On Criticism and Popular Series

What is constructive criticism, and where does it overstep the boundary between “criticism” and “attack”? I’m interested because of this.

Let me first make clear that I don’t care one way or the other about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. I read the first book, didn’t like it at all, and stayed away from the rest of the series. Main characters who take most of the novel to figure out things in the back-cover copy and sparkly but not-particularly-intelligent boys hold no interest for me, and, hey, whatever.  There’s no book shortage; I’ve got plenty of other things to read, and no one’s stopping you from filling the void I’ve left in the Twilight-readers club. Point being, I’m unable to comment on the series as a whole. I won’t pretend that I don’t find the review to which I linked plausible or that, given my experience with the first book, I wouldn’t find it more honest than a gushing panegyric, so you can take that into account when you read my take on the point I’m about to raise.

Thing is, I can’t help but notice a recurring theme in the comments of the article I linked to above, which basically amounts to: you should not criticize an author. This is a statement with which I whole-heartedly disagree.

Why do I care about the reactions of a subset of a relatively small and young fandom? Because this is just an example of an extremely common response to criticism of popular books and book series. Basically, there seem to be four base arguments.

1. CRITICISM IS MEAN

The author worked hard on Book/Series XYZ so YOU could read it and be entertained! You should be grateful, not critical.

In this line of thought, the author is seen as someone who is generously offering his or her readers the gift of her work. To point out the flaws, real or imagined, in such a gift, is as rude and hurtful as opening all your birthday presents, shouting, “This sucks! I wanted a pony!” and eating all the cake. First of all, even if this were a good analogy, everyone has a right not to like what they are given, or to find it offensive*, and sometimes that right can trump good manners.

But I don’t think this is a good analogy. Because creative work is seen as an expression of its artist’s inner self, it’s tempting to see our relationship with the author of a story we read as personal. But are these authors forcing themselves to write books for our sake? No. I agree that to art is more than a commodity, but when an author chooses to sell his or her work through a publisher or bookstore, he or she is purposely entering a business, not personal, relationship. You should be thankful whenever someone works hard for you, but, when you are unsatisfied with their product, it is not ungrateful to say so.

Any criticism of Book /Series XYZ is a personal attack on the author.

Pointing out flaws in something someone’s made or done isn’t the same as pointing out flaws in the person themselves: if I say, “That cake you made is too salty”, that’s not the same as saying “You’re a horrible/stupid/clumsy person” or even “You’re a horrible baker”. I’m pointing out that I think something’s wrong with the specific cake you made right then. You might usually make delicious cakes; you might be a wonderful human being. But this cake right here was gross.

It’s true that there are some people who take all criticisms personally. When they’re your friends or real-life acquaintances, you can choose to criticize them or not as you see fit. But when they’re a public figure, like a celebrity or a businessperson, being criticized comes with the job, especially if/when they use their public status to spread an argument or theme they find convincing.

And for every person like the one above, there are just as many people like me, who’d rather hear criticism than not. Sure, it hurts to be told your work isn’t perfect, but wouldn’t it hurt worse if everyone just pretended it were and you never learned how to make it better?

Your tone is rude and insulting.

This can be true. Sometimes people mix legitimate criticisms with ad hominem attacks or various slurs against those who like the work in question, etc. But… not all criticisms have rude or insulting tones, and not all people who use rude and insulting tones are critics. If you have a problem with a particular critic’s tone, go ahead and tell her**. But that doesn’t make criticism (or even her criticisms) invalid, any more than the rude tone of some of the comments means that no one should ever criticize critics.

2. SOME THINGS SHOULD BE EXEMPT FROM CRITICISM, AND BOOK/SERIES XYZ IS ONE OF THEM

The author wrote Book/Series XYZ to express his/her vision (or to please him/herself). You shouldn’t critique something that wasn’t meant for you.

I can buy this so long as the author’s actions are consistent with it. Friends-locked fanfiction on one’s own blog, stories in a private journal, snippets on a free personal website that someone else leaked to the public – sure, that seems fair. I mean, I don’t see why these things I just mentioned should be criticism-proof, but I can see that one might want to say that, if the author doesn’t want criticism on such things, you’re probably wasting your time giving it.

But no matter why an author initially wrote a published work, it’s still just that: a published work, for public consumption. In other words, if you like that aforementioned salty cake, feel free to make some and eat it all yourself. But the minute you start giving pieces of cake to other people, it’s no excuse to say, “But I really made this cake for myself.” It’s even no excuse to say, “Well, I made this for people who like salty cake.” The fact is, there exists a significant number of people out there who think good cake is not salty. If, as you say, there is an equally large audience of people who like salty cake, what harm does it do if the people who don’t tell each other, “Hey, good cake should be sweet, but this cake is salty. Don’t eat it if you agree with my idea of a good cake.”

Also, I suppose it’s only fair to note that, if the author wrote this only to please him/herself, why would he/she care what any critics have to say about it anyway?

You’re making a big deal about nothing. Book/Series XYZ is just for fun and escapism. It doesn’t matter if it’s poorly written or thematically offensive***.

I think I’ve made it clear what I think about this argument here and here, but, in a nutshell: everything, even something that’s meant “just for fun”, has meaning, and readers of stories consume that meaning even if they personally disagree with it or don’t realize it exists. If that meaning is somehow dubious (morally, factually, etc.), then it’s every reader’s responsibility to point it out.

I also take issue with the idea that “fun” means “mindless acceptance”. If you don’t like to think about the books you read for fun, fine; I do. You have your fun, I’ll have mine. I like to think about writing style and plot structure.

(The corollary to which being: if John spends fifteen minutes reading Jane’s review and accusing her of wasting time critiquing a fun or escapist series like XYZ, what exactly does John think he’s doing with his time?)

3. YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO CRITICIZE BOOK/SERIES XYZ

A true fan wouldn’t criticize the piece. Or, sometimes, why did you go to all this trouble to read and critique a series you don’t like? You should save your critical thinking for series you do like.

Look, I think it’s clear from many of the posts and links on this blog that there are a number of fundamental aspects of the Harry Potter series that I dislike: its overall conception of good and evil, the incoherence of many of its themes, and the plot structure and logical consistency of the last four books. But I own all seven volumes, mostly in hardcover. I read Harry Potter fanfiction. I go see the movies when they come out. I have earned an embarrassing number of points for Slytherin on the Facebook Harry Potter – Compete for the House Cup app, I know Ron’s middle name and Snape’s birthday, and I visit Mugglenet every day. If I am not a Harry Potter fan, then what the heck am I?

You don’t have to agree with everything an artist says or does to be a fan of his or her work. Like I said above, some people most enjoy engaging with a text critically. It’s a sad fact that the stories I think about most and like best aren’t the ones I think are best written or most thoughtful or most exciting, though I do enjoy those (Howl’s Moving Castle, Anansi Boys, Amphigorey, The Dark Is Rising, A Clockwork Orange); they’re the ones that I can see could be really well written or really interesting or really thoughtful but just barely aren’t (the Harry Potter series, The X Files TV series, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the original Star Trek).

And even if there is a book or series I well and truly don’t like (like Twilight or Eragon or, yes, Lord of the Rings (sacrilege, I know)), doesn’t it still make sense to post my take on it? After all, I didn’t know I wasn’t going to be a fan of it before I read it. Maybe somebody else out there with the same taste as me won’t like it either, but wouldn’t know that until he or she read my review.

No matter how bad the author is, he/she’s still better than you.

Fair enough – that may or may not be true, and I have no way of judging. But you don’t have to be a political expert to have valid opinions on John McCain’s campaign, or a Cordon Bleu chef to know a meal tastes gross, or a Doctor of Education to know that your teacher isn’t communicating well with your class. Maybe someone with more expertise than you might say, “Actually, the person you’re critiquing is doing stuff right according to the way these things work”, but that shouldn’t stop you from either expressing your own opinion or disagreeing with the experts.

The other worry this gets at is the idea that criticism is motivated out of jealousy – I’m an unpublished or mid-list author who’s jealous of J. K. Rowling or Stephen King or Stephenie Meyer’s success, so I’m going to point out the flaws in their work out of spite. Whether this is true or not doesn’t mean that the criticisms themselves can be dismissed – after all, you might tell me I’m selfish because you’re angry with me, but, hey, I might really be selfish, and it might be something that needs to be said.

I’ve read these books and I don’t see any of this stuff. You just don’t get it, and you shouldn’t talk about stuff you don’t get.

Let’s unpack (oooh, philosophy jargon!) this objection into two different objections, because I think people use it to mean both:

A. The author didn’t intend any of that stuff to be in there, so it can’t be there. I don’t think the author’s intentions matter when we’re trying to decide what’s in the text. (Example: The fact that J. K. Rowling has stated that Dumbledore is gay in interviews has nothing to do with whether or not the text supports that statement. It’s just like any other statement that Rowling hasn’t talked about but presumably is either true or false in the world of the story – like “James Potter was left-handed” or “Dudley Dursley really enjoys the TV show Little Britain“.)

B. Your interpretation of the text is unfounded and unreasonable. I’m generally open to most people’s takes on books and stories, even when I disagree with them – for instance, for me, based on textual evidence, Sherlock Holmes clearly admires Irene Adler but is definitely not in love with her. But I see how you (or Guy Ritchie) might decide that the text points to Holmes harbouring romantic feelings for Adler. I guess the trouble here comes because there are some interpretations we can almost all agree are not supported by the text – for instance, that Dr. Watson is secretly a robot-monkey from Mars cleverly disguised as a human being in order to kill Queen Victoria and take over the WORLD!

IMO, this one’s difficult to call, in terms of “what is a valid interpretation of the text”? Personally, I’m willing to give most arguments the most charitable spin I can, but there are always going to be some I disagree with. (eg. I do see sexism in Twilight even though there are readers, both male and female, who maintain there isn’t any and call on the text to prove it.) But this is still no reason not to criticize based on your view of the text; this just means that you have to be prepared to defend your interpretation against others who’d argue against it (or, as the case may be, to change your interpretation based on new evidence brought to light).

4. THERE IS NO POINT TO CRITICISM

I admit, this is one of the rarer ones, but it does occur. The idea is that criticism doesn’t change anything. After all, Stephenie Meyer probably isn’t going to read the blog post in the link above and think, “Darn, this person’s right! I’ve got to revise the story I’m working on!”. J. K. Rowling isn’t going to read my blog or her various critics on Death to Capslock, Ferretbrain, or other sources and go, “Shoot! Call off the publication of Beedle the Bard; I need to edit it some more and issue a public statement about my new idea of morality!”

But so what? As I think becomes clear in the above discussion, the main point of criticism isn’t to send a message to the author. If you’re an author who’s keen on self-improvement, it can be useful to you in that respect, but, mainly, criticism is for the critic and the fans. It’s for people who enjoy engaging with the text in a critical way. It’s for people who like to draw evidence and make conclusions. It’s for people who care about stuff like “can we say a work of literature is intrinsically morally wrong” or “how does this book portray people who don’t look like me?” or “what’s the most effective way to build a story?”.

In other words, at its heart, criticism isn’t about trying to point out what’s wrong with a specific book or series. It’s about figuring out, in general, how stories can be better. And that’s something that benefits: everyone: writers, reviewers, and readers.

* Example: An acquaintance buys you something stereotypically associated with your faith/ethnicity/race/sexual orientation/gender because “all you people like stuff like this, right?”

** But first consider whether it’s really the tone or the content that offends you. I often read remarks like, “Your tone was inappropriate – you shouldn’t have been so negative”. Is it really the critic’s tone with which a reviewer like this is taking issue? Or is it the panning of a favourite book/series/movie etc.?

*** A connected argument is the idea that stuff like the morality of themes and the plot structure shouldn’t matter when you decide whether a book is good or not. (eg. because it’s not like readers are so naive that they won’t know better, because it’s still a good story despite the plotholes, etc.) I’m not including this argument here because a) this is already way too long, and b) I think it’s just barely not about criticism being bad but about believing the critic is criticizing the wrong thing(s). Which is a little different. (I know, I know: but I included other, similar arguments. Bite me.)