I’ve always considered the Siskel & Ebert critical yardstick (thumbs up, thumbs down) a very crude way to rate any work of art. I find it barren, unenlightened, lazy, smug, but most of all indistinguishable from the vacuous commercial standards that begot it. This was until I realized that the thumbs were not just disembodied limbs, shorn of the body-aesthetic that issued them. Of course these two geezers rabbited on at tortuous length about the pros and cons of the films they were reviewing. Their opposable digits were backed after all by trite, meaningless pseudo-critical jibberish, which they elaborated into a pseudo-conversation about the merits (or not) of movies. The thumbs reflected their 'considered' but vulgar judgments and we the audience got ourselves an easy-fix yea or nay about how to spend our bucks at the talkies.
Was the S&E aim to so familiarize the audience with their kind of critical standard that the disembodied digits would eventually stand alone without the commentary? Did we arrive at such uncritical unsophistication on their terms that the sight of “Two Thumbs Way Up [or down]” was all we needed to betake our calloused asses off to the flicks? Perhaps. But it is still insufficient for all that. It’s inadequate to the art form it purportedly judges, and it cheapens and lowers all critical standards. It reduces everything to the bottom line and is an odious affront to taste. But these two jackasses didn’t care. They were wards of the corporations they served, the business, the Buck-Belt, Hollywood, and they delivered on their end of the bargain, they gave us easy-to-swallow formulae which we could ingest without any further ado, because we’re busy and we’re on the move, and we don't have time for reasoned analysis or informed judgments.
Maybe the ratings system here serves a similar commercial purpose, maybe it doesn’t. Who really gives a damn? The whole focus of the new Fray seems to me to discourage congeniality, camaraderie, civility, continuity: Its new aim is to return the discussion forums to their real paymasters, and this doesn’t mean you, the habitual users. It’s the drive-by mentality institutionalized – visitors can quickly get a handle on what’s worth reading, what’s topical, what’s unworthy, peek in, opt out, move along, open, close, drop a comment here, a platitude there, or maybe just swivel the digit up or down and off you go. Don’t tarry long enough to get into or out of it with multiple-nic himself or herself, and don’t for eff’s sake take the ratings to heart. It’s just a quick fix, a token, a convenient pointer, a signpost to all you busy others who don’t have the time nor the inclination to misspend your miserable lives in internet chat-rooms. The ratings give you that reliable measure to enable you to get on with your busy lives away from the computer.
Well, I have decided henceforth not to use ratings. If I have something to say for or against your sub-literate or sublime post then I’ll say it. If you’re not worth the time or effort, then I’ll just pass by without comment or gesture. Why should the existence of this denuded grading system determine how I read or respond? For those who find it still serves more power to you, have at it, but I’ve already formed my judgment of your critical acumen by what you’ve written, not by whether you can click a link. As for using the function to conduct vendettas against posters that’s what it is, transparent, idiotic, childish, psychotic, but it’s still permissible, so play on fools. I will so I will, says I. Ratings occupy the same status in my mind as, say, a “Bad Poetry Contest”: they undermine sincere effort, they degrade standards, they injure sensibility and they demonstrate the incurable ill-will and bad faith of the defeated of this world, nasty sorts who confuse degradation for humour, and who never pass an opportunity to display their small-minded insincerity. Theatricality and mediocrity and spite are their standard, and they leave a trail of slime behind them wherever they go.
