I am aware that my standards have not always been good enough. I have been rude, insulted performers, done things that are dishonest and spent way too much time absorbed by my bitterness.
But that's enough about my Saturday night. This is about ethical criticism.
ac
I am aware that I am not always able to live up to my aspirations. I want to be able to critique performance with a good conscience, so I am asking for help. Either check out my crowd-funding site and give me some money, or take part in my latest wheeze for self-promotion.
The game is called Catch Vile Out. Your mission is to find all of these times that I have been an arse.
What are you looking for?
There is a prize for anyone who brings to public attention the following behaviours.
Taking the man, not the ball.
If I am a rude about a person rather than their art, that's a foul. Take these examples
Gareth K Vile is a bitter man.
Gareth K Vile's review expresses a bitterness.
The second one is okay. The first is an ad hominem attack (and implies I know what is going on in Gareth's life.
Using a genital as an insult.
I don't think it is appropriate to use a gender specific insult, so anything that implies male or female genitals are a bad thing is offside.
However, arse or ass are fine, because everyone has one!
I also reserve the right to say dick, because it is funny.
Anything you reckon's not cool.
Hell, I have probably said a bunch of stuff that's inappropriate. Clean me up, cowboy.
Exceptions and Exclusions:
A negative review
Just because I didn't like it, doesn't mean it is bad, or that it is unethical. It's great if you want to disagree with me - please be courteous, or I'll be sarcastic at you - but if you want to nail me, point out where I have been unethical.
Politicians
I reserve the right to be as abusive as I like to politicians, even down to comparing the lovely Patrick Harvie to David Icke and addressing David Cameron's ass, because it does most of his thinking. It might be that I believe in 'truth to power' as a function of the critic, or that I have a deep distrust of 'the fevered egos who are polluting our reality and fantasies' (pace Bill Hicks).
That doesn't mean I am allowed to insult their race, sexuality or religious beliefs, even down to the point of suggesting a homophobe actually longs for a bit of cock.
Matt Trueman
I know how rude I have been about Matt. It's no good pretending that I have gone after his writing, not him: as a fellow critic, I can take any insult except ones about my use of grammar. I imagine it's the same for him.
Actually, the reason I am doing this is because I feel guilty about those posts. I am sorry about it. Not sorry enough to remove the posts, or stop calling out critics who start a review with a dictionary definition of the show's title.
The Prizes
It's be some crap out of my book or CD collection, again. Winner collects.
No comments :
Post a Comment