ON POSITIVE CRITICISM

With the start of Star Showbiz, people from all sectors of the media have made a common request: to do more critical analysis and constructive criticism for any sort of production in Bangladesh; be it music, film or television or artists themselves. Recently, we even had a roundtable discussion with the leading men and women of the media. Despite being gathered for a different subject reason, the subject of criticism came up nonetheless. Now that a platform such as Star Showbiz exists from The Daily Star, we have a powerful tool to uphold the culture of Bangladesh.
Sadly, despite asking for constructive criticism, we just don't have the openness to stomach it. And this applies to all sectors of Bangladesh, not only the media. People of Bangladesh want only their good sides to be written about. Criticism that is fueled by grudges or jealousy is a different matter altogether. We at Star Showbiz are talking about constructive criticism, something that benefits both the artist and his craft. The problem with this though, is that when we criticism, however constructively, the end result is always the opposite of progress. This isn't good for anyone.
If we are constantly praise, it becomes very difficult to judge the quality of any production, and thus difficult to judge progress. Our recent production quality, be it music, TV or film, has fallen drastically. If anyone thinks that this is because of lack of knowledge or education, then I must strongly disagree on this because I won't, for a moment, accept that we have a lack of creativity or knowledge. The problem lies either in the communication stream between audience and media people or somewhere deep inside the system. Constructive criticism plays a vital role in helping artists and people involved in the media to improve with vital feedback. For constructive criticism to work though, people, from both sides, need to be more open-minded. If I recall my experiences when I visited the Cannes Film Festival, after the screening of the opening film ‘Grace of Monaco’, journalists from all over the world and the stars of the film along with directors and producers sat down and discussed the film. The openness of the conversation and the criticism that was brought up in front of the stars was thorough. If that were to happen here, a fight would ensue in the first five minutes! This kind of openness will open the doors to reforming the Bangladesh media. We at Star Showbiz are going to positively criticize Bangladesh’s productions this year and by the end of the year, we will host an Achievement Award Ceremony to award deserving productions. We invite our readers to join in as well.
Send us your thoughts, on what you like and what you don’t, and why, so that we can narrow the gap between the artists and the audience.