Jonah Koslofsky ’20 and Noah Harper ’19 are two guys who like to write about pop culture and occasionally review Brandeis productions. This week, they’re going to have a conversation about criticism in general. Shade… might be thrown.

Jonah: So, Noah, about a month ago, the parody account known as “The Brandeis Bagel” uploaded a picture with the caption “Meet the Justice’s Newest Arts Reviewer: He’s White, Has Serious Issues with Women, and Boy Does He Have a Lot to Say.” The Instagram post got nearly a hundred likes and was by far the Bagel’s most popular post at the time. This got me thinking: what is the role of the critic in the context of the Brandeis campus? How is criticism delivered, treated and seen on the Brandeis campus? And why did people respond so positively to this joke?

Noah: I think there’s a pervasive sense among some of our peers that the role of college criticism is like gatekeeping: You’re defending Art with a capital A, and, admittedly, there’s something really fun about playing that role. While pompous and elitist, it makes you feel good to put others down, and to believe that people actually look to you as an authority on the subject, and are reading your writing—besides, like, the actors in the play you’re reviewing. Know thy audience. How do you approach an on-campus art review, Jonah?

Jonah: I agree—being a “gatekeeper” is pompous and, ultimately, pointless. I think a lot of this stuff comes down to recognizing your own subject position: A critic is never objective, no matter what their piece says. The critic can include objective facts in their reviews, but at the end of the day, it’s someone’s opinion. And if someone’s published opinion is putting down fellow students or hurting people’s feelings, you’re just being a jerk.

That leads me to my next point: A critic should be as as invested in the artistic process as the artist (or artists). There’s no detachment, especially when the newspaper where your review will be published is in the same building as the play you’ve just seen. A critic’s job is never to make the artist feel bad, especially when the artists are fellow Brandeis students. A critic has to be honest, yes, but they also should be reasonable. And while I agree that this is a fine line to walk, one might wonder if you should be writing reviews if you can’t do both.

Finally, it’s important to remember that everyone is at Brandeis to learn, amateur critics included. Were a “real” critic to read through the reviews I write, I have no doubt that they’d be capable of tearing my work to shreds. This professional could go through everything from my limited verb diversity to my lack of formal structure, and write a really harsh (but not factually incorrect) assessment of pieces I spent hours poring over. Conversely, there have been times when I’ve read reviews from Brandeis “critics” that I’ve desperately wanted to “review” myself. However, I’ve kept those thoughts to myself because they wouldn’t really help anyone.

Apologies, Noah, it appears I’ve been rambling. What do you think?

Noah: I agree with everything you’ve said, Jonah. I try (and sometimes fail) to approach the things I’m reviewing from a position of humility—these are people putting countless hours of work into something for the pure joy of it. No one’s here making money, we’re all just trying to build and enrich the Brandeis arts community, which requires an intentionality of commitment and care: We want to build a scene that’s positive and encouraging and constructively critical so that it can be better.

Let’s save the fiery takedowns for Guy Fieri’s restaurants, not our fellow students who are, like us, just trying to make Brandeis a better place—and to make that happen, we’re gonna need all the help we can get.

Final thoughts, Jonah?

Jonah: I think we’ve just about covered it. The idea that a critic would have different standards for campus productions compared to professional or official releases seems just so obvious to me! However, we’re getting at a deeper (and honestly, more interesting) conversation about who should review what. For example, if I’m a big fan of the Marvel movies, should I be writing a review of the next “Avengers” movie? Or let’s say I don’t have much knowledge of musical theater—am I really in a position to evaluate a production? While I understand that college newspapers are generally short-staffed (and therefore not in a position to turn down eager writers), I wonder about the responsibilities editors have to their readers. If it’s clear from a “critic’s” writing that they’re the wrong person for a certain beat, should the newspaper keep running their work? Just more questions for the Brandeis newspaper community…