Let's See You Do Better: Difference between revisions

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Just imagine if this were applied to all forms of criticism; "You think the president's doing a bad job, and want to vote for the opposing candidate? How can you even say that when ''you've'' never been president?" "You think this cake tastes bad and it's undercooked? How can you even say that when ''you've'' never been a chef?" "[[Rule of Three|You think]] [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] [[Refuge in Audacity|could have done a better job during]] [[World War II]]? How can you even say that when ''you've'' never been a leader of Germany who sparked a war and a Holocaust?" You clearly don't have to be good at something yourself in order to be able to tell whether someone else is good or not. Perhaps strangely, however, this objection is rarely (if ever) raised to deflect ''positive'' criticism.

On the other hand, while all opinions may be ''valid'' this does not mean that all opinions are equally informed or useful. It is not rare for criticism to form even without any rudimentary understanding of the difficulties inherent in whatever is being criticized. Anyone who's had to manage a "bigger picture" probably understands a lot better that being president can be a horrendous task, and there's much more to large-budget filmmaking than its acclaimed director.

And this argument legitimately comes into play when someone actually ''is'' coming out and saying they could do better without producing any evidence to that effect; in such cases, it's not entirely unreasonable to ask them to put their money where their mouth is and pony up the goods.

In some circles, this is erroneously called "Ebert's Law", named after the famous film critic [[Roger Ebert]]. This is not an actual trope about his version of Ebert's law, which is "It's not what a movie's about, but how it's about it."

"Those who can, do; those who can't, criticize," is also a common variant. Compare [[Don't Like, Don't Read]], when this trope is applied to [[Fanfic]]. Also compare [[He Panned It, Now He Sucks]].

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== Film ==

* The best known example of the above law that actually involves [[Roger Ebert]] comes from a [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050811/REVIEWS/50725001/1023 review] of ''[[Deuce Bigalow]]: European Gigolo''. Actor Rob Schneider took offense to an article by Patrick Goldstein of the ''Los Angeles Times'', pointing out that several major studios turned down the chance to finance the year's Best Picture nominees while financing a sequel to a crude sex comedy. After reading it, he took out a full-page ad in the ''Hollywood Reporter'' and called Goldstein a "hack" because he had never won any Pulitzer Prizes. In Ebert's review of the film, he taunted Schneider and said that he himself actually ''did'' win a Pulitzer, and thus was fully qualified to tell Schneider that he thought the movie sucked. The story took an [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|unexpected]] turn after several back-and-forth barbs in the press. After one of Ebert's cancer surgeries, Schneider sent Ebert flowers. Ebert conceded that while Schneider may make bad movies, he's a good man. Aww.

** Roger Ebert himself is an [[Averted Trope|aversion]] of this; he's a revered, Pulitzer-prize winning film critic, [[Beyond the Valley of ~~The~~ Dolls|but his actual filmography]] [[So Bad It's Good|is something else]].

** Roger Ebert himself is an [[Averted Trope|aversion]] of this; he's a revered, Pulitzer-prize winning film critic, [[Beyond the Valley of the Dolls|but his actual filmography]] [[So Bad It's Good|is something else]].

* Uwe Boll, "[[Small Name, Big Ego|ze only genius in ze hole fahking beeznez]]", engages in this. The thing is, his targets were [[Michael Bay]], [[George Clooney]], and [[Eli Roth]]. Now say what you will about the savagely, critically trashed ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]'' or ''[[Hostel]]'', but at least one of them is certainly better than ''[[Alone in the Dark (2005 film)|Alone in The Dark]]''.

* According to [http://ineptculturalcritic.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/a-glossary-of-pseudo-scientific-and-derogatory-terms/ this blog] Mark Ruffalo invoked this trope when his directorial debut was panned at the Sundance Film Festival.

* ''[[Bruce Almighty]]'' provides an in-universe example, where God basically tells Bruce this...then gives him all of His powers for a week.

* In ''[[Happy Gilmore]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlazKFGxohM&feature=related this is what leads to Happy discovering his talent.]

* From the 1940 film ''[[Edison The Man]]'':

{{quote|'''Thomas Edison:''' That spring is too strong, it won't work.

'''Workman:''' I'd like to see you make a better one.

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== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

* This is sometimes thrown out to [[Smart Mark|Smarks]] by wrestlers. Mainly because some Smarks (though they know about the wrestling business), do not understand the large scope of things be it the business aspect of things, or the physical aspects of things in the ring.

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* ''[[Touhou]]'' exists because ZUN didn't like existing shooter games. Amusingly, the fandom also likes doing this with his art (good designs, bad execution).

* According to [[Word of God]], this is how ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]'' was born.

* A variant, where this was invoked by the critic himself: after the infamously horrible ''[[Doom]]'' [[Game Mod|WAD]] called [http://www.doomworld.com/11years/others.php "Doom: Rampage Edition"] (involving the player taking on a role of a [[Breakout Mook Character|Baron of Hell]]) was released, one of the players commented that "he could pull a better wad out of [his] ass". A week later, he did indeed release a WAD based on the same concept, which gathered warm reviews. To rub it in: the name of this WAD? "[http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=12713 A Better WAD I Pulled Out Of My Ass]".

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Newgrounds]]'' used to be the king of this trope. It seemed that unless you had a movie that was rated in the top 10, you had absolutely no right to criticize any movies There were even movies made making fun of those people who left comments or even ''rated'' movies down. But most of these were made about the types of people who made comments like "Your movie stinks" or "You used sprites, therefore you sucked" or attacked the author without good reason.

** Sometimes, even pointing out a bug in a flash game resulted in this...

* ''[[The Onion]]'', in its [[News Parody|usual style]], applied [http://www.theonion.com/content/news/well_you_try_to_reconstruct_iraq this trope in an unexpected way to fantastic results.]

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** Having also done some minor webcomics criticism, Yahtzee may also have received these from webcomic supporters. Yahtzee, however, always remarks that [[Old Shame|his old webcomic efforts]] were hardly any better than the ones he openly criticizes, and is very aware of the hypocrisy in pointing out other webcomics' flaws. And at least Yahtzee stopped making his horrible webcomic.

* Kippurbird also got this at least once due to her sporkings of ''[[Inheritance Cycle|Eragon]]''.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeHsSmQdkzE Lost Parody] did this for their final episode, after 14 completely nonsensical episodes of jabs at ''[[Lost]]'''s failings, in the last episode they managed to pull the entirety of depicted events together into something that came very close to making sense.

{{quote|'''Hurley:''' Now it's your turn, ''[[Lost]]''! '''You only have ONE. EPISODE! LEFT!'''}}

* If anyone criticizes an articles on ''[[Cracked.com]]'', expect to see this trope show up.

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== [[Web Comics]] ==

* After Elly of ''[[The Word Weary]]'' criticizes a woman's parenting skills, the woman [http://wordwearycomic.blogspot.com/2012/04/5-april-2012.html responds with a variation on this.]

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* There was a ''[[South Park]]'' episode where Cartman made the morning announcements and relentlessly and mercilessly picked apart everything Wendy did as a class president. As her way of asking Cartman if he could do better, Wendy simply resigned from her spot and let Cartman take over. This actually got Cartman to shut up, as he was prepared to only criticize, not ''act''.

** And, of course, there was the fact that the class president had no real authority to begin with. Since Cartman convinced everyone in school to "ask questions"(i.e. Blame the most prominent authority figure available for anything and everything), he was left [[Hoist by His Own Petard|with everyone in school blaming him for all manner of problems that he in no way had the power to solve.]]

* On ''[[The Simpsons]]'' when Bart is kicked out of Mr. Burns' casino and notes the martinis suck, the Squeaky Voiced Teen challenges him to have his own casino in his treehouse. Bart does just that, leading the teen to note how he was shown up.

** In "Bart Star" Homer constantly taunts Ned about his coaching.

{{quote|'''Marge''': You know, Homer, its very easy to critisise.

'''Homer''': Fun, too. }}

** When Flanders has enough, he gives Homer the position.

{{quote|'''Ned''': Do you have a problem with the way I'm coaching?

'''Homer''': No! No! No no no. Its just that... well... like I was yelling earlier... seems like... anyone with half a brain can coach better than you.

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== Real Life ==

* Statesmen or generals use this defense in their memoirs, all the way back to ancient times.

* Parliamentary systems such as the UK run on this. If the government of the day doesn't have the confidence of Parliament, they resign and the head of state has the option of either asking another member of Parliament to form a new government (if they can find sufficient votes in government), or call a general election to elect a new Parliament. Macaulay, in his History of England, notes that this practice forces the Parliamentary opposition to be more serious about the business of government, compared with earlier when ministers continued in position without having the support of a majority of Parliament.

** An interesting variant on that occurred when [[John Major]] challenged his critics within the Conservative party to "put up or shut up" - he resigned from the leadership of his party, though not from the office of prime minister, and contested a snap election for party leader. He won, but in the event that he'd been defeated, his victorious opponent would most likely have become prime minister and served as such for the remainder of that parliamentary term.