Critical Function

I make notes all year long on books to review, links to hit, or general topics I try to work into posts for conversational purposes. Toward the end of the year, I look at the list, cross off all those that I’ve done, and inevitably there are still some leftovers. I try to “clean house,” and remove everything from the list, whether it’s abandoned, carried over into the next year, or worked into a post. On The West Wing, they used to call it "Take Out The Trash Day." Sometimes it never happens organically, so here you go. Along with a picture of food critic Anton from Disney’s Ratatouille, it’s just something I thought was interesting that was making the rounds on the interwebs a while back. Don’t quote me exactly, I’m paraphrasing from my cryptic notes and can’t properly cite the original author…

What is the Function of a Critic?

1) to highlight creators or works which the audience was unaware of previously or had not been exposed to

2) to cause further consideration of a creator or work that is undervalued because the audience had not read them carefully enough

3) to illustrate relationships between works that the audience didn’t see because of their relatively limited scope of material consumed

4) to provide explanation of a creator or work that increases the audience’s understanding of it

5) to examine the process of producing (writing, penciling, inking, coloring, lettering, publishing, selling, etc.) art

6) to demonstrate the relationship of art to any aspect of life