Roger Ebert is an American film critic, a journalist, and an author born on June 1942. He has been majorly critical on the subjects of focus of most films and newspaper columns in most newspaper articles in the United States. His career as a film critic began when he worked at the ‘Chicago Sun-Times’ in 1967. His film criticisms were considered the best in the American newspapers at that time. He also spent part of his career as a co-host in a weekly film review TV show ‘Sneak Reviews’ where he and Gene Siskel became famous for their thumbs up/thumbs down analysis of films. He has starred in the film, ‘The Critic’ and found his personal film festival, ‘Eberfest’ in his native town of Illinois. This paper provides the analysis of the article ‘Death to the Film critic! Hail to the CelebCult!’ by Roger Ebert by examining the main argument, the target audience, the purpose of the author, how the author explains his ideas, the quality of the sources of evidence used, a summary of the major ideas, and the experience brought by the author’s claims.
The main argument of the author in the article is that the modern American society does not want critical reviews of films or events that take place, but prefers reviewers who focus on less significant things about celebrities that are less beneficial to the younger society. The supporting ideas used to show that the film critics are not accepted is that a restriction has been placed on the number of words they can use when providing reviews, most film critics have been fired by their employer newspapers, the most recommended reviews are those that focus on less significant events such as the involvement of celebrities in trades, addictions, divorces, scandals, and whether someone has been ‘spotted with somebody’. ‘It teaches Shabby values to young people, festers unwholesome curiosity, violates privacy, and is indifferent to meaningful achievement’ (Ebert 201).
The target audiences of the film are newspaper readers such as people who would like to know the exact truth about what is happening in the film industry. The author also targets people with children who need to be guided on the content of information they access in the newspapers and films. Since the CelebCult has affected the ability of the critics to express their views regarding the films with ‘thumbs up/thumbs down’ characteristics, it is likely that the target audience will not get the idea of the impact of the films on their children. ‘They want to devote less of their space to considered prose and more to ignorant gawking’ (Ebert 202). The author also targets the audience who would like to get a critical understanding of a film by illustrating that the dissent against film critics by most film and newspaper companies encourage the practice of providing misleading and wrong information to the general public.
The author’s purpose was to create the awareness that the CelebCult is ruining the American media industry by providing them with shabby information about celebrities but any attempt to criticize such kinds of media has been met with firing of critics. For instance, ‘The Village Voice’ fired Dennis Lim and Nathan Lee. The author also aimed at emphasizing that the characteristics of a good film critic are to express the views of readers, encourage them to think critically, and introduce new developments. ‘At one time, all newspapers by definition did those things on every page. Now they are lascivious gossips, covering invented beats’ (Ebert 203). For instance, the current newspapers can provide columns such as a celebrity going for lunch, Katie took a dog for a walk, playing with a kid or the kid’s belly button is missing. In other word, the author states that the modern newspapers have encouraged the readers not to think critically compared with the past.
The author proves his ideas by providing examples of newspaper critics that he considers heroes and those who he regrets to have been fired because of their stance on the critical reviews of films and newspapers. For instance, he describes Stanley Kauffman as being a bold critic at the ‘New Republic’ despite being aged 92. He also presents his ideas of the impact of celebrity culture on ruining the way in which people think and regrets the death of intelligent and curious leadership. He proves this by the case of ‘Chicago Tribune’ that has implemented a new design of providing guides to reading rather than presenting the actual news that needs to be understood by readers. In spite of the availability of news, the newspapers have grown significantly small in their coverage of the most significant events (Ebert 203).
The author’s arguments are of high quality because he uses real life experiences and observations to support his arguments. For instance, he uses the current policy used by the Associated Press (AP) to limit the number of words that can be used to write a review, news stories, or an article in a newspaper. He also uses the examples of activities that show breach of privacy and the increase in the availability of shabby information as an illustration of CelebCult in America such as divorces, drug addiction, scandals, and whether a celebrity was seen with another person (Ebert 201). The arguments are also of high quality because they are presented by Robert Ebert who has the credential of working as a film critic and has worked in the film industry, thus has the ability to distinguish between newspapers and films that are suitable for use by the public, the youths, and also able to distinguish between educative and non-educative films and newspapers.
The main ideas of the author is that the current newspapers and films in America are different from the past due to increased focus on the CelebCult which puts more emphasis on the scandals and private lifestyles of celebrities rather than focusing on critical presentation of information that is informative to the public. The situation of CelebCult has been worsened by most newspapers opting to fire their employees who provide critical views regarding the strategy used by their companies to provide information about celebrities (Ebert 203). Due to CelebCult, newspaper critics have become insignificant and most of them have encountered career-threatening experiences in the attempt to create awareness about the significance of providing relevant information to the public.
The experience that I am able to acquire from reading the text provide by the author of the article is that newspaper companies have opted to focus on CelebCult as a means of promoting the popularity of their newspapers at the expense of providing critical understanding. Due to this practice, most newspaper critics who have been against these practices have been fired by their companies while the youths have been exposed to unnecessary information about the lifestyles of celebrities which are usually about their private lives.
Works Cited
Ebert, Roger, ‘Death to Film Critics! Hail to the CelebCult!’, 2008, [Online], available at: https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/death-to-film-critics-hail-to-the-celebcult
, Accessed on March 26, 2018.
