(okay, I first skipped the part of the interview where Alexanders says he doesn't like too much consciousness in his rappers, and now I completely agree with you that he's the worst.)

Agree, actually. Didn't want to suggest that Cole Alexander is necessarily coming off better here, especially since I can get behind your suspicion he might be driven by essentially the same sentiment with a slight variation - emulating not the "deserving poor" (so modest, so frugal, so focussed on what truly counts),…

Oh, absolutely, just saying that as a rejection of status consciousness it's a bit facile, because status markers in the middle class/upper middle class work a bit differently.

That's quite possible, but that's how art often works for me, because I'm a fairly analytic person and artists are often more the intuitive types.

I think "You can't even hurt my feelings" might be exactly what Macklemore conveys when he has himself called honky in that song, whether he intends to or not, and I can see why someone might read that as a flaunting of privilege rather than as an indictment of it.

Of course the critique of conspicuous consumption/consumerism in Royals is completely inane, even before anyone would have to bring the race-angle into it. Carefully cultivated disdain for the vulgar, gaudy ostentativeness of the nouveau riche has always been the domain of advanced level snobbery and I like to think I…

I might be giving him too much credit, but he could have been trying to make a more complicated argument, that precisely _ because_ a term like honky could never pull the same punch as actual racists slurs because of the lack of historical weight behind it, it seems a bit like white privilege to essentially…

Making the entertaining monsters actual monsters adds a certain direly needed layer of detachment. I don't feel like The Vampire Diaries is trying to shock me with its edgy bleak views about "human" nature.

io9 recently had a nice article about "naive cynicism", the bane of all grimdark settings, and I think it applies nicely here as well. Yes, there are some ruthless sociopaths out there, but the majority of people can usually be counted upon to display at least a certain degree of conditional morality - they are quite…

Different people have different ideas of what's considered entertaining.

But why would you assume that commercial success should be a relevant factor for a critic?

One of my favourite people to follow on twitter. I should really read that book.

On this very site here you can find a recent review of the TV show "Kings" based on the story of King David, with a comment section full of not necessarily particularly Christian people basically falling over themselves to sing its praises and lament its premature chancellation.

How? I would assume that critics know perfectly well that most viewers don't care to critically engage with a film beyond the momentary distraction it provides. "Most" however doesn't mean "all" - there's a smaller number of people who enjoy this kind of analysis, and that's who critics are writing for. There's no law…

Sorry, I misread you. I read a not, where there wasn't one.

For me, the deconstruction worked so well, precisely _because_the protagonist was so stylized, so "unreal". The whole movie set up this tension between "a real hero" and "a real human being", resulting in the viewer's and the protagnist's creeping and effectively crushing realiziation that he can never quite be both,…

"She", if you would, please. Men don't have a monopoly on unrequested pontificating. Let's battle the stereotypes!

[misread the poster, sorry]

I feel you; Funny Games is really not the kind of movie you'd want to inadvertently stumble upon. I had an advantage, because I'm Austrian and Haneke's a bit of a prodigal son; you don't have to pay very much attention as a vaguely cultured Austrian to get a general idea what he's up to.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with William's complete works to contest that claim; I'd just advocate for a simliar humility in people who can't keep her straight from Carey Mulligan.