Student Life ArchivesIt’s easy to forget how important a disparaging voice can be. Without the snarl of incredulous criticism, we might skip through life listening happily to Duran Duran or enjoying the occasional Uwe Bol film. No, it’s lucky you’ve got us, your fault-finding and unsympathetic critics here at Cadenza.
Our mission statement is simple: no judgment is too judgmental and all criticism should be critical.
These days things seem so light-hearted; summer blockbusters slip by unreprimanded and over-attended, prime-time programming escapes ungrazed by critics’ hands, music by artists almost everyone has heard of is listened to by millions. It’s a dangerous, lowest-common denominator world we live in, and too often we go through our day without being reminded of it. Imagine what life would be like without people informing you of your opinion. It’s a scary thought, I know, but join me in a foray into a world without criticism.
In this world, films would come out with no plot or reason. They would be created for shock value and designed to fit around as many explosions as cinematically possible. They would sock the maximum amount of violence into each frame, supplemented by fleeting frontal nudity.
Since sex would be so much more dangerous to the public than gore, these moments would be deemed unsafe for children; more stringent ratings would be placed on those movies about love than those about killing your fellow man. Almost no films would be directed by women.
Sometimes a movie would be made for the sole purpose of carrying a star, an actor with a high Q whose presence in the film is calculated deliberately to raise their status and income. These films would be shameless in their lack of artistic value, and vehicular in their lack of any other function.
Without critics, the need for talented writers would fall by the wayside. Ask yourself why television executives would pay that crack team of English majors when they could simply allow beautiful people to strut and fret their unscripted fifteen minutes on the stage. Programming would turn into a televised wasteland where contestants on game, dating, and reality shows would rule the world. Some of them would garner coveted movie roles in star vehicles.
Music would be written for one-month, non-stop runs on radio stations, and would be sung by not-yet-fallen Disney stars or long-ago-fallen rappers who have remixed those Disney songs. Singles would triumph over cohesive albums, and the same three-chord progression would be inescapable.
Without reviewers, books would be almost unheard of, and conspiracy-driven novels about the Catholic church would rule the best-seller’s list. Self-help books would be ubiquitous, and the only way to navigate them would be to purchase a self-help book about doing so. Cliffs notes would outsell their source material. Peer-edited websites would become most people’s primary source of information.
The New York Times would be half as long, pundits would jabber incomprehensibly, politicians would get away with lord knows what, and the world would descend into chaos. Without criticism there would be nowhere to turn, no safe haven or voice of reason to temper the insanity and the bloodthirsty advertising. No one would speak out against the dull or up for the little guy making art in his garage.
Yes, it’s a dangerous, frightening world we’ve invented here. Thank your lucky stars it’s a fantasy, and tune in to Cadenza three times a week to make sure it stays that way. Because what’s entertainment without that sweet taste of disdain?