What They Mean By Overrated

In movie discussions, you have to deal with a lot of hyperbole and a lot of misconceptions. The mainstream media has a notoriously short attention span, and is awfully quick to declare things the best or worst "ever." Likewise, most mainstream moviegoers are notoriously subjective in their tastes and tend to be wary of venturing outside the narrow confines of studio product. Sure, there are always a couple of indies that manage to gain some traction, especially around awards time, and occasionally a foreign film or two. Most people want to watch films that conform to their tastes, and that's perfectly okay.

But it does pose a challenge to the pretentious, high-minded cineaste like yours truly. When entering any discussion about movies, I've found I always have to manage my own expectations. I feel comfortable saying that I'm a far more informed moviegoer than most, having watched tons of older and foreign and independent films that exist far outside the experience of casual watchers. Sometimes it can get frustrating seeing the same handful of films brought up over and over again, and certain directors revered while others are blithely ignored. And it's in this context I'd like to discuss two terms that I've found completely useless for any meaningful discussion of media: "overrated" and "underrated."

The meanings of "overrated" and "underrated" are not the subject of any controversy. They refer to the films that people believe have gotten too much or too little praise. However, when people try to talk about what films have been overrated or underrated, the terms are almost always used to talk about either well-known films that a particular viewer doesn't feel deserve all the good press, or obscure gems that they think haven't gotten enough attention. Quality isn't really the issue that they have in mind. It's all about popularity.

I completely understand the fun of categorizing and quantifying films into arbitrary pecking orders. It's the whole reason that Top Ten lists exist. It's often a great starting point for discussions and debate. However, the fatal flaw in these overrated/underrated discussions is the all too common misunderstanding that popular films are not necessarily good films. Box office totals are not and never will be any kind of reliable indicator for quality. As someone who scours the critics' lists every year for films I haven't heard of, obscurities are often terrific. A very low-profile movie that only a few people have seen, but all uniformly love isn't underrated. It's underseen.

On the flip side of that, a very high profile movie like "Gravity" shouldn't be called overrated because everyone doesn't love it. If far more people have seen a film, it means that there are logically far more people out there who will have a negative opinion of it, and when you get several of those people together, it's easy to forget that they're a smaller percentage of the total audience than the naysayers for mediocre films that far fewer people have watched. They also tend to be more vocal, because any discussion of a popular film, positive or negative, attracts more attention.

It's perfectly valid to level the charge that a movie is overrated or underrated, but it's a statement that requires additional context. Overrated or underrated by whom? Calling for a critical reevaluation of a film that has been dismissed is one thing, and bemoaning that a studio or an audience has neglected one movie in the favor of others is something very different. Often these remarks aren't really about a film at all, but their perceived reputation or how they've been marketed.

It's can be very difficult to get a bead on what the general consensus even is about a film, because often there isn't one, or it tends to change over time, and mainstream audiences often disagrees with the critics. Heck, the critical consensus is itself frequently only a mirage, propagated by the problematic Tomatometer. As a result, overrated/underrated discussions are often limited to movies at the extremes, like "12 Years a Slave" or "Movie 43," which have been widely accepted as being a masterpiece and a travesty respectively.

And frankly, framing discussions in these terms seems silly to me. If you want to champion or recommend a film, why is it necessary to position it as an underdog? If you have criticisms of a popular film, why not just present them on their own terms without having to acknowledge what everyone else thinks of the movie first? Viewers who use overrated/underrated the most tend to strike me as terribly intimidated.

I think it's most useful to have these discussion about older films, the ones that have been around long enough that initial reactions have settled into something more concrete, and there is a more substantial position to compare against. The time interval also allows for real reexamination based on more cultural and historical context.

Calling "Citizen Kane" overrated is a much stronger statement than calling "The Avengers" overrated, because it demands the refutation of all the arguments for the greatness of "Kane" that have been made over the decades. We know who has done the rating and why. And thus, you have something to really make an argument against. "Avengers"? Not so much.
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