History Main / StrawCritic

** Which is sort of a {{Strawman}} on Carpenter's part: Roger Ebert championed ''{{Halloween}}'' alongside the Village Voice when it was being dismissed as just another slasher flick by other critics.

* TheNostalgiaCritic plays this trope against children's movies such as ''The CareBears series''. He's [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] this a couple times, including a short-lived ''[[StrawLoser I'm such a loser]]'' arc.

See also ReviewerStockPhrases. Compare FanDumb, UnpleasableFanbase, CausticCritic, and FanHaters.

# The guy who only likes TrueArt, which is, of course, [[TrueArtIsAngsty angsty]], [[TrueArtIsForeign foreign]], [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]], [[TrueArtIsOffensive daring]], [[TrueArtSticksItToTheMan political]], and [[TrueArtIsAncient created by someone who is long since dead]]. [[StopHavingFunGuy He thinks less of you for liking]] [[ItsPopularNowItSucks whatever it is that you do like]], and firmly believes that ViewersAreMorons. After all, if viewers weren't morons, they obviously wouldn't be watching LowestCommonDenominator crap! About 90 % of movie critics from New York are like this, suck as the critics for the New Yorker.

# The guy who only likes TrueArt, which is, of course, [[TrueArtIsAngsty angsty]], [[TrueArtIsForeign foreign]], [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]], [[TrueArtIsOffensive daring]], [[TrueArtSticksItToTheMan political]], and [[TrueArtIsAncient created by someone who is long since dead]]. [[StopHavingFunGuy He thinks less of you for liking]] [[ItsPopularNowItSucks whatever it is that you do like]], and firmly believes that ViewersAreMorons. After all, if viewers weren't morons, they obviously wouldn't be watching LowestCommonDenominator crap!

* ''{{Starslip}}'''s Memnon Vanderbeam is an art critic from TheFuture who sees amazing depths in 21st-century relics like WorldOfWarcraft and the movie ''{{Catwoman}}'', but goes into a fit when he discovers the woman he loves owns a [[IncrediblyLamePun "Hang In There!"]] poster. He resolves his cognitive dissonance by writing a hundred-page dissertation defending the "Hang In There!" poster as an example of TrueArt.

** You have single-handedly killed my respect and love for Micheal Crichton and his work. (you know what goes here)

* In Gian-Carlo Menotti's opera ''Maria Golovin'' is the character Dr. Zuckertanz, who scoffs at the sentimental duets that the mother keeps, insulting nineteenth-century Romantic music that Menotti himself was fond of emulating, asking "must music only be sweet?"

* The film ''{{Ratatouille}}'' features as an antagonist a ''restaurant'' critic, Anton Ego. In a partial subversion, Ego is [[AccentuateTheNegative extremely hard-to-please]], but his high standards are sincere, and when confronted with true culinary genius, he recognizes and supports it, even when it would jeopardize his career. He also receives a small but powerful bit of CharacterDevelopment. Therefore, it turns out that he's not really a Straw Critic.

# The guy who only likes TrueArt, which is, of course, [[TrueArtIsAngsty angsty]], [[TrueArtIsForeign foreign]], [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]], [[TrueArtIsOffensive daring]], [[TrueArtSticksItToTheMan political]], and [[TrueArtIsAncient created by someone who is long since dead]]. He thinks less of you for liking [[ItsPopularNowItSucks whatever it is that you do like]], and firmly believes that ViewersAreMorons. After all, if viewers weren't morons, they obviously wouldn't be watching LowestCommonDenominator crap!

* ''{{Psychonauts}}'' parodies this with Jasper Rolls, a critic boss character who was the absurd epitome of this trope; an ugly, obese, snobbish man who has many jokes at his expense and who [[WordsCanBreakMyBones literally hurls]] cliched derogatory adjectives like "tedious" and "monotonous" etc. whilst you battle him. This gets even more interesting when you remember that the battle takes place [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind in the mindscape]] of [[WhiteDwarfStarlet demented former actress]] Gloria van Gouton, where Jasper represents Gloria's own insecurities about her performance.
** In a bit of a [[FridgeBrilliance Fridge Brilliant]] [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] to this trope, Jasper doesn't die after you defeat him--he just shrinks from his previously huge size. Having an inner (or outer) critic isn't ''bad,'' Gloria's was just out of control.

** He made a similar cameo in the ''MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode ''Gorgo'' where he claims he ''liked'' the titular movie despite "sending two of [his] assistant editors into intensive care". Maltin had in fact written a positive review of ''Gorgo'' prior to the episode and his cameo was equally good-natured, despite the show having in earlier episodes brutally mocked Maltin's scores of ''MST3K'' movies: the episode ''The Undead'' where Crow made Mike dress up as Maltin and read a humiliating apology for "his" review and of course the episode ''{{Laserblast}}'' where Maltin's two-and-a-half star rating of the titular movie is constantly mentioned as a RunningGag culminating in Mike and the 'bots going through one of Maltin's books comparing his scores of classic movies to the one he gave ''Laserblast'' (coming to the conclusion that, for example, Maltin considers ''Laserblast'' to be superior to ''Being There'' and equally as good as ''Unforgiven'' and ''Sophie's Choice'').

-->--'''Jay Sherman''', ''TheCritic''

-->--'''Haer'Dalis''', ''[[BaldursGate Baldur's Gate 2]]''

* The Cinema Snob is a character based on this. He actually loves exploitation movies, but he plays, as a character, an effete, snobbish and stuck up movie critic wannabe who hates them. For the most part if he says he hates a movie, it means he actually likes it (with exceptions...) and the whole thing is basically a parody of movie critics in general. Not surprisingly the character is a lot like Jay Sherman, a cartoon critic parody.

* The American ''{{Godzilla}}'' featured the incompetent Mayor Ebert, an obvious charicature of critic Roger Ebert, who had given the director several bad reviews on previous movies. Ebert expressed disappointment that they hadn't even bothered to give him a nasty fate.

* {{Bakuman}} has an arc with a new editor, Miura, who has a passion for gag mangas that he tries to force onto the protagonists. After a lot of argument he and the protagonists find a compromise, getting into a style that the protagonists prefere, but with much more humour. His approach is partially influenced by his believing that gag mangas generally do better and, being a new editor, needing to edit a successful series in order to keep his job.

* {{Bakuman}} has an arc with a new editor, Miura, who has a passion for gag mangas that he tries to force onto the protagonists. After alot of argument he and the protagonists find a compromise, getting into a style that the protagonists prefere, but with much more humour. His approach is partially influenced by his believing that gag mangas generally do better and, being a new editor, needing to edit a successful series in order to keep his job.

** You have single-handedly killed my respect and love for Micheal Crichton. (you know what goes here)

** The critic in question [[http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/002156.php responded in an appropriately wry manner.]] [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome To the point of heroism.]]