Criticism remains

While waiting to board my flight back from Bangladesh in January, I discovered that CNN Life was shutting down. 

Rumors had been in the air about the closure of CNN Philippines, but it didn’t make the news any less devastating. Life was one of the few publications that felt like it would stick around; one of the last capable of setting the cultural agenda beyond Manila. But as contributors rushed to save their articles through the Wayback Machine and began saying their farewells, the reality of it hit. Within days, years of cultural criticism and reportage were wiped from the internet.

Migration from print to online always held the promise of digital permanence. But as more publications and newsrooms close without warning and more culture writers and art critics are replaced by influencers, access to such quality criticism grows increasingly rare. When press releases masquerade as criticism, what can be used to sift the art from the slop? When spaces that nurture critical writing and sharp voices die, where do we locate voices committed to the truth?

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During a forum on film criticism at UP Manila just two weeks later, an audience member asked, “What’s the point of criticism today?” It’s a difficult question because it asks the critic to defend their existence, the space they occupy, and their utility in society today. Critics are often seen as arbiters of good and bad and most people engage with criticism purely from this economic standpoint of recommendation. But with the declining social capital of print and online publications, the question takes a more dangerous undertone: If "good reviews" can’t bring in audiences and "bad reviews" condemn works to financial ruin, what’s the point?

In the silence, I ask the audience to bring out their phones and type in their favorite films. What appears before the access to the films themselves is the writing around it. I only know of Manuel Silos’ Biyaya ng Lupa and many of the films lost in time because of the critics who diligently put pen to paper, capturing the films’ essence and the zeitgeist during their release through writing. Criticism is often thought of as counter to creation. Artists are quick to dismiss the importance of the critic through Anton Ego’s monologue in Ratatouille. But in experience, criticism serves as a bridge to the work and the truth contained in it across time, space, and culture shifts.

It’s easy to forget that great criticism has shown up at decisive moments in our history. Think of Mr. and Ms. Magazine, whose special edition launched by Eggie Apostol dented the waning political powers of Marcos Sr. and Erap Estrada. The best critics go beyond the utilitarian and invite the audience to move beyond binaries of good and bad; box-office hit or blunder. Through their writing, they create scaffolds of insight where uncertainties can be articulated, contexts can be restored and reexamined, and material conditions can be critiqued with a view of the bigger picture. They help us see with new eyes. They encourage us to parse out complexities for ourselves. They write against conclusions and resist consensus.

With the flood of art and "content" that comes our way and the increasing fatigue post-pandemic, criticism grows more valuable despite the lack of institutional investment. It challenges our modes of consumption and production, forcing us to reflect on our behavior and the industry beyond the parameters of profit, business optimization, and successful algorithms. Critics risk telling the truth even if it is against the status quo and interests of powerful cultural cliques.

I think of Pristine de Leon, who wrote about Maid in Malacanang’s emotional grip on many Filipinos and the challenge of arriving at a criticism that can respond to such distortions. I think of Dennis Gupa and Dada Dacot’s essay on retiring Miss Saigon and the Philippines’ complicity in affirming the soft power of the US through theater, just as Miss Saigon had a soldout run in the country. I think of Epoy Deyto’s examination of how the success of only a handful of films at the recent Metro Manila Film Festival is symptomatic of a larger lack of care towards Filipino releases year-round, outside of festivals. In a world that tries to convince us that truth is negotiable and optional, critics put their foot down and dare to say something.