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Tomatometer: Popularity vs Quality II
12 years ago
So... if popularity does not equal quality, can popularity be used as a yardstick to measure whether something is good?
The answer isn't "no". The answer isn't that appeals to popularity should be dismissed. There is a very strong relationship between whether something is popular and whether it is good. But it needs to be recognized that this correlation is not the same as a precise measurement, and even can be completely wrong. (Although it must be remembered that this is the exception rather than the rule.)
If you want to understand how popularity and quality relate, you need look no further than the Tomatometer.
For those unfamiliar with what I am referring to: there is a website called Rotten Tomatoes. This website is a central hub for finding critical reviews of movies. Rotten Tomatoes gathers together the reviews by movie critics, lists them with links for people to find, offering quotes and summing up the reviews as either a "fresh" (for good) or "rotten" (for bad) review. The Tomatometer then tallies the percentage of "fresh" and "rotten" reviews, and labels the movie as "fresh" or "rotten" based on those values.
Now keep in mind: these are reviews by movie critics. These are professionals who have education and careers in the field of determining the quality of a movie.
How often do you think that every single one of them agree?
If you've frequented Rotten Tomatoes, you know that it's almost impossible to get a few dozen professional critics to all agree if a movie is a quality movie or not. (This, by the way, illustrates my final point in the previous essay: quality is objective; that doesn't mean any one person's judgement of it is accurate. If even the people who have professional discernment cannot universally agree on quality, then what should be expected of a bunch of amateurs on the internet with inflated opinions of our own judgement?)
So the Tomatometer effectively rates the popularity of a movie amongst professional critics. Are people unwise to use this as an indication of whether or not a movie will be worth watching? Absolutely not. It is, in fact, a great indicator.
It is not perfect.
Look at any movie on Rotten Tomatoes and you will see that there is not only a Tomatometer rating, but also a rating from average viewers who submit them. And I for one have never seen those two ratings match.
Quality does not equal good. Even if all the professionals managed to agree that a movie is a masterpiece of film-making, that doesn't mean you are going to enjoy it, or that it will be worth lightening your wallet the high cost of tickets and popcorn.
On the same level, even if the vast majority of average viewers leaving ratings on Rotten Tomatoes claim that the movie is better than sex, that doesn't mean you're going to like it either. Popularity indicates a likelihood that something is good. But it doesn't guarantee it.
The answer isn't "no". The answer isn't that appeals to popularity should be dismissed. There is a very strong relationship between whether something is popular and whether it is good. But it needs to be recognized that this correlation is not the same as a precise measurement, and even can be completely wrong. (Although it must be remembered that this is the exception rather than the rule.)
If you want to understand how popularity and quality relate, you need look no further than the Tomatometer.
For those unfamiliar with what I am referring to: there is a website called Rotten Tomatoes. This website is a central hub for finding critical reviews of movies. Rotten Tomatoes gathers together the reviews by movie critics, lists them with links for people to find, offering quotes and summing up the reviews as either a "fresh" (for good) or "rotten" (for bad) review. The Tomatometer then tallies the percentage of "fresh" and "rotten" reviews, and labels the movie as "fresh" or "rotten" based on those values.
Now keep in mind: these are reviews by movie critics. These are professionals who have education and careers in the field of determining the quality of a movie.
How often do you think that every single one of them agree?
If you've frequented Rotten Tomatoes, you know that it's almost impossible to get a few dozen professional critics to all agree if a movie is a quality movie or not. (This, by the way, illustrates my final point in the previous essay: quality is objective; that doesn't mean any one person's judgement of it is accurate. If even the people who have professional discernment cannot universally agree on quality, then what should be expected of a bunch of amateurs on the internet with inflated opinions of our own judgement?)
So the Tomatometer effectively rates the popularity of a movie amongst professional critics. Are people unwise to use this as an indication of whether or not a movie will be worth watching? Absolutely not. It is, in fact, a great indicator.
It is not perfect.
Look at any movie on Rotten Tomatoes and you will see that there is not only a Tomatometer rating, but also a rating from average viewers who submit them. And I for one have never seen those two ratings match.
Quality does not equal good. Even if all the professionals managed to agree that a movie is a masterpiece of film-making, that doesn't mean you are going to enjoy it, or that it will be worth lightening your wallet the high cost of tickets and popcorn.
On the same level, even if the vast majority of average viewers leaving ratings on Rotten Tomatoes claim that the movie is better than sex, that doesn't mean you're going to like it either. Popularity indicates a likelihood that something is good. But it doesn't guarantee it.
Everyone has their own taste, and something one person finds horrendously bad can be top entertainment for someone else. Sure, there are measurements for technical quality, but as you said, they hardly guarantee something enjoyable.
Again you have to define quality
Movies can be judged on several criteria.
Story -- Does the story engage
Acting -- Do the actors present the story well.
Cinematography -- Does the filming it self flow well. ?Is the editing smooth and consistent.
FX -- Are they well done?
One can have a film with an engaging story and good acting killed by Cinematography. "The Incredible Hulk" comes to mind.
I have also noted that being a professional with an education does not make one a decent critic. Robert Heinlein had a universal low option of the critic. I tend to agree. We had one locally that if the film was not a "gripping melodrama" it was trash, and anything playing at the Art Institute was golden. Action, or any SF of Fantasy elements? Trash. She was anything but objective.
For my money I prefer the Reviewer. The reviewer does not tell you that something is bad or good as an objective truth, but tells you what they liked or disliked about the item, be it a film , book or other. At lone point spider Robinson (SF author) worked as a book reviewer. He had one letter (pre-internet days kids) that complained he got everything wrong. If Spider liked the book the writer hated it, and the opposite. Spider wrote back "Great! We have communication. If I hate something buy it at once."
Taste comes into the question of any cultural or artistic product. Saw a piece today that was well executed and a technically great piece of art. Herms leave me cold. No thanks.
Was it quality? Yes, in a technical sense of the word it was quality art.
Was it popular? Not with me.
Part of the quality - popularity deal is people are not objective about quality. They do not separate their feelings from the facts. this is human it is what people do. The young will tell you that something they do not like sucks in every way. Someone my age can (hopefully) see past opinion to judge facts, even if they don't like it.
I think quality is objective. Quality once defined can be quantified. ":His writing is technically good. It is easy to read and flows well.." However you have to narrow down to an aspect about the thing in question that can be qualified. If said writer writes about things you do like you are not going to enjoy their books the technical quality aside. If they plot like a three year old all that skill is wasted.
Art and Writing can be judged on many levels. Many of the level are purely subjective and even the objective levels are colored by the subjective aspects.
Popularity is only one measure and a subjective measure at that. To my mind, not a measure of quality.
I think much of the superstition surrounding quality and popularity comes from the fact that it's hard for anybody to tell exactly what they are looking for in a work of art. Sometimes "quality" comes to mean "engaging plot", sometimes "flashy graphics", sometimes "subtlety", sometimes "technical prowess"... even when used by the same person talking about different works. We tend to expect everything at once, while in reality there are things in art which are mutually exclusive. You cannot have really good porn with the quality of a Rubens painting because that would be too distracting and the result could be erotic but not quite arousing.
There are even artists who capitalize on this, like Lucian Freud in the field of painting. I think nobody could possible get aroused by his paintings, yet many of them would be considered porn if they were ordinary drawings in an "easy on the eyes" style.