Gsteiger's Gspace

You know, I never like it when artists don't take criticism gracefully. Well, I should amend that, I never take criticism gracefully...I am usually filled with a sense of wounded indignation and defensive pride. But *you don't say so in public*. Yes, I'm talking to you, Kevin Smith, after your (let's be frank) tacky tirades against film critic Joel Siegel, who walked out of a Clerks II screening. Sure, Siegel is lame, and it was unprofessional of him to make a comment while theatrically departing. But it's hardly like he interrupted some Gospel reading at Easter services at the Vatican. Just let it go. Be happy that someone lame hated your film and found it so offensive that he couldn't bear to sit through another minute. As you yourself said, Kevin, it's a "badge of honor." But stop the public carping and griping. It makes you look like some thin-skinned asshole.

Maybe it's just that I sat through college and grad school writing workshop after writing workshop, where any fellow student has the right to take a potshot at your work in front of everyone else, and you just get to sit there with a frozen smile on your face. Most of the time, though, I realized that 90% of the people discussing my work weren't taking potshots at all...they were trying to be helpful. And when I got over my sense of wounded indignation, sometimes I would realize that they were right about my story. Granted, there were some people who wanted to showboat at the expense of others, but they were few and far between, and if you just let it go, no one remembers it by the end of class.

Would a little decorum kill anyone?

--karen