tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56230747868041478.post6567523760753181412..comments2024-03-24T00:16:17.304-07:00Comments on Storming the Ivory Tower: Nerd-On-Nerd Violence: Why Is Geek Star Wars Crit So Lousy?Sam Keeperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00863236889998956170noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56230747868041478.post-57112458360792133222017-05-01T22:10:44.187-07:002017-05-01T22:10:44.187-07:00I'm glad to see someone butchering this partic...I'm glad to see someone butchering this particular sacred cow of nerddom. The Plinkett reviews always bored me and creeped me out, and the fact that so many people who otherwise took a very progressive tack seemed to excuse their grotty mean-spiritedness and shallow non-analysis never ceased to baffle me.J.H.M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/11133812722254110325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56230747868041478.post-53422366747373153232017-05-01T14:27:49.996-07:002017-05-01T14:27:49.996-07:00I can see your argument to an extent but I just do...I can see your argument to an extent but I just don't really agree that Plinkett isn't taken sincerely as an authority by people. Here's two illustrative examples:<br /><br />"For those not in the know, Harry S. Plinkett is a movie-reviewing character created by RLM’s Mike Stoklasa. The character is often described as ”psychotic” and <b>simultaneously embodies the best and worst qualities of online film reviewers</b>. He’s able to offer <b>thoughtful insights into the inherent flaws of mass-marketed genre pictures</b>, while still maintaining his image as a hateful pizza-roll eating slob— albeit a self-aware one. " from the AV Club<br /><br />"What did Hulk think of RedLetterMedia’s classic, and eviscerating, series of 90 minute reviews on the new Star Wars trilogy?<br /><br />-Nerdlinger<br /><br />HULK LOVED IT. SURE, THE SERIAL KILLER JOKE GETS OLD VERY, VERY, VERY QUICK (BUT HULK IMAGINE SAME TRUE OF HOW HULK WRITE). BUT HE DISPLAY TRULY EXCELLENT SENSE OF STORYTELLING 101! HULK’S FAVORITE THING! IT DO REALLY GOOD JOB EXPLAINING BASICS OF CHARACTER APPROACH, SPECIFICALLY WHEN ASK PEOPLE DESCRIBE THE CHARACTERS WITHOUT USING NAME, JOB, OR CLOTHING. THE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS ALL CLASSIC ARCHTYPES, NOTHING SPECIAL. BUT THE PREQUEL CHARACTERS NO EVEN ARCHETYPES! THEY BIG NOTHINGS. HONESTLY, STORYTELLING 101 SHOULD BE THE HEART OF POPULAR CINEMA-GOING. RIGHT? HULK ARGUE IT THE REASON EVERYONE DIGGING ON CAPTAIN AMERICA. HULK THINK THIS RE-EMPAHSIS OF CLASSIC STORYTELLING SHOULD BE “THE NEW THING.” A CINEMATIC NEO-CLASSICIST MOVEMENT IF YOU WILL." -from, if it wasn't obvious, Film Crit Hulk<br /><br />Certainly things like Plinkett's Character Test are treated, as far as I can tell, with the utmost sincere reverence online, and I think it would be hard at this to find analysis of the prequels that isn't fundamentally influenced by these videos. I also do, genuinely, think that this is the POINT, otherwise why, like, keep making videos? Why keep doubling down on this stuff without, as far as I can tell, ever attempting to make the parody more obvious, if we're not supposed to take as sincere the basic critiques he's leveling?<br /><br />It's totally possible that I'm wrong about how deliberate all of this is, but I think it's important to recognize that if I am, it's only because I came to RedLetterMedia in an internet landscape that had <i>already accepted Plinkett as an authority on the Prequels</i>, and that dynamic hasn't changed really since I first encountered his videos as we can see from the AV Club piece.Sam Keeperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00863236889998956170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56230747868041478.post-4927209367263646802017-05-01T07:13:25.769-07:002017-05-01T07:13:25.769-07:00(Since editing is disabled I have to make this a r...(Since editing is disabled I have to make this a reply)<br /><br />I'd like to clarify: I'm not defending the Plinkett character. He's in bad taste, and normalizes all sorts of problematic ideas. It's pretty horrifying that the Plinkett reviews are so popular: they're not terribly good reviews, and they bank on a kind of shock humor that's not really justifiable.<br /><br />I'm just saying that, given the wider context of RLM, I don't think it's reasonable to say Plinkett represents any kind of superiority (although some viewers may interpret it that way because they aren't seeing the context).<br /><br />Instead, he's the blunt tool used to say "this film has such massive structural problems that even idiots can't enjoy it from a storytelling perspective" -- and such tools aren't totally valueless.John Ohnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11352441770252592928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56230747868041478.post-53872557299623052242017-05-01T07:02:53.314-07:002017-05-01T07:02:53.314-07:00The Mr Plinkett character always seemed to me to b...The Mr Plinkett character always seemed to me to be a parody of the least-insightful-possible viewer. (And, I should note, he *is* a character, & his stated opinions diverge from those of the Red Letter Media crew.)<br /><br />His characterization in the Plinkett reviews is essentially a collection of stereotypes of obnoxious internet trolls dating back to the early 90s (he's basically what people during the spam wars called a "chicken boner" -- someone of a lower class, with various physical and intellectual disabilities, who is unemployed and rants on the internet), and in the "Half in the Bag" series he's a completely different conglomeration of stereotypes (a technically illiterate elderly person whose antisocial nature is only made up for by his gullibility and thus value as a mark). I can't defend him as a good character, but I also can't really believe that he is intended as representative of superiority in any way -- he's coded as a loser whose opinions are, if not bad, at least *basic* and *unlearned*.<br /><br />The generally low nuance in his critiques is instead representative of the way he's intended to be taken: as someone who criticizes films on their ability to be successful in terms of being entertaining & satisfying to a large general audience. In other words, by representing someone with only base instincts, this character can be used as a way of analyzing how specific films fail to appeal to those base instincts.<br /><br />(If anyone is legitimately treating the Plinkett reviews as insightful criticism, I am not aware of such people -- although I don't doubt they exist, in the sense that there are people who misunderstand all sorts of things.)<br /><br />My point here is not that Plinkett is "just a joke" and therefore "shouldn't be taken seriously", but instead that the Plinkett character is a very specific tool for a very specific kind of review -- the kind that doesn't require a lot of nuance because it only criticizes how things fail to be entertaining to a general audience -- and that the overwhemling popularity of Plinkett reviews over RLM's other, more nuanced & interesting series obscures the fact that this group actually has a genuine interest in the social impact of film & in its subtext.<br /><br />RLM is, basically, a group of independent filmmakers, and so they definitely lean toward a more shallowly pragmatic angle: they tend to talk about how a film fails or succeeds in engaging an audience as a prerequisite for it to have any impact at all. But, Plinkett is a caricature, not representative of their "serious" reviews. For more nuance, one is expected to watch Re:View or Half in the Bag (or even Best of the Worst, which is essentially limited to flops and therefore has more discussion of technical failures, but still manages to avoid the shallowness & flippant, aggressive tone of Plinkett).<br /><br />RLM's coverage of Star Wars in general is pretty shallow: they seem to have a generally low opinion of the fandom & the commercialism surrounding the franchise, perhaps owing in part to the extreme success of the Plinkett reviews (if a specific group of people took a snarky article you wrote as a joke and turned it into your all-time most popular post, what would you assume about that group?), but I also don't think the Plinkett review is representative of that.John Ohnohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11352441770252592928noreply@blogger.com