What a well-written and yet blatantly ignorant piece- MZS is right about a few things, including Levinson’s self-disclosures in identification with characters; but he- like all the sensitive union of critics forever upset by Malcolm and Marie- chooses to miss the layered value and courage of engaging with oneself that way, in favor of the superficial reading of attention-seeking. Similarly to how the heap of criticism against Malcolm and Marie ironically diluted the merit of Zendaya and Washington as collaborators and boomeranged back at the critics as problematic for making declarative defenses for the actors who weren’t looking for protection, MZS is devaluing the experiences of these youth in the way he talks about a madcap theory that Levinson’s exploiting them in unrealistic ways. MZS leaves that pointed criticism there without indulging in the necessary responsibility he has as a critic to approach the youth themselves with curiosity- even more ironically as an editor-in-chief at RogerEbert.com, indebted to a man who hailed this unconditional empathy as vital to engagement with the medium. His call back to the Ray masterpiece of youth is funny because he violated all these complaints about Euphoria by admitting that film implemented them and did it ‘right’. Why, because you can identify with it easier? Sounds exactly like the solipsistic backlash wagered against Malcolm and Marie- while accusing that of being solipsistic!Never Cursed wrote: ↑Mon Feb 21, 2022 3:38 amMatt Zoller Seitz on S2E7, perhaps the first piece of film criticism I've ever read in which something is compared favorably with Rebel Without A Cause, but does not receive a full-throated recommendation
I feel like the final line of the article also undercuts the entire body, and I’m genuinely confused by this thesis. Did MZS really indicate to any other readers that he feels that “the deeper Euphoria goes up its own ass, the more sublime it becomes” with any formulations or examples mentioned earlier in the piece?! Because I’m not only pretty sure that he just spent a page saying the opposite, but that this very statement- supposedly asking to be taken at face value- is not-so-subtly but perhaps subconsciously another dig at the show! The guy just can’t shed the narcissistic bias he’s lobbing elsewhere