On concrit, more or less ...

[blamebrampton]

Being a rampant egoist* I'm going to talk about myself for a minute. As a young woman, I liked to perform. Singing, dancing, acting, showjumping, debating, dressage, you name it, I was all for it. Part of the joy was that I actually like doing all those things, part of it was that I was generally good at them, and I liked to receive the ribbons, prizes and reviews that came with them. Even when the reviews were along the lines of 'An enjoyable performance until one of the soloists ended upside-down in the timpani' (tragic story involving last-minute relocation, shorter stage and me always looking at the back of the audience, never at my feet), I could always take something from them that would help me learn and grow.

As an older woman, I became a reviewer, writing about contemporary music and books for the most part, but also events, film, theatre and even fashion on a few memorable occasions. It was an interesting enterprise as I tried to separate the ways I looked at artefacts and to judge them on levels beyond personal taste and the intent of the author. Because while both those things matter, they're not the most important things. For example: Jeff Koons has a sculpture called Puppy, which is a 12-metre-high installation of a sculpture of a West Highland terrier clad in flowering plants. Now, Koons describes his own work as having no subtle artistic intent, though he seems happy to be paid well for it. And, being a bit of a wanker, I am inclined to think that Koons is a a post-Pop opportunist who is thrilled Andy Warhol died in 1987, and sniffily disapprove of him on principle. However, neither my taste nor the author's intent are the thing that form my response to Puppy. Because it is actually impossible to have a 12-metre-high terrier blooming in front of you and not smile. It's pure Festival, in the sense of the public taking a moment out of the everyday to commune with something that is anything but everyday. Once we did it with religion, now we sometimes do it with art.

All this is background.

Where I am going with it is that I like criticism. As a performer I liked reading it to push me, and as a reviewer I liked thinking about works beyond the simple 'Oh, yes, that was lovely' or 'La Fura dels Baus are really scary and I am not used to having to run away at the theatre!'** I like reading critiques for themselves, as well as in relation to works I am going to see/read, either before or after. I read works by dead critics.

If you ever want to criticise my work, you are free to do so, and I in fact encourage it. One really brave fandom friend has just challenged a few of us to leave critical comments on all her work at the moment (and if she is fine with probably having a few people come to gawp, I'll edit this paragraph to pop her name in, although anyone not reading her already is mad, I tell you!) I am completely up for the same experiment.

However ...


Criticism in fandom is really hard. I've been chatting about this with a few friends who are often smarter than me, and there are a few recurring themes. From here on I am going to be talking about concrit, which is the general fandom expectation of the critic (how this is similar to and different from the above would take up too much space at the moment, so I am conveniently ignoring it: this is LJ, not an aesthetics journal.)

The obvious one is that a large percentage of fandom writing (read art and writing, but I am a shameless text slut and so will talk about writing) is written to entertain. To respond in terms of personal taste is exactly the right response for this set, because that is the way the work is meant to engage with an audience. Concrit here can often be bad spirited, like saying 'Look, I liked that joke and I did laugh, but I think that your timing was off in the phrase before the punch line.'

Then there are a lot of people who are 'new' to writing, or still feeling their way through their creative process. To provide gentle concrit when asked for can be helpful if done kindly, but to unleash both barrels can be like attending the fourth rehearsal of a play and tearing apart the performances. Sometimes I feel that fanficrants  is devoted to this sort of exercise.

For writing that is done at a more serious level, where it would certainly be attracting reviews if it were original, it's not a simple matter, either. As one of my smarter friends said, criticism in publications comes out of what is largely a shared language and the readers of the criticism feel free to engage with it in a similarly critical mode, as letters to the arts editor often show.

In fandom, concrit is often seen as being much more emotionally loaded. Sometimes perhaps because it is: I have seen a few comments that read as though the commenter just wanted to make the writer feel bad, which may be as much about ineptitude in the part of the commenter as about actual bad blood. But I've also seen emotion read into a comment by the person who received it. And, much more often, by others. It ends up with bad feeling all around because something that started as an unloaded statement -- eg 'I feel your second act was a little rushed and would have loved to see it developed as strongly as the first and third' -- can finish up as being perceived as a comment on the worth of the writer.

Of course the correct response to such a comment is either 'Hmmmm, actually, yeah, good point' or 'I think you're wrong on that. Certainly the shifts in character and emotion were more subtle, however ...' but if you don't have a strong ego and a solid background of what we used to politely term vigorous critical debate, then this is not a game you will enjoy playing. (Again, I'm lucky to have been encouraged in this field. I had a professor whose greatest joy came when his class was disrupted by shouts along the lines of: 'Brammers you Postmodern Bolshevik you cannot tell me that Titus Andronicus is the Terminator of the Elizabethan Stage' 'Of course I can, Carruthers, you Tynanesque Tyrant, and if you had half the insight of your idol, you'd agree'.)

In many ways, concrit is like croquet: if you know how its played and you are up for it, it can be a great experience that leaves you feeling invigorated and intellectually excited. But if you find yourself suddenly in a field with unexpected mallets flying and have no idea which hoop is which, it's a bloody nightmare. And since fandom is largely a croquet-free zone, I am fine with the convention that one does not mention the hoops until one is invited to. Even though, as a massive fan of croquet (literally and metaphorically), I would like nothing better.

Add to this that sometimes the fandom audience is actually a terrible judge of work, since it's a place where a flash of penis can outweigh actual genius (in my own case, lacking penis and genius, amusing farces generally score far higher comment counts that the few works that have more substance). And sometimes writers have tangled up their self-worth so far into their writing and/or the reception of their writing that it is not possible to comment on the one without it being felt by the other. It ends up less of a croquet lawn and more a bloody minefield!

All of which is a long way of saying: I do get why a lot of my friends don't like concrit and there are dozens of good reasons and a few bad ones not to, but I'm personally fine with it and think you should feel free over here, even if I respond by telling you your point is not actually as valid as you think. For example, you might now like to criticise the rambling of the above paragraphs, and I would have to grant that you make an excellent point.

On a final and unrelated note, GO ANDY MURRAY!!


*Anyone who has just launched into a Beautiful People Egoiste re-enactment, I love you. Also, anyone who has just clicked both those links and is wondering WTF?? I have nothing. The 1990s are beyond even my powers of explanation.

** I started going to panto at three, so that's 40 years of everything from highly experimental theatre to a bucketload of Elizabethan, with even a full Peter Brooks Mahabharata, and LFdB is the only time I was in fear of my life. TheatreWorks's Desdemona made me briefly want to top myself, but that was largely because I was in a very bad mood after being bumped from my flight for a bevy of politicians including a vile ex-boyfriend and missed the performance I really wanted to see just before that one.

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