Bias Steamroller: Difference between revisions

Despite how easy it is to criticize in theory, critics (think [[Roger Ebert]]) have a hard job of it. They need to be objective in their assessments not just to gain and maintain credibility in their audience's eyes, but also because it can completely overshadow and ruin the review itself as a work. Granted, critics are [[Most Writers Are Human|(probably)]] human and have pet peeves or favorites, and good/bad performances and dialogue are certainly open to criticism, but when these feelings get out of hand and leak into the review, things get worse.

If the critic has a strong bias against or in favor of a genre, style, director, actor, or what have you, '''''and''''' he allows that acerbic vitriol or blind admiration fill his review, he's driving a [['''Bias Steamroller]]'''. [[Author Filibuster|The review stops being about the work and becomes about the element that inspires the bias]]; essentially boiling down to "I hate or love A; since work B has A in it, I hate or love work B; therefore you should (not) watch it."

== [[FanficFan Works]] ==

* [[The Nostalgia Critic|Nostalgia Critic-like]] fanfiction critic ''The Fic Critic'' (No, not [[The Fan Fic Critic|that]] one, the text based one) has noted that he tends to be biased against fics that [[Ron the Death Eater|act meanly towards certain characters or treats them badly]], especially ones he likes. One noteworthy example was when he went from distainfuldisdainful but amused at the stupidity of ''Web Of Shadows'', a ''Spider-Man/X-Men Evolution'' crossover Mary Sue {{spoiler|Parody}} fic, to outright anger and chain swearing after [[The Wesley|Carlie]] [[Mary Sue|Cooper]] called Mary Jane Watson, whom he admitted is one of his, if not the, favourite Spider-Man supporting character, a slutty model who dresses like a street walker. His reaction to her calling Mary Jane this is one of the few times he went from snarky to outright pissed, and ended up giving that chapter a Fuck/10.

* Critic Peter Bradshaw panned [[Peter Jackson]]'s film trilogy of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'', largely over what he sees as the failures of the fantasy genre rather than any perceived deficiencies in the films themselves.

* Critic Armond White repeatedly trashes of the films of [[Noah Baumbach]], often with personal overtones. In this case the driving force of the [[Bias Steamroller]] seems to be personal: White had previously feuded with film critic Georgia Brown, who was Baumbach's mother. In addition, he has panned every [[Pixar]] movie to come out during his time as a reviewer, often spending half the review complaining about the company itself rather than the film. On the other side of the trope, there seems to be a very short list of directors that Armond will like no matter what: [[Steven Spielberg]], [[Mike Leigh]], [[Wes Anderson]], [[Edgar Wright]], and [[The Coen Brothers]].

* ''[[The Agony Booth]]'' has an extreme bias against action films. No matter the quality of the movie, they'll always pan the film, the exception being ''[[Road House]]'', but chalk that up to Agony Booth being fanboys of [[Riff Trax]]. Even when they give movies a rating of say, 8/10, they'll still pan it, and call it "bad" even though they gave it an above-average rating, [[Fridge Logic|which makes zero sense]].

** And [[Megan Fox]], and [[Live Action Adaptation|films based on a franchise aimed at children]]. Wow, ''Transformers'' never had a chance, did it?

* While not ''quite'' reviewing, a [[Reality TV]] show article that rated the US version's "''[[Big Brother]]'' winners" the author obviously had one of these. He praised Daniele and Will for playing the strategic game and knowing it; and despite saying the same for Maggie, trashed the hell out of her because he liked Janelle better. He also flat out refused to write anything positive about Mike Malin for the same reason (ie, he liked Janelle better). He also trashed the heck out of Dan and Drew saying they didn't really deserve to win their respective seasons because he disliked them and was unable to respect their gameplay.

** In the same video, though, he admits that he does like a few of Chris Brown's songs, and ''wants'' to get past the main reason he hates him (the whole abuse debacle with Rihanna,) but that Chris Brown's [[Small Name, Big Ego|massive ego]] and refusal to truelytruly learn anything from his mistakes won't let him.

* Finnish games reviewer and columnist Niko Nirvi once took note of this effect in a column explaining the various ways in which [[Four Point Scale|a review score]] can be affected by outside factors, such as the "Wrong Guy" effect, where the game in question is a sequel to something that the reviewer previously loathed, the Ancestor effect, where the game is made by an established developer, so the score is based entirely on what the reviewer thinks of the developers, or the Genrebonus effect, where the reviewer is a fan of the IP the game is based on ("It's a ''[[Batman]]'' game! I love Batman! Have some Bat-points!"). There's also the Critic effect, where the reviewer can't admit to liking anything that isn't independent or artsy, and the exact opposite phenomenon, the Laddie effect.

* ''Game Informer'' tends to flat out trash whatever games are considered "casual" merely on basis of not being "Core" games. This was especially blatant in their review of ''[[FarmvilleFarmVille]]'', in which they don't find the game bad on its own merits - they find it bad because it's not like ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''. They've admitted in the past that they have a bias steamroller for whatever they believe their readers' biases are.

** Their review of ''[[Sonic Generations]]'' complained less about flaws in the game itself, but about the fact that SEGA celebrated the history of Sonic past 1994. They admit to enjoying the game, both Classic and Modern, up until the ''[[Sonic 3 and Knuckles]]'' part and loathing everything past that. This is particularly baffling when their review for ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 (video game)||Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'' was oddly positive (and got a better score) in the face of everyone else tearing it apart.

* [[The Angry Video Game Nerd]] does indeed have his biases. He often admits them, such as how he doesn't really do adventure games because he "Sucks at them" and doesn't really figure out how to get further in them. (Given [[Guide Dang It|the nature]] of [[Unwinnable|many adventure games]], especially at the timeframe he reviews games from, one can't really blame him too much.) He also ''admits'' this in his ''[[Castlevania]]'' reviews, admitting he found ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night|Symphony of the Night]]'' to be inferior to ''[[Super Castlevania IV]]''. However, he also shows this [[Bias Steamroller]] towards the post ''Super Castlevania IV'' games in many other ways in the forms of some often critical research failures. Among these are confusing the plot of ''[[Aria of Sorrow]]'' with ''[[Dawn of Sorrow]]'' (which is pretty interesting he made this mistake seeing as he's shown ''playing Dawn of Sorrow'') and getting some facts about ''[[Castlevania (Nintendo 64)|Castlevania 64]]'' wrong.<ref> To elaborate, he claims a "Fatal Flaw" of the game blocking his progress from placing the Nitro or Mandragora by the crack is in fact his own inability to realize that the game has an "interact" button. This is rather impressive that he didn't appear to know that; since he managed to get that far. He was trying to use the item from the item menu, which is for items that you use on yourself like food.</ref> He also makes it pretty obvious that he's a fan of Nintendo and has a preference for it in his Console Wars videos as well as his "Pong consoles" videos. Part of the reason is also because that's what he was most familiar with.

* ''[[X-Play]]'' has pretty huge biases against [[RPG|RPGs]]s, World War II games and [[Dynasty Warriors|Koei's]] [[Samurai Warriors|Warriors]] [[Warriors Orochi|games]]. They also love to accentuate how much they hate doing escort missions, and this often seeps into their reviews where they may often trash World War II [[Games/RPG|RPGs]] on basis of being sick of World War II/not liking [[RPG|RPGs]]s, and in the case of the latter, severely not doing any bit of research in the game. That is; depending on whether or not it's Adam or Morgan doing the review and not just a writer.

** Occasionally averted in the case of [[RPG|RPGs]]s. They seem to like The Elder Scrolls series, having given [[The Elder Scrolls III|Morrowind]], [[The Elder Scrolls IV|Oblivion]], and [[The Elder Scrolls V|Skyrim]] all 5/5 stars.

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