel. What have they (or any of the other members, for that matter) have in common with the overquoters being noted?
The purpose of the organization is simply to provide a professional organization for a growing group of media specialists where no similar organization existed. BUT, the very existence of an organization whose members are in that "venal" television/radio area is offensive and even suspicious to some.
Still, the world will not unlearn its electronic revolution (that's why online critics are included in the BFCA), and responsible print journalists--who are part of the overwhelming majority--understand that.
For the remaining few, keep the term "jealousy" in mind when you observe the quiet professionals in our business lumped with the louder pretenders. We will survive.
Past questions and answers.
