Shilling for shillings.

Message:

The role of the modern critic is not to provide analytical insight, but to make a snap judgement, and entertain.

O.C. Weekly wouldn't allow me to say something was only OK. It had to be amazing, or suck, and, if it sucked, I had to be sarcastic. If I wasn't sarcastic, my editor would be.

I quit that gig after a few years. Punching up my prose is one thing, but my editor started changing my intent, and, since this was a side gig (I was still doing theater at that point, so the job was, "Cool! I get comp tickets to see local theater and get paid to give my opinion!"), I could be self-righteously principled. But, seriously, 'twas a review of "No Exit" I'd written which was what could have been a great show -- design, cast, set, costumes great, but was a 90+ minute take on a 40 page script. It just needed to pick up the damn pace. It was rewritten into such a cruel hate piece I actually went to the theater and gave the producer my draft. He said something after reading it like, "Harsh, but fair. I had a feeling. The one in the paper just didn't sound like you. You don't like being mean."

Anyways, point being every outlet has a style and viewpoint and writers/presenters have to match that.

The Bloody-Disgusting thing was pure shill. I re-read my reviews and they're full of me attempting clever and entertaing within the limits of spoiler free, and positive bias. Always made it a point to discuss theme and acknowledge the techs. Guess I did better than the other guys who basically gave vague descriptions of the setups.

I do more nuanced analyses here FFS.

Yours,