Bow down to the CelebCult!
"A newspaper film critic is like a canary in a coal mine. When one croaks, get the hell out."
So begins one of the most trenchant critiques of the newspaper industry you're likely to see - written by the Chicago Sun-Times esteemed film critic Roger Ebert, examining the decline in our industry from the vantage point of movie criticism.
Ebert looks at the job losses among movie critics - a trend reported on in this blog ad nauseum - and sees that newspapers are no longer interested in intelligent analysis of movies. Instead, papers think their readers want "affairs, divorces, addiction, disease, success, failure, death watches, tirades, arrests, hissy fits, scandals, who has been 'seen with' somebody, who has been 'spotted with' somebody, and 'top ten' lists of the above."
What Ebert calls "CelebCult" is a virus that "is eating our culture alive, and newspapers voluntarily expose themselves to it. It teaches shabby values to young people, festers unwholesome curiosity, violates privacy, and is indifferent to meaningful achievement. One of the TV celeb shows has announced it will cover the Obama family as 'a Hollywood story.' I want to smash something against a wall."
Amen, Brother Roger.
So begins one of the most trenchant critiques of the newspaper industry you're likely to see - written by the Chicago Sun-Times esteemed film critic Roger Ebert, examining the decline in our industry from the vantage point of movie criticism.
Ebert looks at the job losses among movie critics - a trend reported on in this blog ad nauseum - and sees that newspapers are no longer interested in intelligent analysis of movies. Instead, papers think their readers want "affairs, divorces, addiction, disease, success, failure, death watches, tirades, arrests, hissy fits, scandals, who has been 'seen with' somebody, who has been 'spotted with' somebody, and 'top ten' lists of the above."
What Ebert calls "CelebCult" is a virus that "is eating our culture alive, and newspapers voluntarily expose themselves to it. It teaches shabby values to young people, festers unwholesome curiosity, violates privacy, and is indifferent to meaningful achievement. One of the TV celeb shows has announced it will cover the Obama family as 'a Hollywood story.' I want to smash something against a wall."
Amen, Brother Roger.
Labels: disappearing critics
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