Sorry, but I have to have another rant (and I'm being very serious here). I notice an alarming lack of respect for others' opinions in the Internet. Even more alarmingly, I note that many attacks are on the persons supplying the opinions rather than on the opinions themselves.
I hate Pulp Fiction. I can't stand the characters and I don't appreciate the story being told or the way it's being told. It did not entertain me and I had to watch it in thirty-minute installments to get through it. It was no Goodfellas. BUT, I will never insult anyone for saying that they like it. I can see how its fans like it for the dialogue (I will admit, there were a few lines from Samuel L. Jackson that I liked--the stuff about Marcellus Wallace), view of the gangster world, and nonlinear storytelling. It did nothing for me, but if you enjoy it, fine. Though I may disagree with your opinion, I defend your right to have it and will certainly not think you're a horrible person because we don't agree.
This is where I see problems with the way some people in the Internet express their opinions. They not only criticise and insult the work, they insult they person. This is a logical fallacy known as ad hominem, attacking the person making the argument instead of the argument itself. When I did my "Animation and the Eyes of Doom" post, I made an argument and backed up my points. I never called anyone stupid because they didn't have the same belief as I did. I disagreed with the misconception people have about animated eyes instead of the people themselves.
Because it draws such sharp lines of love/hate, I will use anime as an example. I cannot tell you how much hate I have seen online for not only anime itself, but for anime fans. Just type in "why do people like anime" in a search engine. Some will attack anime itself, which is fine, as long as they have reasons to back it up. As with everything, some critiques are based on ignorance--"big eyes" (which exist in all animation) and false claims that anime lacks variety, when anime combines genres in ways that Hollywood has never done, and that all anime look the same, which, if you watch some, you will quickly realise that they do not. Mostly these are generalizations that classify all of something based on one representation of it, which I do not like to do. I dislike Pulp Fiction, but not the crime genre of movies in general, so I don't avoid them just because I had one bad experience. Otherwise, I'm going to miss a lot of good stories. Other criticisms are well-founded: they don't like the fanservice (neither do I), they don't like the voice acting (Japanese or English), they don't like the lack of movement in the characters, they don't like the way that some anime end. Fine--make your arguments respectfully and clearly, and we can have a conversation.
Ad hominem is where I lose my tolerance. A talented reviewer who styles himself "Confused Matthew" has done some excellent reviews. He believes that the Star Wars prequels are of poor quality and are badly written, and his videos strongly back up his opinion. He even lets the movies criticise themselves by setting two contradictory lines in one scene of Star Wars: The Clone Wars next to each other and looping them. However, during his review of Spirited Away (which had some problems in it), he makes the most conceited, immature, and downright irresponsible comment I have ever heard a reviewer say: "I don't like anime and I can't understand why anyone else does." Then he flashes a picture of InuYasha (yeah, because if he flashed a picture of Tokyo Godfathers or Haibane Renmei, viewers would have laughed at him for his ignorance). I may dislike Pulp Fiction, but I would never say that I couldn't see why anybody liked it. To make such a statement injures a reviewer's credibility. Okay, he has a right to say he doesn't like anime, though it does seem strange to hate an entire medium. His depiction of "all anime" seems to be fantasy/action pieces, rather than the extensive genre/genre combinations that anime is capable of--drama, various types of fantasy, horror, comedy, historical drama, literary adaptations, slice-of-life, war, action, science fiction, action/drama, war/fantasy, science fiction/literary adaptation, fantasy/drama/slice-of-life, etc. If he's only seen one movie and one show, it would be like hearing the song "The Wheel on the Bus Go Round and Round" and saying you hate all music. They're generalisations, which are dangerous because I don't think that you should try to classify things you've never seen.
But I digress. When he says that he can't see why anyone likes it, he implies that his opinion is the only right one--he doesn't like anime and nobody should. It's an insult to his viewers who find a lot to like in the MEDIUM (he incorrectly labels anime as a genre instead of a medium). With those statements, he says that he doesn't like it, nobody else should, and implies anybody who likes it has bad taste. I once talked to a person about how good I, Claudius is, and he said, and I quote, "How good can it be if I haven't heard of it?" As if the benchmark for greatness was whether or not he personally knew about it. That's ignorance, closed-mindedness, and conceit. We need less of that and more tolerance and open-mindedness. (That comment is also a really strange one, considering that up until some point in your life, you hadn't heard of your favorite movie, book, song, or met your best friend.)
He also is irresponsible for telling us that he hates anime and then never explaining what he doesn't like about it. If a reviewer doesn't like something, he/she should be prepared to say why. I don't like Pulp Fiction, but that doesn't mean that I don't like all gangster movies: I like Goodfellas and I like The Godfather more. I just didn't like Tarantino's movie, and I gave some reasons why. Matthew never did so, so that makes it harder for me to accept his views. Even taking a minute or two to explain what he doesn't like would be a great way to understand him. I respect his right to not like it, but not his right to say that nobody should like it because he doesn't understand it.
I will point out two problems with his review, since I brought it up: he read a review that labeled Chihiro as a spoiled child, and then criticized the movie for not portraying her as a spoiled child, instead of the reviewer who incorrectly called Chihiro a spoiled child. He also criticises the movie for never explaining who the spirits are. These spirits are Shinto gods, which the Japanese target audience would be very familiar with and would not need an explanation about. Just as films from the United States don't stop to explain who God and Jesus are, Spirited Away does not need to explain who the Shinto spirits are.
But even worse is a certain reviewer on YouTube who posted a video on "Why Anime Sucks." He starts by flipping off the audience and saying something akin to, "Hey anime fans, f--- you motherf-------" You would think from his hate and rage that every anime fan in the world teamed together and killed everyone in his family, destroyed the ozone layer, and assassinated the Dalai Lama. No other catastrophe could merit that kind of hateful response. As a reviewer, I should have stayed around to view the whole thing, but I could not, with that opening, do it. If profanity and insults are the way you argue things, you have no good argument. Good arguments don't need to insult the people holding another opinion; good arguments know that insulting others is a fallacy that doesn't back up a belief. You can insult others all day long, but it doesn't do anything to convey your opinion that Pulp Fiction is a good or bad movie. I don't go around saying, "Hey, Quentin Tarantino fans, suck eggs and die!" Why? They haven't done anything to me. I have nothing against the people. One of my friends' favorite movies is Pulp Fiction. She likes it, I don't, and that's it--I didn't tell her to "f--- off" when I found that out. I thought that The Pacific was poorly done, but I won't call anybody who likes it stupid. What good will it do to hate the people liking it when it's the thing itself that you don't like?
I'm not going to recommend any anime to anybody. I truly believe that there is anime out there for everybody, just as I believe there's music, literature, theatre, movies, and paintings out there for everyone, as anime is just another medium for telling a story. But, some people don't like to be pummeled with suggestions, so I will refrain from doing so. Besides, this isn't about forcing anyone to watch anime or not watch Pulp Fiction; it's about understanding and respect, not assuming your opinion is the only way to go, and not getting taken away with generalisations that say that the entirely of something is bad just because one representation of it is.
Thanks for reading. I'll be back to my reviewing self next time.
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