Movie Reviews and The Electoral College: An Unlikely Pair

Analogies are fun because sometimes comparing two things that seem, prima facie, utterly dissimilar can actually influence and enhance perspective of those independent things in light of one another. Today's analogy will compare the electoral college and movie reviews.

In the United States system of government, there is something called the electoral college.  In a nutshell, the electoral college is comprised of elected officials in charge of casting a vote for a presidential candidate.  Presidential candidates are often thought to be elected in accordance with the popular vote coming from the general voting population.  However, this is only partly true.  The electoral college has a major influence in deciding who will be president. For example, if a candidate receives 270 electoral college votes but loses the majority vote, then the candidate receiving those 270 votes from the electoral college becomes president in spite of losing the popular vote.  In U.S. history there have been four presidents elected to office despite losing the popular vote, the most recent being George W. Bush in 2000 defeating John Kerry.  This means that a majority of  U.S. voting citizens elected John Kerry, but because George W. Bush accumulated the required 270 votes from the electoral college, George W. Bush won.

Like the U.S. voting system, movie reviews comes in a couple different forms.  There is a popular vote and a critic vote.  The popular vote could be thought of consisting of the average movie enthusiast not really versed in academic theory, is not affiliated with a view consistent with a particular way of viewing movies, and/or has no political filter.  The professional critic can be thought of as being  analogous with members of the electoral college, in that, both are professional voters.

Sometimes a movie is reviewed by professional critics, and their views for why a movie is the way they say it is, is different from the popular vote.  For example, if one looks at websites such Rotten Tomatoes or the IMDB, then one might find that there are separate categories for movie reviews. One category belongs to the professional critics and the other belongs to the general populace.  Often times the professional critics, using different styles of argumentation, will conclude that a film is poor which is the opposite of what the popular vote concludes.  Therefore, we have a similar situation concerning movie reviews as with the governmental system of the U.S.

Now that the analogy has taken form, the question then becomes what exactly is the take-away or what can we learn?  One argument, that applies to both the electoral college and movie reviews, is that both seem to be arbitrary systems of evaluation derived by doing a synthesis of quantifiable data.  Both require leaning heavily on statistical data showing how a majority and minority of professional voters/critics and amateur voters/critics compare and contrast against one another.  Whether a candidate is chosen by the popular vote or by the electoral college or a movie is determined good/bad etc. by professional critics or amateur reviewers, we rely heavily on numbers to tell us what the bottom line is.  If a majority of critics vote a movie to be poor, but the popular vote indicates that the movie is good, then how do we really know if the movie is good or bad?  Is there a separate criteria for evaluating movies other than reducing the value of a film to a dichotomous relationship and applying a percentile rank?

We could consider a qualifiable method of evaluation instead of reducing a film's worth to a quantified snippet.  This is where the electoral college might be able to teach us something about movie reviews.  The U.S. governmental system needs numbers, statistical data, and a synthesis of qualified feelings into quantified entities.  The democratic system arguably depends on having people's views of issues reduced to a 'yes' or 'no' 'this' or 'that' type reduction for the sake of efficiency. Due to this necessity, and a nuanced technicality of the U.S. governmental system, the electoral college teaches us that a few can contradict the views of a majority.  However, is this the same in movie reviews?  If professional critics all vote a film favorably but the popular vote is unfavorable, do the critics triumph?  The 'true' value of a film may not be buried in the synthesized for consumerism statistical data that companies such as IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes provide us.  How could a method incorporating qualified measures assist in bringing together the professional critic view and amateur movie enthusiasts view in order to unify the dichotomy?  If this last question could be answered, it may be possible to arrive at a film's true value.

My hope, in the end, is that the electoral college method does not apply to film, however, I'll save any true conclusory remarks for another time.