I Haz A Flavor: Context

That said, and getting back to pop culture news, that idea of context is also essential in there. There’re loads of examples of what happens with a lack of context, but here is one of my “favorites,” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (R.I.P.) review of Gigantic: A Tale Of Two Johns, the film about the band They Might Be Giants. It was reviewed by a local music writter with a “Special to the P-I” byline.

So you’d think it’d be someone who was familiar with the work and would do a good review of it. Not exactly. While a great idea in theory, as it turned out, the point of the entire article could be summed up as:

A. They Might Be Giants is a horrible band.
B. Terrible bands do not deserve documentaries about them.
C. Ergo, this documentary is awful because it is about They Might Be Giants, who do not deserve a documentary.

There’s very little about whether or not the film is made well, if a casual fan would like it, if someone who had never heard of They Might Be Giants would like it, nothing. Because of that, it’s a useless review. All I found out is that this particular guy really hates They Might Be Giants. I don’t really know why; he’s not terribly clear, he doesn’t make an argument as to why they don’t deserve a documentary or why they’re a horrible band, he just asserts that they are.

Another example I “enjoy” is Pitchfork‘s reviews of the Moog Cookbook albums, where the thrust is “Guitars = Awesome. Synths = Bad. No Guitars = No Good.” They contain nothing about whether or not the albums succeed on their own terms or anything. This particular guy apparently doesn’t like synthesizers, and therefore this particular guy would not like an album made solely with synthesizers. This doesn’t help anyone.

To be fair, I’m a fan of both TMBG and the Moog Cookbook, so I might have an interest in seeing these groups get good reviews, but even if they got negative reviews that were well written, I might not agree but I’d appreciate the thought and care that went into them.

And, likewise, even if I don’t like something, I often enjoy reading enthusiastic reviews of stuff, even stuff whose allure escapes me. For example, Kittysneezes contributor Austin Wolf-Sothern is a BIG fan of Sasha Baron Cohen, whereas I am not. But while I’d rather not watch Bruno, I really liked Austin’s review of it. It’s clear that Austin knows his stuff, which makes it all the more compelling for me to read. Just because it doesn’t reach me doesn’t mean it can’t touch him in a particular way.

I think that’s the important thing in a review, and something you only really get with context. Does it TOUCH the reviewer? And if it does, is there enough information to figure out whether or not it’s likely to touch you in the same way?

The great thing about context is that if that information is there, even if we know it won’t touch us, it’s always wonderful to read the writing of someone touched like that, and that, in its own way, touches US as well. And that’s what great writing is about.

David Foster Wallace once said that fiction is about “what it is to be a fucking human being.” I think that he’s right, but fiction isn’t the only form of writing that has that capability. No matter what we write, it’s our responsiblity to know about what we are writing. If we know that, then we’re free to put forth the effort for the overall goal: writing about what it is to be a fucking human being. Don’t slight us by half-assing it, but above all, don’t slight yourself.

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