The Rat and The Critic

Took my family to the Pearlridge Mall Theatres yesterday.  We saw Ratatouille.  It's a great family movie!  We all loved it.  One of the themes of the film I found very interesting was a twist on the Theodore Roosevelt quote I posted a few weeks ago about the role of a critic.

http://drshiraki.squarespace.com/journal/2007/6/12/for-all-the-haters.html

One of the characters in Ratatouille is a food critic by the name of Anton Ego, voiced by Peter 'O Toole.  His review of the meal prepared for him by Remy (the rat) was profound and full of insight about the role of a critic, his importance and responsibility, and ultimately the value of a critic to society.

DON'T READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE AND YOU PLAN TO GO!

The Anton Egos of the world are scary because their opinions can carry so much power.  We seek to please these people, to make the powerful critic like us, so that their influence may benefit our cause and not ruin it.

We think that when we are under the scrutiny of the critic we need to put on our "game faces" and produce something exceptional, something special and far above the ordinary.  It's all about the need to impress.

This movie shows us that when facing the critic, we need only be true to ourselves-- true to our talent and aptitude, then simply go and do our best.

After this, we leave it all in the hands of the critic to be judged.

And in that judgement, sometimes the critic must take a stand and put himself at risk to be criticized.  At that moment of irony, when there is a decision to be made between truth and rationalization, there can be courageous integrity in that which a critic reports to the world.  And in doing so the world does become a better place.

Sometimes, it IS the critic who counts, and who, in fact, counts most.