Jamie Kennedy Grinds His Axe
Jamie Kennedy dislikes criticism so much, he's made a documentary called Heckler all about audience members and online critics who dare admit they don't like something.
The trailer is quite upsetting. It shows a whole heap of people bitterly resisting any kind of knock back at all. What's their point? That people who aren't informed have and share opinions and that this is wrong? Admittedly, most hecklers have nothing in mind other than trying to look smart (at which they most regularly fail) and many online critics don't have the first idea what they even mean to say (much like similar numbers of offline critics) but that's not exactly the point, is it? Either you believe all criticism is subjective and there's no hope of attaining an objective point of view to relate or share - in which case everybody is entitled to their opinion; or you believe that there are objective truths we can agree on about a work of art or piece of media - in which case the wrong points of view can be discredited and the right ones defended with evidence.
For the record, I think Kennedy was very well cast in the Scream films, mildly annoying in Three Kings and shockingly weak in everything else of his I've ever seen. The Jamie Kennedy Experiment was perhaps the low point of his career, but Heckler isn't looking much better. Lumping online critics in with the fools who shout out in comedy clubs is perhaps his biggest single mistake - one of them is an opinion that needs to be sought out, the other can be described as an abrupt, rude interruption. The interruption factor makes heckling in a live environment a completely different animal to any other way of sharing your dislike of somebody or their work.
I was surprised for a second that Kevin Smith wasn't in the trailer someplace, venting against the myriad Talkbackers and bloggers who have dragged him through the dirt in every direction, but then I realised a likely reason why he wasn't. Smith is probably as depressed by Jamie Kennedy as the rest of us.
I'd like to collect opinions on Jamie Kennedy, the Heckler trailer and the premise of the film in the comments section below, no matter if you agree or disagree with me. Please leave a few words, taking his side or against it, because you just know Jamie's going to find his way here someway or another.
