There is a clear line between creativity and commercializing. Hollywood banks off of hype and blind interest from fans of a property, or just seek to make a quick picture that's bound to make bank. There's no substance, and it's all backed behind a pretty face.
Kinda like the cartoon community, where it's all just a bunch of personalities feeding basic points all for the sake of ad revenue and that Patreon moolah, plus plenty of views by people who don't know any better. If cartoons were politics I'd be a socialist.
The fact that I'm talking about a show that pokes fun at the Hollywood system that happens to be a cartoon is justification for those ludicrous statements.
Breakdown
So, The Critic, I hate it, I think it laid seeds for generally toxic personalities on the internet, ask the Nostalgia Critic, or the Cinema Snob.
Back then people considered it to be an intelligent series willing to poke fun at things no one else would at the time, and some still do (because they don't know any better.) In reality, The Critic was a vapid, pretentious comedy with an illusion of something grander, full of unlikable characters that the show expects you to feel sorry for, the lack of courage to make fun of actual movies, an authoritarian perspective on film criticism, and seeds for suspicion that Mike Reiss is homophobic (why else would he make a gay minstrel cartoon?) Oh yeah, it's ugly too.
In some twisted way, The Critic is basically a spiritual predecessor to Family Guy in terms of how many references they cram into every episode, as well as constant reliance on fat and gay jokes (it's just as bad if they're so rampant.), and ironically, Jay Sherman looks to be more of a mockery of than a representation of the more refined movie buff, when in actuality he's the basis for the creators' obsession with Siskel and Ebert, they even had an episode I covered not too long ago.
A smart show would seek to find the negative in things no one would think to look, but they stuck with incredibly easy topics, topics that would shield them from criticism since they're so universal in how people feel about them.
People only care about relevance and money, and it shows now more than ever.
The Episode
L.A. Jay has one of the most basic Hollywood-deconstruction plots I've ever seen, both paint by numbers and hampered by its own humor.
Jay writes a movie script and wants to pitch it to Hollywood, shit ensues, that's the plot in general. We never do get to see what kind of film he wrote, all for the sake of artificial sympathy, but the script is great, according to some very likely biased readers.
I take it the lack of info on the script is meant to put this into a general context, but I guess that means Al Jean and Mike Reiss think everyone in general are fat, balding, fey, pretentious and overtly obnoxious.
The entire plot is very basic, the only thing carrying it along are jokes, and I mean it like they try to preserve interest through some very weak-ass gags, but when we get to them.
Jay's up against one of the most blase Hollywood producers out there. Oh gee, I wonder if the producer will be a Jewish man abiding to stereotypes created by pretentious dickbags? I wonder I wonder I wonder I wonder I wonder- Complexity isn't your friend in this show.
Jay is forced to headline another film supervised by the studio he's at, and of course it's gonna be commercialized garbage, not saying it in favor to the plot, but because of how obvious it is. This show is meant to be smart, so I gotta hold it to that standard.
Apparently the people behind this hate Ghostbusters, just felt like letting you know.
So the plot is bare to none, what're the gags like? Well they have one where Jay meets with potential directors for his movie, among them are Oliver Stone, Francis Ford Coppola and Spike Lee. I don't like these directors very much, one is incredibly out of place for the kinds of films he helmed, one is preachy, the other is potentially a threat. Let me break it down.
Oliver Stone here just goes into some rambling. I have a radically different perspective on Stone, I feel he's way out of the realm of political activism, Natural Born Killers was in-cohesive, plus other things I don't feel comfortable admitting to. This was just confusing at best.
Spike Lee... I guess is mostly accurate, but I feel it would've been cool to take further stabs at his beliefs. Did he dress like a stereotypical African native in the 90s? If not then I think that's another thing against Reiss, there're already a lack of major black characters in this show.
Lee technically came last, but that's because I wanted to really tear into Francis Ford Coppola. We have a man who had violated the law for at least one movie, and here's a big one, congregated with a pedophile, discovering him in the first place, visiting him in prison, and even helping produce two of his films post conviction.
But apparently the third Godfather movie is the most offensive of Coppola's sins. Hear me out, this show is heralded as being by movie fans for movie fans, even airing in reruns on a movie channel, and they just so happened to not look deeper into something shocking? Are you telling me these guys only followed pedestrian knowledge on this show? Or is everyone on it a pedophile too?
I'm harping on this because no one else will ever.
Not to mention we have one of the worst pop culture gags I've ever seen. The joke is that ugly losers drive fancy cars, then the Elephant Man comes in. That's it. That's the joke. Duckman did a better Elephant Man joke, hell, Duckman was a better show.
Other highlight, Arnold Schwarzenegger is apparently weak.
After a predictable cops on black driver joke, things get confusing. Did Jay intend to make his movie as bad as possible? I mean maybe he did. Confused is the wrong term here, I mean apathetic, I figured it out sooner than I thought.
The movie turns out to be soulless, but it's made worse as it's a crappy statement against box-office magnets, forced, going after a movie a lot of people like, and Ed Koch for some reason. Jay is glad the movie sucks, too bad this episode gave me no reason to feel bad for him.
Overall
If you wanna take a stab at the Hollywood system, you have the right, but you gotta make it good if you wanna make a point. As a deconstruction on Hollywood it sucks because the ideas behind it are carried out so vaguely you can't feel bad for anyone, not to mention this feels like it'd appeal strictly to screenwriters and no one more. As just a basic comedy romp it sucks because as it's reference-based, if you don't know the reference, you won't know the joke, and the jokes you may recognize are so flat, you'd seriously question if this was ever that good of a show.
Other shows did this concept better. Duckman basically had its course of events occur due to a vanilla family film, and the producer was over the top enough to keep things interesting, plus we had a much better Arnold appearance. Not to mention both episodes allude to the rejection of a lesbian script. While one is a footnote, the other is treated like it has weight.
If you want a good take on the Hollywood system, check out the Mission Hill episode Plan Nine from Mission Hill, a clever romanticized parody on the making of Plan 9 from Outer Space, and one that provides a more sympathetic take on personal visions in classic movies. In other words, it doesn't lecture us.
I don't have a clever closing line.
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