At the beginning of the semester, I said that a critic’s main purpose was to guide people. Time is finite and when you add up all the boring, unimportant stuff – work, family, sleep – there’s hardly anytime to watch Kung fu movies or listen to Soulja Boy. Therefore a critic needs to tell you the best way to enjoy your precious free time. Otherwise you might find yourself wasting it on crap.
As the semester has continued, I still have held on to my earlier notion. Yet I feel the critic has another role besides guiding people. They need to take on a personality through their reviews.
The critic is like a politician. In the political world, people give flip-floppers flak because no one has an idea of how they will react or judge something. The same is true of critics. We need critics who believe strongly in their own beliefs. A critic needs to judge work solely on who they are. By doing so readers know what the critic likes or dislikes. If the critic hates chick flicks, like he or she should, then the reader knows that they should seek advice elsewhere on whether a chick flick is good or not.
As the amount of art and entertainment increases at a feverish rate, the need for strong independent critics is at an all-time high. Whether critics will express themselves through text, audio or video in the future remains uncertain. The only certainty is that they are needed.
----Adam Lipper
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