DVR Overflow

On Hype, Backlash, and the Value of Criticism in Today’s Media

Aaron Sorkin’s newest rapid-fire, hyper-literate drama The Newsroom is set to debut on HBO this Sunday, and the early reviews are in.

• “The Newsroom gets so bad so quickly that I found my jaw dropping.” -Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker
• “The Newsroom, after four exhausting, smug episodes, gives us none of [The West Wing’s clever dialogue]: just Aaron Sorkin writing one argument after another for himself to win.” - James Poniewozik, Time
• “Sorkin’s writing lapses into self-parody, leaving savvier viewers to marvel at how quickly the show goes awry.” -Hank Stuever, The Washington Post
• “When The Newsroom isn’t obvious and self-congratulatory, it’s manipulative and shrieky.” -Maureen Ryan, The Huffington Post

Of course, there are positive reviews of The Newsroom to be found as well. But in all likelihood, early coverage of the show will be simplified into a collection of pithy quotables strung together to form a larger takedown — something along the lines of “10 Reviews that Prove The Newsroom Sucks” or “Read this Epic Takedown of Aaron Sorkin’s New Show Right Now”. These are the kind of headlines Buzzfeed, Gawker, Uproxx, and HuffPo know the average internet skimmer is going to click on, so why not resort to tabloid-style pageview grabs?  Or, if the culture reporter of these fine content mills is feeling especially lazy, “The 15 Funniest Reactions to The Newsroom on Twitter”, wherein a smattering of 140 character nanoreviews by comedians of varying repute are scraped from a service built on shorthanded snark.

When did the dominant form of crowdsourced criticism move from unhinged, genuflecting, excited-beyond-belief hype to detached, ironic, dismissive-wanking-motion-at-your-culture-of-choice backlash?

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Richard Rushfield explores this very subject in his essay “The Backlash Era: Smelling Sorkin Blood”, and cites early 2012 as the turning point when prevailing internet attitudes shifted from Hype to Backlash. Besides pinpointing a specific date, he raises a lot of good points as to why this shift in attitudes has occurred. His breakdown, chronologically, is essentially this:

2005: YouTube barely exists. Facebook is used exclusively by college kids. Twitter is a twinkle in Biz Stone’s eyes. Through whatever internet back channels people used to communicate back then, people begin to buzz about a film whose working title is simply Snakes on a Plane. Fans go wild for the film, envisioning a reptilian gorefest with Samuel Jackson shouting his now-famous (and fan-made) mothafucking catchphrase. Studio execs order the crew to shoot additional scenes in an attempt to meet fan expectations. It’s referred to as “the most internet-buzzed film of all time,” and despite tanking at the box office, the internet hype machine is born.

2006-2010: Subsequent internet fan campaigns — Betty White hosting SNL, fans of Chuck saving the show by eating Subway sandwiches — pop up almost weekly. Outside of entertainment, President Barack Obama is hailed as the first commander-in-chief of the internet age. Political talking head turned internet mogul Arianna Huffington says “Were it not for the internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee.”  This is the golden age of internet hype, when individuals feel that their e-interactions are helping change the world, or getting Kim Possible a third season, at the very least.

2011-present: The Backlash begins to inevitably rise. Too many campaigns exist. It now becomes standard for everything — from a big-budget Hollywood film to a 10-person plumbing company in Dubuque, Iowa — to have a social media presence. Major companies spam consumers with barely-veiled “fan hashtags”, attempting to force users to share things like “Great night with a couple of Buds! #herewego” or “Can’t wait to watch #Tosh on #ComedyCentral tonight!” Fandom fatigue sets in, and for those who live on the web, fatigue quickly turns to anger. People’s previously held belief that their role in fan campaigns somehow made a difference has lead to an inflated sense of self; this is parlayed into utilization of social networks to build their own personal brand — where likes and retweets can inflate or deflate an ego, where buzz and attention are the only acceptable currencies. Facebook goes public — attempting to convert these Buzz Bucks into Real Bucks — and fails miserably, as hedge fund managers are privy to the fast-rising Backlash Model. The Backlash Era is now in full effect.

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So what does all of this mean for the average consumer? Or, for that matter, the average media critic? Will we ever be able to be genuinely excited about a TV show again, or has internet killed the television star? Has appointment viewing been permanently replaced by a detached indifference from the general populace, who will only commit to a show once it’s had a couple good seasons and is available on Netflix? For now, the answer to that question is unclear. But as long as viewers and critics alike are aware that the current negative feedback loop exists, and do their best to rise above it — consumers by conditioning themselves not to be deterred by a few negative reviews, critics by resisting the urge to issue scathing takedowns or write a show off completely based on a few early episodes — we can make it through this together.

As for The Newsroom, I’m still going to watch the show this Sunday, and probably several subsequent episodes as well. Maybe it really is as bad as some critics allege, or maybe it simply needs time to grow, and can’t be written off because of a few uneven early episodes — I’m looking at you, Seinfeld and Parks and Recreation. It would be relatively easy for me to read into the criticisms leveled at The Newsroom and write it off as a knockoff blend of Sports Night and The West Wing from an aging scriptwriting Shakespeare whose highfalutin, 80 WPM dialogue feels stale. That sounds like a plausible reason not to like the show, right? But the thing is, I’ve liked everything Sorkin has written, Moneyball and The Social Network included, and citing his dialogue as preachy and condescending is a little bit like the criticism Girls faced from the Backlash Machine earlier this year decrying it’s upper-middle class view of twentysomething urbanites. Sure there may be a relative lack of diversity, and yes, many of the show’s stars come from privileged backgrounds, but neither of those criticisms disguised the fact that Girls is an amazing show. Critics citing the first point apparently haven’t watched Friends in awhile, and critics citing the second apparently think Hollywood is a meritocracy in which no famous people’s offspring deserve to get work.

In summary: Watch what you want to watch, and try not to allow external influences deconstruct everything you love until you cease to be entertained by entertainment. But try not to live-tweet your favorite show either, because I will unfollow you immediately.

synecdoche:

I rewrote Girls so I could relate to it more.

“There’s funny things to hate about it, because it is about people who are self-entitled and smart and screwing up their lives. It’s supposed to be about people who are a disaster and privileged, and every time you do something about people like that, people go, ‘Why are they like that?’ Well, because that’s the point of the show. The joke of it. People go, ‘Why are men immature in your movies?’ Well, because they are immature and it’s funny to see them try to figure it out.”

- Judd Apatow, on why you’re stupid if you dislike Girls because its characters are spoiled and overprivileged.

(via Vulture)

Game, set, match.

All the Real Girls

So HBO’s Girls premiered less than 48 hours ago, and already I feel like the conversation has progressed to the double reverse backlash stage. So goes the water cooler talk for a show where writers are legally obligated to use the word “zeitgeist” in every recap (see, I just used it there!). Instant reactions to TV aren’t exactly rare - they’re the norm, really. But the response to Girls is particularly strange because everybody seems to already have a concrete opinion of the show. And what’s stranger yet is that really isn’t a problem.

You can thank or blame director/writer/star Lena Dunham for that, because she’s just so goddamn competent. It’s hard to find any filmmaker, let alone one barely old enough to rent a car, who can clearly articulate a vision for an entire television series in one half-hour episode, but Dunham did. If you didn’t like the series’ first thirty minutes, it’s hard for me to see Dunham & Crew winning you over. The central premise of the show is that these characters are in a sort of early life stasis, and growth just for growth’s sake doesn’t seem to be something Dunham is interested in. Nor do I think HBO will force it on her - this is the network that was built by The Sopranos, a show that centered itself around the idea that people never truly change.

But if you did like the first episode of Girls, chances are you aren’t just interested in basic character arcs. You like ideas, you like creativity, you like pushing boundaries. Louie is probably your favorite show (For the record, I am probably the 800,000th person to compare this show to Louie). And those are all things that Dunham really does seem interested in and that she is very capable of expressing.

However, as if to negate the entire theory I just espoused, I’m really not sure what I think of Girls (insert juvenile joke referencing homosexuality here). So far, the show seems to replicate all the responses I had to Dunham’s film Tiny Furniture. On the one hand, Dunham strikes me as a genius. She has an unnatural mastery of her craft and instills her work with a sense of authenticity I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. But at the same time, the message of Girls really bothers me.

Dunham seems almost hell bent on confirming every steretype media commentators and Ye Olde Members of the Baby Boomer Age have about the “Millenial” (gah, I hate typing that word) generation - the whole generation, not just its female half. And to a large extent I realize that critique is unfair. More than anything else, Dunham’s work seems to be a reflection on her personal life, and the idea that her personal life represents all twentysomethings of this decade is patently ridiculous, as Dunham herself points out (“I think I might be the voice of my generation. Or at least, a voice. Of a generation.”)

But regardless of Dunham’s intentions, the moderate ratings success and incredible Internet success of Girls makes her one of the most prominent voices of her, and my, generation. And for a generation that has already become a lightning rod for a disproportionate amount of criticism, Dunham’s voice isn’t helping. My guess is that every 7 seconds, somebody accuses a recent college grad of being entitled. Now that Girls is around, the anti-Millenial lobby has a perfect reference point. If only the show just weren’t so damn well done.

So laud Dunham for her talent. Laud Dunham for her voice. She really does deserve a tremendous amount of praise. But frankly, I’m already getting a bit sick of the idea that her voice is supposed to speak for me. 

So in case you haven’t read any of the 600 thought pieces on it, a little show called Girls debuted last night on HBO. Despite the zeitgeist-like hype, several astute people sarcastically noted on Twitter that Girls was aimed at and about a group of people who don’t have cable, much less HBO. So, did you guys find a way to watch it last night? If so, do you have any thoughts?

(image via Slaughterhouse 90210)

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