Straw Critic: Difference between revisions

 

Can occasionally be a case of [[Truth in Television]], since some critics have been known to make pronouncements about media which they haven't even seen firsthand. But this rarely happens so spectacularly as in fiction.

 

See also [[Reviewer Stock Phrases]]. Compare [[Fan Dumb]], [[Unpleasable Fanbase]], [[Caustic Critic]], and [[Fan Hater]].

 

{{examples}}

* [[J. Michael Straczynski]]'s [[Superman]]: Grounded had an entire slew of straw critics in the form of reporters asking Superman a series of (perfectly reasonable) questions about why he randomly decided to walk across America. Not only does this attempt completely fail to recognize the in-universe hypocrisy (Clark Kent is a reporter) but it also foreshadowed that we'd get a series where basic logic is ignored (even though the story is ''supposed'' to take place in a more realistic depiction of America) in favor of [[Super Dickery|Superman being a dick.]]

** Hilariously JMS gave up on the series completely because it sucked. A series that uses a '''Straw Critic''' in its very first issue pretty much screams "I refuse to do my job competently!".

{{quote|'''Dogbert:''' Hmm...remove the murder, and change the protagonist to a purple dinosaur.

'''Writer:''' But it's a ''murder mystery!''

'''Dogbert:''' Oh yeah, ''that's'' original. }}

 

== Films -- Animation ==

* The American ''[[Godzilla]]'' featured the incompetent Mayor Ebert, an obvious caricature of critic Roger Ebert, who had given the director several bad reviews on previous movies. Ebert expressed disappointment that they hadn't even bothered to give him a nasty fate.

{{quote|"I fully expected to be squished like a bug by Godzilla. Now that I've inspired a character in a Godzilla movie, all I really still desire is for several Ingmar Bergman characters to sit in a circle and read my reviews to one another in hushed tones."}}

* In John Carpenter's ''[[They Live!]]'', Siskel and Ebert are revealed to be aliens. They don't notice that their [[Broken Masquerade|Masquerade broke]] because they're too busy complaining about violence in the films of Carpenter [[Shout-Out|and]] George Romero.

** Which is sort of a [[Straw Man]] on Carpenter's part: Roger Ebert championed ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]]'' alongside the Village Voice when it was being dismissed as just another slasher flick by other critics.

* In ''Theatre of Blood'', Vincent Price plays a Shakespearean actor who kills the critics who had panned him. While dueling with one (the only one who makes it to the end of the film), he delivers an [[Author Tract]] lashing out at critics.

* ''[[History of the World Part One]]'' has The First Artist in the Prehistoric segment painstakingly paint an animal on the cave wall. He is followed by "the inevitable afterbirth, the First Critic," who immediately pisses on the painting.

* The ''[[Monk]]'' episode "Mr. Monk and the Critic" featured a theater critic who reviewed a play Julie Teeger was in. He generally praised the play but singled out Julie's performance as "forgettable." It turned out that {{spoiler|he hadn't even been there during that number, meaning that he wrote the scathing comment based on a wild guess}}. Oh, and he also {{spoiler|killed the woman he was cheating on his fiancee with, and had only attended the play in the first place as an alibi}}.

* Former German [[The Beautiful Game|association football]] pundit Günter Netzer falls in the Type 1 category, but was hugely popular because of his extensive knowledge about the game, and other pundits [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny|at the time]] being the [[Yes-Man|exact opposite]].

 

== Music ==

{{quote|'''Jay:''' [singing] I love French films, pretentious boring French films, I love French Films, two tickets s'il vous plait! [man punches him]}}

** He once sucker punched [[Mister Rogers]], wished Goldie Hawn would be shot, and was glad that [[The Beatles]] broke up.

 

{{reflist}}