The Big Picture: Baggage

[Atmos Duality]

It's his usual strawman. "There's no such thing as objectivity all reviews are entirely personal and subjective opinions." It's just an excuse for laziness.

^Bullseye.
The "it's just an opinion" argument paradoxically defends itself by insisting that it's indefensible.

If everything in critical analysis is "just an opinion", then why the fuck should I care? Why should anyone care? Why does anyone even watch MovieBob, or Total Biscuit, or listened to the late Roger Ebert?

What gives an opinion any value? Its reasoning, in context.
And the thing MovieBob glosses over is that "perspective" only has value to an audience if the audience understands the context that created that perspective.

Absolutely nothing in MovieBob's spiel about Orson Scott Card's character and agenda had ANYTHING AT ALL to do with the merits or qualities of the Ender's Game movie.

I don't mind that MovieBob has an axe to grind with Mr. Card or anything for that matter. Card is pushing an anti-progressive agenda and you don't like it? Great! Please Mr. Chipman, tell the world what you think, but make sure that it's actually the subject of what you are supposed to be talking about.

To use an analogy: It'd make just as much sense to start espousing my intense dislike of Cherry Pie in the middle of my critique of a film about George Washington, just because it brought up the myth of him chopping down a cherry tree.

Why not? It's just my opinion after all.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

It's his usual strawman. "There's no such thing as objectivity all reviews are entirely personal and subjective opinions."

This would not be an issue, if there was not a cohort of commenters on every such thread claiming that an entirely objective review is both possible and of any value.

All I'm trying to do is establish a baseline for reasonable argument. We shouldn't even need to be debating this point. We could move on to a more nuanced discussion if it weren't for all the people screaming "OMG!! Subjectivity in a review! How dare you? Damn you for having an opinion of your own!"

This is eerily similar to the Sarkeesian situation. The most vocal detractors only give their target more power. Bob's arguments would be much weaker if it weren't for the brigade of people who, without fail, come here to say how reviews should be completely objective. His "opponents" are just giving him ammunition, and showing how relevant his words are. None of this should be relevant today, if it weren't for this. Just like Sarkeesian would be completely irrelevant, if it were not for the army of hate giving force to her words.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Objectivity here isnt a question though. Whats in question is bobs needs to instead of reviewing a movie and talking about a movie, he would then rip movie to pieces based on what the auhor of the book the movie is based on did in real life. I dont know about you, but i dont want this type of subjectivity in my reviews.

Except that's exactly what Bob didn't do. He mentioned controversy about the author in the preface, and then went on to review the movie based on its own merits, not taking the author's personal beliefs or actions into account.

 

[Manji187]

Excellent video. I'm tired of the popular resistance to critical analysis, and this idea that looking for deeper meanings or relating works to broader, real world topics is just "reading too much into it."

Or that as soon as uncommon words such as ludonarrative dissonance are used, some people go "whoa dude, cut the pretentious crap and just have fun". I wish more people would be willing to discuss more complex gaming topics in depth, especially on the Escapist...no such luck though, not really.

 

[Manji187]

Excellent video. I'm tired of the popular resistance to critical analysis, and this idea that looking for deeper meanings or relating works to broader, real world topics is just "reading too much into it."

Or that as soon as uncommon words such as ludonarrative dissonance are used, some people go "whoa dude, cut the pretentious crap and just have fun". I wish more people would be willing to discuss more complex gaming topics in depth, especially on the Escapist...no such luck though, not really.

That is because games aren't really complex in the sense you are talking about.

An elaboration would be nice instead of a single statement, but ultimately I think you misunderstood me. I was talking about "more complex gaming TOPICS". Topics about gaming that are more complex than say graphics and/ or gameplay (camera, controls, boss fights etc).

 

[Strazdas]

Objectivity here isnt a question though. Whats in question is bobs needs to instead of reviewing a movie and talking about a movie, he would then rip movie to pieces based on what the auhor of the book the movie is based on did in real life. I dont know about you, but i dont want this type of subjectivity in my reviews.

Except that's exactly what Bob didn't do. He mentioned controversy about the author in the preface, and then went on to review the movie based on its own merits, not taking the author's personal beliefs or actions into account.

except that he said he woudl support boycotting this movie based on author of the book its based on (not even the movie author, the guy was credited for writing a book, he had nothing to do with the movie). He mentioned the contraversy at the begining wanting to make an illusino of seperation, but then still included that into its review. And that would ahve been gone past, but then he created this video where he claims that he was right to do it.

capchA: filthy dirty mess

its sentient i tell you.

 

[GryffinDarkBreed]

*gets to 4:30 mark, stops video*

I'm going to stop you right there, MovieBob. What fucking privilege does "Being a male gamer" provide? There's no status to it, there's no upside to it outside of perhaps better hand-eye coordination than a non-gamer. What PRIVILEGE does a male gamer have that female gamers don't? Please enlighten us you bloody blind feminist.

Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, Bob. Feminism is a political group whose agenda is securing as many rights and privileges for females as possible, even though they're already a heavily privileged class.

If you want true equal rights, try Egalitarianism or Universal Humanism, not Feminism.

Even those NAFALTs out there are still simple minded, arrogant fools who think you can fix all the gender equality issues by just focusing on one side of the scale.

 

[GryffinDarkBreed]

@Andrew: Agreed. There is a difference between a critique with a bias and a critique aimed at pushing the reviewer's own bias upon the audience.

What's the difference?

A review with a bias
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7196-Boob-Wars-and-Dragon-Crowns

A reviewer pushing their bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropes_vs._Women_in_Video_Games

One uses thoughtful insight on the matter, the other twists and bends what they are reviewing to try to make the audience believe that what they are saying is the truth.

Two issues, the first is kinda semantic as one is a review and one is a industry wide critique. I'm not sure if you can compare something that is focused on one game as a case study, and what that is a survey of many games.

The second is, what if I think Anita's is truthful and insightful? What if what she says is true to me?

Truth is objective. If it's 'True' to you, but 'Untrue' to someone else, then it is subjective opinion and thus is not fact.

I'd advise you look into the various myriad critiques, rebuttals and debunkings of Sarkeesian. Do not look at just one person's position without looking into the legitimate disassemblies of their arguments. Here, let me get a few for you:


Dangerous Analysis disassembles Anita's work using an academic standard.


Thunderf00t also took a good swing at her strawwomen.

 

[Something Amyss]

But selective reading is a wonderful thing isn?t it.

You mean like you just did when you selectively criticised that part devoid of the rest of my comment
Yeah, you probably shouldn't do that if you think it's so bad.

It also doesn't stop what I said from being true, so I guess that's two strikes.

 

[Therarchos]

I'm sorry Bob. Love your show and yes. Pure objectivity doesn't exist, but there is a huge difference between Subjectivity and attempted objectivity. You can not state your point of view in criticism or journalism without putting forth your point of view put that is a lazy excuse for not trying to. I might not agree with a journalist arguments on the Bush era, but that should not be a reason for not accepting the factual truths of said arguments (if factual and true) The old critics said I don't like said movie (or game) for xxx reason but at least I had the chance of making a stand. Accepting or deny the evidence put forth. Most critics or journalists today do not even try to but forth the evidence because "objectivity" doesn't exist.

They are wrong. I might like Spec Ops: the line. for putting games on the arts/social criticism board but that doesn't change the fact that the gameplay is clunky and incomplete (love the game though).

 

[Farther than stars]

When you make a claim against critics that they aren't behavior statisticians you're inadvertently giving credit to Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic. The average scores of users, and critics, is the statisticians way of removing the bias to show the "Normal", or "Objective" view. That's really the only way to do it, but I wouldn't expect a movie critic to understand the wisdom, and madness of the crowd.

Actually, that's only the case if the statistician also takes into account the makeup of the crowd. So, if it were true that men view action films more often (than women) and women view rom-coms more often (than men), then without taking that variance into account, the totals of Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic are still inadvertently skewered.