Bias is not ipso facto a sin, but potentially a positive value, a source of expertise
I almost feel like continuing this thread may result in someone being killed. I've heard of heated debate but this debate boils over, gentlemen.
Bias is not ipso facto a sin, but potentially a positive value, a source of expertise, enthusiasm, eloquence in interpretation. We have minds, but we also have hearts, and without both, we are nothing.
Extremely well put, Chris. As far as I'm concerned, one cannot be an honest film critic without acknowledging their own biases. The nature of the art is subjective and cannot be taken seriously if it tried to be anything else.
I saw QUINCENEARA last night. (Did I spell that right?) I had heard it was good and had seen the post here in the main page for months. I don't understand, after sitting through it, how the film managed to garner such critical praise. I did not dislike the film. In fact, I felt that the L.A. setting showed a clash between cultures that had negative effects on both sides. All these young Latina girls blubbering on about shopping and text messages. And gay men sitting around a table discussing their Latino boy toy like exactly that, removing every trace of humanity from him. And even though the notion of the non-traditional family is becoming more widely shown, it is one that touches me personally every time. Call that my own bias.
Despite these positive aspects, I did not see the film as anything more than simple and at times hollow and obvious. The character of Magdalena is sympathetic and her growth is welcome. The directors seem to understand her desire to fit in as well as her maturity to know what matters more in life. How then are the gay men in this film portrayed so flatly as men without souls or love given that they are loosely based on the directing couple themselves? They use people to explore their own fetishes; they use each other to give their lives meaning, and they finish by evicting an elderly man from his home of several years and think nothing of it.
It is to their credit to be able to give depth to a young, Latina woman, as it would be to any creative person able to understand the plight of another whose background is so unlike their own. To do this, one has to be able to see what is common to all humanity in the experience. I do however expect a gay man to be able to do justice to a gay character, to make them human and not just a charicature.
Don't shoot, gentlemen.
I have no idea what I'm doing but incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.
- Woody Allen
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