Not to My Taste

My sister tells her kids that when they don't like a particular food, don't say "it's bad." Instead, say "it's not to my taste." I think this is an approach that should be applied to lots of things in life. So many things really are a matter of personal taste.

Not everything, mind you. I wouldn't say that Hitler is "not to my taste." He isn't, to be clear, but I think a most people in the world would agree with that. So it's not really an apt way to express it. To say something's "not to my taste" means that it doesn't do anything for me personally, but I acknowledge that other people can like it, and there's nothing wrong with them doing so.

A better example for me would be Joss Whedon. He's not to my taste. I don't need to go into why. Other people who I know and love and respect (in fact, almost all of the people I know and love and respect) would disagree, as Joss Whedon is definitely to their taste. That's fine. It doesn't mean that Joss Whedon is definitively good, or definitively bad. It's just a matter of personal taste.

In fact, most things that don't really matter should be judged in this way. Entertainment is a good example. I used to get furious when everyone was gushing about some movie or TV show that I absolutely despised. I'd even write long, fervent diatribes in whatever blog I happened to be maintaining at the time, detailing all of the reasons why everyone else was wrong and I was right. I have moved past that now. Calm blue ocean. Calm blue ocean. Serenity now. Serenity now.

By the way, here are a few of things that used to drive me up several walls with manic fury: "Lost in Translation." "Braveheart." "Chasing Amy." Kevin Smith in general. "The Turd Locker" -- I'm sorry, I mean "The Hurt Locker." "House." Diablo Cody and everything Diablo Cody has ever touched. Joss Whedon, again, for good measure. Oh, and your stupid face.

Did my blind, white-hot, single-minded hatred of any of things get you riled up? Well, that's your problem. I am in serenity. I am at peace with what I hate. You are free to hate and love what you will. That has no effect on me. We are just different beings on this small planet, with no choice but to keep hurtling around the same sun until we both pass our atoms into the loam.

Maybe a better example is music. People tend to get especially haughty about music. I don't personally care for Creed or Nickleback or Justin Bieber or whatever act is the latest designated whipping-boy for hipsters. But I don't really care if other people like them. Who can it hurt? Does that really warrant me expending energy berating those who do find something meaningful in their music? I'm not sure I see the point.

Because really, there are so many more important things to be angry about. Republicans, for one. Conservatives, for two. Tea partiers, for three.

I recognize that there's lots of overlap between those groups. My point is, what's the worst that could happen if Nickleback became the most popular group in history? Maybe you'd have to overhear their songs more often when you're in the mall. I probably wouldn't even notice -- I never hear any of their songs now, because I'm a grown-up and therefore don't listen to Top 40 radio. (Assuming they're still on Top 40 radio, or that Top 40 radio still exists -- I don't know and I care so little that I can't be bothered to check.)

Meanwhile, what's the worst that could happen if Republicans and conservatives and tea partiers and everyone else get their way? Well, the gap between the rich and poor would grow even wider. We'd have a new Gilded Age, in which the ultra-rich could wipe their asses with our tear-stained dreams, and the rest of us would become a permanent underclass living paycheck to paycheck if we're lucky -- if we're unlucky, we'd die of starvation or insufficient health care or inadequately labeled food or whatever else because we weren't sufficiently "makers."

You see why I'm a little more concerned with politics than with whatever dumb schmuck is the latest to send 12-year-old girls' hearts a-flutter. I don't care if Justin Bieber sells 10 gazillion records. As long is it means I can still listen to my old De La Soul CDs, I don't see how that can possibly affect me.

Anyway. The point is that so many things in the arts in particular can be boiled down to personal taste. I think professional criticism should acknowledge this more. Critics tend to say that this or that didn't work, when, in reality, it just didn't work for the particular person writing this review.

You assume that this person knows best, because he/she's the one who gets to write the reviews. And this person knows a lot, because he/she sees literally dozens of movies or hears hundreds of songs per week. But that kind of overstimulation could also warp a person. Maybe after that kind of barrage, the straightforward appeals to the heartstrings get turned into cliches. Then anything novel in any way becomes a breath of fresh air, and gets fulsome praise.

Meanwhile, us Joe Sixpacks get off from our jobs punching things with a hammer, desperate for some kind of cultural experience that could make us feel like part of the human race. We read those reviews, go to those French films that are heralded as having ground-breaking mise-en-scene, and then come out thinking "I didn't get it. I am apparently dumb."

A better system, I think, would take what you already like and go from there. That would get more at personal taste. Netflix does this well. You rate what you like. Then Netflix tells you what other people with similar ratings to yours have also liked. I think this approach will have a much better batting average than your local critic.

I'm not saying there's no place for criticism. But I think it's much more useful after you've seen the film or heard the song. Like many people, I loved the late, great critic Roger Ebert. But I almost never read his reviews before seeing a movie. I would read them afterwards, and would then would be left with a brilliant new perspective, one that would only deepen my experience.

This is how literary criticism works, by the way. No one goes to Jacques Derrida's column in Us Weekly to find out what book to read (though, if he had one in Us Weekly, I would definitely subscribe. Get on it, Us Weekly.) You read Derrida to gain a deeper understanding of whatever work you may have only understood on a surface level.

So that's my new plan. Netflix will tell you what to see based on your personal taste. Critics will then be the erudite friends who will give you a new appreciation of artistic endeavors.

And in general, let's stop wasting energy on fighting over things that don't matter. Some things are to my taste. Some things are not. Tomato, tomahto. Bieber, boober. Let's call the whole thing off. And then let's unite to destroy Republicans.