Here's my reaction to The Killing finale, which touches heavily on Simmons et al.
Interesting, if only because what you wrote was so very Simmonsesque, a man whose minutiae and writing you put under constant scrutiny in these threads. Your piece is full of broad, inaccurate assumptions and reveals itself to be both tremendously self-involved and thin-skinned.
Basic, unbiased information (Level 0) and nuanced, thoughtful reaction (Level 6) never have much of a chance to balance that tone once its been established.
Guess who was in Level 6 (hint hint: dirtynine, because no one gets it or has a "nuanced, thoughtful" reactions except people who agree with him).
Youll notice Ive placed myself in the final level - dont confuse this for denoting intelligence or skill at critique. Im certainly worse than most, especially the pros, by those measures. The levels represent not critical talent, or writing chops - but simple rationality. Or better, how I feel increasingly sophisticated human beings should respond to entertainment - sports, TV, somebody playing accordion on the street, anything.
He is an increasingly sophisticated human being. Enlightened, even. He is...the Rational Man. Civilization has been waiting for him for 300 years.
Its plain that The Killing - flawed and worthy, feast and fodder - was and will be the kind of program that prompts some in its audience to indulge base, reactionary tendencies. That means its getting to something near the core of those who watch it. Some react like mature critics; other react like, well, vengeful brats. Some, like something has been given to them, and some like something has been taken.
The Killing provoked a strong reaction not because it got to near the core of something but because it misrepresented itself as something intriguing when it was something hackneyed, something poorly executed, and something that was ultimately a failure. It got near the core of something because the network that backed it also has two of the best shows of the last decade on it (Breaking Bad and Mad Men). It got near the core because the show it was based on was apparently really good (and also apparently much better than the US version, but that was only known after the US version had demonstrated its quality). It bit off way more than it could chew and fell on its face. Your analysis is off.
It's the opposite of mature to say that people who disagree with you are "vengeful brats" and that people who agree with you are "mature critics." I hope this is clear without having to explain why. You're channeling sg33 with that thin-skinned crap. I say this as an inveterate vengeful brat. You lost focus on the actual underlying material and sat down in the meta-psychoanalysis chair, projecting what you imagine Levels 0-6 thought. Focus on the material, not the reaction. The material is weak for specific reasons (which people have listed with supporting evidence all over), not because most people just didn't get it or are vengeful brats, nor because of some sort of internet-meta reaction, but because most people, as individuals, thought it fucking sucked and failed in several major areas (plot sense, characterization, the contract with the viewer, it was a tour de force in fuckup by the last minute, it makes one yearn for quality flawed shows like Flashforward).
And as to your actual writing, too long by half.
Here is a quote by you earlier in the thread:
The Simmons style, in contrast, is to rapidly expurge a high volume of content as a quick reaction to an event.
Sounds familiar!
If you spend a thread picking apart a writer (Simmons is no doubt flawed, I'm not interested in taking up an apology for him) for minutiae, don't post in the very same thread links to your own pieces which fall apart under even casual scrutiny.
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Glad Grantland exists so far. It's an interesting menagerie of talent and different viewpoints. Molly Lambert in particular is someone who I would not otherwise come across in my internet reading. The footnote shit though, it's a sappy homage to DFW and making it the site's signature feature doesn't mesh with an homage to DFW. Not that he didn't do thing for effect or to have a signature thing or things, but because he wouldn't do it for an ESPN subsidiary site and force it on other writers who otherwise wouldn't see the point, because, well, there isn't one.
