It's also possible for critics to have systematically different preferences than movie-goers that don't deserve to be described pejoratively as "out of touch" or "snobby." In fact, that's precisely what I would expect and hope to see from people who are professional critics. I wouldn't want expect a list of best restaurants from a food critic to be identical to the list of top restaurant chains by revenue (1: McDonalds, 2: Starbucks, etc.).
> I wouldn't want expect a list of best restaurants from a food critic to be identical to the list of top restaurant chains by revenue
That's a very good point that the role of the critic is to provide their own expertise and opinions on the overall subject. But the critic still has to be within the ballpark of popular tastes if the expectation is a mass audience that really trusts their recommendations, right?
Many Americans might listen to a food critic that said that he thought some pasta dish at some Italian restaurant was the best, even if pasta is not currently everybody's favorite food. But if he he recommended boiled snails or braised calf brains, many people might ignore his judgement because it's a bit too far out of range of what they're comfortable with. At a certain distance from popular opinion, a mass audience might no longer trust that critic. Just a thought.
> But the critic still has to be within the ballpark of popular tastes if the expectation is a mass audience that really trusts their recommendations, right?
Not really. A professional critic usually writes a longish review describing the item and why they liked or disliked it, as well as the conclusion. If they are good at description, that's useful to me even if I don't share their likes and dislikes. If they hate things I love, then I can look for their negative reviews as places to start. If they love things I hate, their seal of approval is a good sign for me to keep walking. I can trust their recommendations even if I don't follow them, if I think they are fair and honest and have consistent opinions. If their opinions blow with the wind, I probably won't trust their opinions, even if they agree with mine.
I found Anthony Bourdain trustworthy, but I do not like a lot of the dishes that he really did (no thanks to organ meat and blood sausage), so I wouldn't blindly follow his suggestions.
> But the critic still has to be within the ballpark of popular tastes if the expectation is a mass audience that really trusts their recommendations, right?
Well, no, because I'm pretty sure most film critics aren't trying to directly provide a "yes or no" recommendation to a general movie-going audience. I've read plenty of film criticism that was entertaining and informative despite me having very little shared taste with the writer. And I suspect if you asked film critics to straight up predict what the RottenTomatoes audience score for a film would be, the aggregate of film critics' predictions would tend to be closer to the RT audience score than the RT critic score itself.
McDonalds is much cheaper than a fancy restaurant, so it should come as no surprise that it has worse quality. But with movies, people are chosing the lower rated movies even though it doesn't save money.
> It's also possible for critics to have systematically different preferences than movie-goers that don't deserve to be described pejoratively as "out of touch" or "snobby."
When the person writing a review has "systematically different preferences" from the people they're writing for, "out of touch" is exactly the right description for that ("snobby" - not necessarily).
Or put another way, maybe you’re not the intended audience if you’re reading a film critic’s work only to decide if you might like a film and you repeatedly find that your tastes are very different than that critic’s.
