Words on the State of Criticism, or: Why We're All Screwed When Ebert Dies.

Watching the remake of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs this week, I made a note regarding one of the film’s underlying themes that I simply didn’t have time to address in my review.  In addition to the original films observations about violence, sexuality, religion and blaming the victim, this version added a subtext that seemed oddly out of place, a commentary on the average man’s version of Hollywood. Beyond the setting, the second biggest change between this Straw Dogs and the original is the changing of the main character’s occupation from a college mathematician, as played by Dustin Hoffman, to the Hollywood screenwriter that James Marsden plays. At first this change seems minor, just an attempt to portray David as sort of a yuppie, but this fact keeps getting brought up over and over again.  As David does research to write a historical drama about the battle of Stalingrad, one of his hillbilly tormenters asks him “You writin’ or something?” He goes on to inquire if David’s written any action movies, and finally says “What you done that I would’ve seen?” to which David disdainfully replies, “Probably nothing.”  Later, as Kate Bosworth’s character discusses acting in a failed TV show, a slutty cheerleader says “I don’t know how come it’s not on, everyone I know watched it.” Eventually, as our villain asks David “Why would you want to write a movie about a bunch of Russkis?” I decided that this theme exploring Hollywood’s disconnect from American audience had to be so prevalent for a reason.  I did my research and discovered that writer/director Rod Lurie is himself a former film critic. As such, he is fully aware that the lines he put into these character’s mouths are actual feelings expressed by audiences every single day. He is fully aware that there is an anti-intellectual “us vs. them” mentality regarding American audiences’ feeling towards critics, and he is lashing out against it by having these thoughts come from characters we’re meant to look down upon. (Ironically, he’s doing it in a film which seems to be intentionally mismarketed to appeal to the types of audience members he is making fun of.)