The good, the bad, and the "it's not for me"
criticism, empty value judgments, trauma response, Midsommar, and the art of saying "it's not for me"
I remember reading a few years ago that Paul Thomas Anderson—one of my all-time favorite directors—once said, “Don’t say it’s not a good movie. If it wasn’t for you, that’s fine. You’ve got to support the big swing. If you put it out there that the movie’s not good, they won’t let us make more movies like that.” Technically, he was talking to John Krasinski about filmmaking, but his gentle advice is something I’ve thought about on more than one occasion when I’ve been writing or reading criticism of various pieces of art either formally (online in publications) or informally (Twitter or other forms of social media). In a time where nuanced discussion is not only undervalued but basically incompatible with the brisk, hostile immediacy of the online world, it feels almost radical to push back against such simple labels as “good” or “bad” and to simply say, “it’s not for me, but…”
Criticism is in a symbiotic relationship with Art/Artists. Neither can exist without the other, because they exist to be in dialogue with one another. Artists make art, critics analyze it, the public consume both in order to try to make sense of it all for themselves, rinse, repeat. As an artist who is also occasionally a critic, I frequently find myself having to defend one group or the other when they willfully misunderstand the function of each other. Artists don’t like to think of critics as fellow artists (they very much are) and critics don’t like when artists push back against their criticisms. Though lately, artists—especially pop stars and their stan armies—have completely overstepped the boundaries of that relationship by trying to (and sometimes succeeding in) getting critics fired for writing even the gentlest of criticism in often otherwise positive reviews/analysis.
Though it is necessary to have tension between artists and critics (as it often creates better art), I find myself exhausted by the extremity to which it is exaggerated online. If you like something, you must LOVE it, stan it, obsess over it, and if you don’t like something, you must HATE it virulently. There’s no real in between; no room for there to be any ACTUAL tension of thought or feeling with which you’re personally grappling. In short, you lose the most interesting part of analysis and discussion. It’s performative tension instead of the real thing. A lot of faux discourse “discourse” online.
That’s not to say that I think if you hated something or vice versa, you shouldn’t have the chutzpah to state that boldly and clearly with your reasons why (and boy have folks like Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael done that brilliantly and brutally). But instead of immediately racing online to voice insults worthy of being extra lyrics to “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch,” what if you stopped and asked yourself, “is this actually ‘bad’ or is it just not for me?” Because, dear friends, sometimes, it’s not that something is quantifiably “bad,” it’s just not your thing. It’s not for you.
(And yes, obviously something can also be quantifiably “bad” and also not be for you. As Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes” and so does art.)
The point Paul Thomas Anderson and I are both trying to make is that just because something isn’t for you doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value, and learning to recognize that is important in the grand scheme of making, consuming, and judging art.
Recently, my boyfriend suggested we watch Midsommar, Ari Aster’s 2019 arthouse folk horror film that has become a cult favorite online; screencaps shared and memed over and over again. I will admit upfront that horror is not my preferred or most-seen genre of films for a variety of reasons, so despite liking most things A24 has put out over the last decade, I just hadn’t been in a rush to see it. I knew a lot of the basics of the plot from cultural osmosis (aka being WAY TOO ONLINE), and my boyfriend assured me he would guide me through the more disturbing/scary moments, so I agreed.
The film follows grieving grad student Dani (the always excellent Florence Pugh) who travels with her boyfriend and his friends to Sweden to attend a once-in-a-lifetime summer festival that quickly devolves into increasingly disturbing and violent pagan rituals. The film is supposed to be a very, very black comedy about a breakup and also a meditation on grief (which I found more plausible). I had anxiety for the entirety of its nearly 2 1/2 hour runtime, watching many parts through the slivers between my fingers, as my hands were covering my face per my boyfriend’s recommendation. To say it was not an enjoyable cinematic experience for me would be an understatement. I had an emotional breakdown an hour after finishing the movie, which kept me awake and sobbing until almost 1:30 am.
I should also state that I had no way of knowing I would react so strongly (and in such a delayed fashion) to the movie—or should I say what it triggered.
SPOILER ALERT: the film opens in the aftermath of Dani’s sister’s suicide where she also killed their parents. Aster uses long shots with deliberate pacing that frankly feel like he is relishing in the awfulness of it all. Later in Sweden, two of the eldest members of the community jump to their own grisly deaths in what is known as Ättestupa. The rest of the community doesn’t react while Dani and her friends freak out. It’s horrifying, and yet again, Aster’s insistence on deliberate pacing only cruelly emphasizes its grisliness. But I think that’s probably the point; one made even more perverse by how beautifully shot it all is.
Seven years ago this month, I lost a friend to suicide. The circumstances surrounding their death were horrible and complicated, and as soon as I got the phone call that afternoon, I knew what had happened—the horror playing out in bright, summer sunlight like in Midsommar. Grieving that has been a long, arduous journey full of extreme emotions like the ones I see so frequently online and that Dani experiences in the movie, but there’s a lot of inner tension I cannot always put words to. There’s a lot of grey areas requiring more nuance than I can sometimes muster, especially after spending so much time immersed in the “good” and “bad” of online. My friend was both of those completely undescriptive terms, and it has taken me the better part of a decade to reconcile that and all the grey tension that lies in between. Most of the time, I don’t think about it anymore, which is an improvement from the immediate aftermath where it was all I could think about.
So my extreme emotional reaction to the movie came as a total shock to me (and certainly my boyfriend, who I reassured was not at fault for what I was experiencing) when I have watched many, many other movies and TV shows where suicide is a plot point and felt either nothing or only minor discomfort. Why now? What caused it? Do I blame Aster and the movie? Is my adverse reaction to Midsommar a sign of my dislike of it or is this simply a case of art unlocking something in my subconscious that needed to be released, in which case, it was successful?
I think when we rush to assign empty value judgments—like “good” or “bad”—to something but especially art, we miss the opportunity to sit with it and wrestle with its intent and all the tension that may cause within us. Just liking or disliking something on face value is often not enough and doesn’t give a proper assessment of the thing we’re attempting to judge for ourselves or others. You can go down the objective technical checklist of things that make something “good” like technical skill, beauty, believability, etc but that doesn’t necessarily imply value either. Plenty of technically perfect movies are boring, bland, and terrible even if they look good.
I like when movies provoke strong reactions (even though my own recent one was pretty terrible); it takes guts to take “the big swing,” as PTA put it. And I wish more artists—and especially movie studios—would. We need art that pushes us into uncomfortable places and tries to do something different even if it’s not always entirely successful in ways we can quantify with words.
Midsommar is no doubt a “big swing”; a film with an instantly iconic visual language that will stand the test of time. For what I think it lacks in certain areas like pacing and character development, it makes up for in its evocative imagery and the wholeness of its vision and intent. I disliked how I felt the entire time I was watching it and certainly how I felt after, which for reasons unknown to me, were triggered by the movie. I didn’t enjoy the gleefulness with which Aster depicts a woman in grief witnessing traumatic, disturbing events. I didn’t find any of it remotely humorous like others online nor did I find it particularly cathartic for my own grief (though others did and have). I have no desire to ever see it again—partially out of fear of triggering another trauma response and partially because I just did not particularly enjoy it.
But I still thought it was a “good” movie.
How can that be, you ask? Because I can recognize the fullness of its intent. I can appreciate Aster’s “big swing.” I can sit with my own discomfort—the tension inside of me—and see how that is also the film’s intent. I can say I disliked my experience and appreciate the craft it took to make it happen and provoke such a response in me. I had a pretty, goddamn bad time, but I cannot call the movie “bad.”
Just as I wish more artists took “big swings,” so too I wish more of us would learn to look, feel, and talk more discerningly about art in ways that allowed for real discourse instead of faux, performative outrage or adoration. To investigate those feelings more thoroughly. And to recognize that even if and/or when we have them, it’s possible the art that provoked them is not always for us, but still needs to get made anyway because it’s for someone else. It’s the context through which we view the art that informs our reception to it—good or crying until 1:30 in the morning bad. It’s neither right or wrong, it’s just our own inner critic bullshit trying to make sense of it all for ourselves.
At the end of Midsommar, Dani has to make a judgment too. Who will live and who will die? Who is “good” and who is “bad”? Is her shitty, cheating boyfriend the “bad” person? Or is it actually the violent, murderous cult who’s been nothing but supportive of and to her since her arrival? That uncomfortable, disturbing grey morality—the tension—is what makes Midsommar a hellish if alluring experience.
It’s just not for me.