For decades, the only way you could find out if you were
going to like a movie was to read a review in the newspaper, ask your friends,
or go see the damn thing yourself. But as you can say for just about anything
besides wiping your ass, “everything changed with the internet.” Since then we’ve
seen the advent of the encyclopedic resource of IMDb, which was originally
started as an on-paper list in 1987 but has become the go-to reference for
movie trivia and fan-based rankings. Mistaking financial performance for
inherent quality, we’ve become obsessed with box-office results and use sites
like BoxOfficeMojo to track whether a movie is “successful.” And with the power
of anonymity and universal access to message boards, everyone truly can be a
critic.
The worst of all these cine-sites is Rotten Tomatoes. At its
heart, Rotten Tomatoes is a review aggregator, which by itself would provide a
wonderful convenience to film goers looking for a single place to read about
film. Where Rotten Tomatoes goes wrong is not in the way it aggregates movie reviews to a single site but in the way it boils every review down to a
single vote.
The site has three user groups. Top Critics are those accredited
critics who write for a newspaper. All Critics are users who have enough “Likes”
for their postings on the site. And the Audience is simply anyone with an
e-mail account and an opinion. The site takes the ratings of each member and
then boils it down to a binary “positive” or “negative” review. If a movie has
60% or more positive reviews it is deemed “Certified Fresh.” Anything less than
that and sure enough that movie is “Rotten” and is awarded a squishy, green
tomato right next to its title.
To see how these three groups can vary in their final ranking,
take for example this past weekend’s box office winner Ted. Top Critics gave the movie 64% positive reviews, All Critics gave
69%, and Audience members gave 86% positive reviews. As evidenced, the age-old discrepancy
between film criticism and movie populism remains fully intact and could prompt
another discussion centering on the real or perceived anti-intellectualism in
the United States. My main concern here is simply the voting system.
Let’s first take a look at a simple mathematical example. Assume
there are 100 people rating a movie, each on a 100 point scale. 80 audience
members felt relatively indifferent to the movie and give it a rating of 49—they
wouldn’t mind seeing it again on TBS but aren’t going to go out and rent it.
Now, the other 20 audience members cried and cheered and begged for more,
giving the movie 100 points. It was simply the best movie they’ve ever seen. As
can be seen in the chart below, this situation would receive a “Rotten” 59.2%
rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This is clearly an exercise in hyperbole, but the
fact remains that this “yay or nay” system has the ability to subject
passionate feelings to the oppressive indifference of the masses.
Rotten Tomatoes has created a “with me or against me” form
of film criticism. You either like the movie or you didn’t. And if we disagree,
we are in conflict. The nuance of discussing creative ventures has gone by the
wayside and the Like/Dislike world of social media has stepped in and taken its
place. In a connected example, the current vitriol in our political atmosphere
is a result of our insistence on reducing incredibly complex issues to black
and white decisions. There might be at least some need for that when we have to
choose only one president, but it certainly has no place when discussing
artwork.
Since watching “At the Movies with Siskel and Ebert” with my
mom as a little kid, I’ve always enjoyed hearing other people discuss film.
Today, I rarely see a film without reading the reviews by Roger Ebert, A.O.
Scott, Peter Travers, and Todd McCarthy. I prefer to read them after I see the
movie to retain the magic of seeing something with uninformed eyes, but
sometimes I can’t help myself and scratch the impatient itch of wanting to see
the film by reading the review ahead of time. Like any writer, each has his own
style and world view on what makes a film great. Ebert is by far the most
emotional writer and judges films on a sliding scale of what the film intended
to be. A.O. Scott makes his judgments on a more rigid scale, sometimes to the chagrin
of populist fanboys. Todd McCarthy is always level headed and gives a fair
assessment of how the film will be received.
I don’t read these critics because I want their final
ranking. I’ve grown to enjoy their writing and trust their assessment even if I
disagree with their point of view. Only taking their “star ratings” or even “positive/negative”
vote would rob me of their intelligence and critical thinking. And it would
take away that inherent knowledge that films really do mean something more than
box office results. We really can find meaning in our lives through the stories
that directors tell on celluloid.
And that is where the main argument for Rotten Tomatoes
lies. Not everyone loves film. Not everyone enjoys reading about a movie they
just saw. All they want to know is if they are going to enjoy themselves. Will
this movie be worth the two hours of my busy life and $15 of my hard earned money?
The easiest way to know this is by working the odds. “If 76% of the audience
members loved this movie than hopefully I will too. I’m not a film critic, so
who cares if only 15% of the Top Critics liked it.” (Those are real numbers
from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.)
With the plethora of movies coming out every week and the
limited time people have, the practicability of Rotten Tomatoes is completely
unavoidable, which makes me so incredibly sad. Because in the end Rotten
Tomatoes steals away discovery and individualism. Imagine walking into a movie
theater and having a chance to see the hypothetical movie I discussed earlier.
You look on your Rotten Tomatoes app and see it has an aggregate rating of 59%.
You decide to skip it and see the movie everyone else likes, the movie that everyone is rating 65/100. You walk out
65% pleased just like everyone else. You had a good time but forget the details
of the movie in a week.
Now, what if you went in to the first movie? What if you
were the 20% who loved it with 100% of your heart? What if it changed your life,
answered your questions, or made you feel emotionally connected like never
before?
If you base your decisions on Rotten Tomatoes, you’ll never
know the answer to those questions, but you sure will get to blend in with
everyone else.
The choice is yours.
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