A Little Perspective
A personal retrospective through the lens of a fictional French food critic
A long time ago, when I first started seriously trying to write analysis and criticism, I saw a really terrible movie just to write a review of it. I no longer remember exactly what it was; perhaps Rock the Kasbah? The important part is that I shared my distaste of the film with a friend and he expressed a desire to see my “best Anton Ego” about it. For whatever reason, this struck a chord with me and helped me to channel an incisive critical voice. All these years later, it's something that has stayed with me, and only recently have I really thought about why.
Anton Ego, of course, is the exacting food critic from Ratatouille. For most of the movie, he appears as the stereotypical villainous critic that most creative people conjure when making a work about the artistic process itself. You know the type: menacing, snooty, single-mindedly determined to tear down the hapless protagonist's labor of love. It's an ungenerous interpretation of a critic's work, but is perhaps understandable from those who've been on the receiving end of a cutting review.
Yet there's an unexpected heart to the character of Anton Ego that other such portrayals usually lack. If you've seen the movie you certainly know the scene I'm referring to. At the climax he tastes some of Remy's cooking and it instantly transports him back to a happy childhood memory of his mother's cooking. Blown away, he writes a glowing review of the restaurant even after learning the truth of his meal's provenance. It's a heartwarming ending that easily ranks as one of Pixar's best.
As a scene, I think it's meant more as a testament to the power of art than a loving paean to the critic, given that it includes Ego denigrating the practice as less meaningful than the “average piece of junk.” Yet it's revealing of what drives people to analyze and talk about media so obsessively. Inside every critic is a deep love of what they criticize, a wholehearted belief in its transformative power, a memory or feeling or sensation that resonates with them so deeply they've built a part of themselves around that touchstone. Earlier, Ego claims he is so thin because he loves food so much that anything he doesn't love he refuses to swallow. This is meant as a threat and a demonstration of his cold nature, but it's also a hint at this essential truth: you cannot be this exacting unless you really, truly love it.
Not everything Ego says is quite so true or insightful. He claims that critics “thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.” There is some truth to this, obviously, but not as much as is commonly assumed. It's often dispiriting to be the voice of negativity amongst a sea of positivity. I'm too much a contrarian at heart to deny there is a thrill to going against the grain, but it remains a lonely stand, and ultimately you don't want to feel like a scold or that you're taking away someone's joy. If someone adored something I think isn't nearly so great, and I successfully argue them into cooling their passion, well, that doesn't feel like a victory for me. The point isn't to change someone's mind or to set the tone of the conversation. It's simply what everyone wants: to be understood.
And besides, it's not negative criticism that people thrive on really. It's the contrarian view that draws attention and notoriety, the much-sought-after “hot take.” The true holy grail is to formulate the opinion that no one else holds, and defend it vigorously. Everyone agrees Rise of Skywalker was a terrible movie, and describing why it fails so thoroughly does bring some joy. But if you instead assert that Rise of Skywalker is a hidden masterpiece, well, then you've got a stew going. It's a proclamation so provocative I couldn't help but read it, if only to understand better why I think it's completely wrong.
(To be clear, contrarian though I am, I find Rise of Skywalker a detestable film and don't have it in me to mount a spirited defense of a position I don't actually hold. I maintain that Last Jedi is the best Star Wars movie and once wrote a 14 page single-spaced essay about why Force Awakens is a bad movie though, so I have no shortage of Star Wars hot takes)
As for the claim that criticism is per se less meaningful than any artistic endeavor, this is a thornier problem. There is a proud and vainglorious part of myself that wants to denounce that assertion, to proclaim that a masterful work of criticism is a piece of art unto itself. I can't bring myself to fully recant this view, which may be more of a personal failing than a revelation of a divine truth. But I must acknowledge that the view comes from the same place of love.
To love media as deeply as I do is to believe that even the most execrable piece of corporate dross has a spark of humanity to it, that there is someone somewhere to whom it could touch on an emotional level and change their lives. Is this literally true? I don't know. But art is important enough to me that I have to believe it anyway. And I don't know that anything I write explaining my own feelings can ever match that kind of miracle.
But the most moving part of Ratatouille's climax to me is not the validation that Remy and Linguini receive. What I think is both truly touching and the most essential truth it reveals is that Ego does something many assume critics are incapable of: he admits he was wrong. Faced with an immutable fact, that he enjoyed Remy's cooking, and his ironclad belief that Gusteau was wrong about anyone being able to cook, Ego casts aside his belief. This isn't something that is uniquely difficult for a critic. Who among us is ever truly willing to abandon something once core to our belief system because of a singular experience? And yet to be a critic is to believe so strongly in the power of those experiences, to be so committed to honestly conveying them once you find them, that you have no choice but to change. That, far more than negative criticism, is the transcendent joy that is sought.
So who is Anton Ego? He is pretentious, surely, and elitist, certainly. He can come across as dismissive, even cruel, when he finds himself up against something universally beloved to which he sees no appeal. He is, perhaps, a bit lonely in his exacting standards. But beneath it all, he's fueled by love. He's someone who knows the power food can hold. He's someone who secretly hopes that every meal will be the best meal he's ever had, even when he knows it won't be. He's someone who, when something not only matches but exceeds that hope, is blown away, who will sooner throw away his beliefs and his career than deny the truth of that love. In short, my friend may have been exactly correct all those years ago when he intimated that Ego should stand as my critical role model. I can only hope to be one who meets his expectations.