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If we can reach one person, we have accomplished our goal. Glad you're here to support us, Tenika.
The thing is, people only read reviews for a few specific reasons and when you get right down to it, you'll find that it's almost impossible to eliminate bias entirely and sometimes, people even want it (even if it really shouldn't be found in a critic). Lets focus on movie reviews for now since that's essentially what we're talking about here although I think my thoughts and yours can be attributed to critics of any particular medium or thing (not just the arts).
If a person reads a movie review before seeing a movie, they either have no clue what to expect and are looking to "professional critics" to, basically give them an idea of the movie, or, they have a fairly good idea of what o expect due to trailers, marketing, hype and so on and simply want confirmation of what they already expected. Now, in the former case, they'll likely want an entirely unbiased review (and unfortunately, likely be given a fully biased one). But in the latter case, if they're the kind of people who go into a movie with a certain expectation (like, for instance, most Watchmen fans went in expecting a truly amazing, groundbreaking movie), then any reviews they read before saying that it was merely a good movie, not Citizen Kane, they'll ignore, and any reviews that came back telling them exactly what they wanted to here (i.e, the biased ones) will be the ones they were looking for.
Now, I could go into the type of people who read a review after watching a movie, but I think you get the point anyway, since it's pretty much the same, people have made up their own minds and just want reviews to validate their thoughts (and yes, I'm generalizing).
And what this really comes down to is that people like to be led. I'm not going to go into a rant about how we're all sheep who can't think for ourselves, that would be arrogant on my part. But the fact is, a purely unbiased piece of writing gives us ideas and allows us to come to our own conclusions. A biased piece leads us, it tells us what we should be thinking. And people are more comfortable with the latter than they are with the former. It's a little less scary for us if we find someone else to explain the world to us instead of making up our own minds, we spent a good deal of our childhood listening to other people tell us how the world worked and now we depend upon it, be it through tabloid newspapers or Oprah Winfrey.
It's not good, but as there is a market for it, people will always be looking for that biased review of that film they really really want to like.
Another place where this is very visible is the TV For Movie Lovers stuff here. I regularly read the reviews for the newest episodes of Lost, BSG, SCC and many others, both here and on a couple of other sites, and I find that reading FSR's version (I'm beginning to sound like I'm spouting propaganda here!) is always better. Rather than just going through the events of the episode, the reviewer discusses the happenings in the context of the bigger picture, not only plot wise but also touching on how it impacts viewers. They don't do it in simplified terms, they don't just state that it was fantastic or that it was terrible, they back it up with arguments and coherent thought.
Ok, I'm done now.
w00t go team FSR, u r awesomE!!!11!
It can go either way, I saw Watchmen twice and loved it while recognizing the flaws of this theatrical version.
Personally cannot wait to see the DVD versions. We will get more of that story and fleshing out we were hoping for.
All said, I still give it a 9/10 for the theatrical run.
Another point, the movie (like the book) is not catered to idiots.
I think it's obvious that online reviewers, fanboy sites in particular, have most definitely treated Watchmen overwhelmingly with a predetermined deference. But as already stated, most of the readers of these sites have the same viewpoint too. The reviews confirm what they already believe.
And I would argue that reviews by their very nature are opinion pieces.
I just think that right now there are a ton of examples of people who aren't being honest. They're protecting the film because they want it to do well. Or, there are definitely a few who are giving handjobs to films to appeal to the publicists and get free shit and exclusives. You can tell by our lack of awesome free shit that we are not among that group. We have to steal our stuff like normal criminals.
Everyone I've talked to over the weekend who have seen Watchmen-love it!!Be it black(I have alot of black friends who love dark shit-gangs etc), white or latino all love the movie and said they'd see it again...
Which tells me, that most of these reviewers are just not into films as much as they think they are..
Oh and it helps to see the movie more than once before you write a review too...
That being said, I also feel as though in this case, a lot of the print journalists, real journalists, DID go in with a bias. Apparently the critics screening was full of derisive laughter. Both times I say it, the movie was fully respected by its audience with laughter only where there should have been. I just feel like if you come into a movie ready to laugh at what you consider to be corny, you knew ahead of time that you were going to let yourself do that, you know? And to let that happen at a CRITICS screening?! How would that not influence those around you and help form their opinions?
So I think everyone is guilty of having some sort of a bias in this case. I mean, its Zack Snyder. And it's WATCHMEN.
I kept an eye on reviews over the last week more than normal because I was generaly curious to see how critics were going to feel about Watchmen. I never expected stellar reviews, so I wasn't surprised that a lot of top critics didn't like the movie. I read a few and felt they were generally unbiased, but there were a couple which felt as if they went into the movie ready to hate. One even gave away major spoilers, which was awful, but thank goodness I've already read the comic.
Often times with genre movies I feel critic reviews need to be taken with a grain of salt. Sometimes the movie turns out to be something they enjoy and other times you can tell it is not their type of movie, but they tried to be fair. The reviews I hate are the ones that tear apart a movie because it doesn't live up to their upper crust standards of what they think is a good movie, film may be subjective, but there is a difference between sounding fair and being mean-spirited. I love it when a critic calls a comic/superhero/fantasy movie unrealistic. Well, no shit.
As for the journalistic side, yes any review must be as unbiased as possible, but everyone has their own personal ingrained prejudices. You can't help it, it's subconscious. The most you can do is have as open a mind as possible, which every reviewer I've seen here does. But you still come at it from a geek's point of view, which is why I love it.
Oh and if you want an example of bad journalism, take this bit I read yesterday. It was an article about the sentencing of Karl Bishop, who stabbed & killed Harry Potter actor Rob Knox. Just this one bit really bothered me: "Cowardly Bishop did not return to court to hear other verdicts..." Cowardly? Really? That's supposed to be unbiased journalism? Don't think so.
I only hope more bloggers who aspire to be respected get the chance to view this article.