How do I indicate a superfan review vs a social-criticism essay?
I occasionally write short essays about classic films, and have been thinking about converting them into video essay for YouTube.
What I observe are 2 very different types of essay – I'm not sure what to call them.
One type approaches the work as a superfan. The canon story is revered, and the details are often about explaining the ending, or discussing plot points that are entirely within the work. When this type of essay turns critical, it often takes the form of "fixing" the story. Sometimes these videos are clickbait, "trashing" the bad choices of the filmmakers, but since the criticisms are still mostly canon and in-world, I put these in the same "superfan" category.
The other type of essay is more aligned with social criticism. The details in the story are not as important as the technique and intent. The work is put in cultural and historic context, stepping out of the "review" to discuss broader themes, compare other work that covers similar ground, its impact on the entertainment industry or its place in the career of the actors and director, or how the work reflects (or ignores) social conventions of its time.
There is crossover between the two, but the approach is so fundamentally different it's usually easy to separate the two essay styles almost immediately. A superfan review expects the viewer to be familiar with the subject, and speaks as one fan to another. They can feel a bit naive and consumerist. There is social cache in being an authority of the canon.
The social criticism essays don't presume the viewer has seen the film, and can be pretentious and pondering, speaking as one savvy intellectual to another. The viewer probably needs an awareness of film theory and an interest in film as an artform. The social cache is being an authority of art history and social movements.
The films I write about are not current box office, so my essays tend to lean towards the latter rather than the former. Are there any accepted terms – or maybe other cues I can use to signal the difference?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/45607. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
A simple suggestion: just adding the word "Critique" to the title may communicate a lot of what you want. Also, probably in the first minute, perhaps make it clear that:
- you are A Fan (and you're not just ripping apart, say, Trek, because you hate all scifi),
- but you think the show/episode/series/character is expressing more than just the surface level characteristics,
- you want to expose and explore them (possibly through XYZ lens)
- critique comes from respect -- of both the original material, and other ways of encountering the world.
(Lani Diane Rich ("How Story Works" podcast, and "Still Pretty" Buffy podcast) calls it the terroir -- just like weather affects the grapes which affects the wine, society affects the creators of an artwork which affects the final product. Joss Whedon may have thought he was being actively feminist, but a lot of his less "woke" thoughts come through Xander. And even Oz, who is normally our 100% ideal guy, doesn't call Xander out, because the 1990s didn't have that call-out/call-in culture to ask people to reconsider their assumptions. And just like some grapes are going to be more sweet or dry anyway, some creators are more or less racist/sexist/imperialist than their culture. Also, her cohost may mention a throughline signaled by a color choice in an outfit, a room, a prop, also -- classic film criticism focusing on the visual storytelling.))
So a quick way of doing it may be to say something like:
This is a critique of The Fifth Element: a fun movie, perhaps [director]'s best work overall, yet that perhaps respects Milla Jovovitch's character a lot less than it appears to at first glance.
That makes it clear that you like it, you know some of the director's other work, but I immediately know this will be a feminist critique. (For me, that's a plus. For others, they'd turn it off.)
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