Raunchy comedy is the most straight forward example. These films tend to nearly always be underrated, in my opinion.
Why? The great feeling of looking down your nose at something especially when there’s the side effect of making someone else embarrassed to have enjoyed it. Dirty Grampa is a great example - it’s been called racist, sexist, and the worst film of all time by critics. It got a 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. The funny thing is nearly all of the 10% of reviewers who gave it a positive review were black or women.
Dark comedy is a little more complex because I think there are multiple reasons people want to look down on it. First, they don’t want to be seen liking something disgusting and violent, which is often the case. Second, some people just fundamentally don’t enjoy being disturbed or made to feel uncomfortable. Ravenous is a great example of a very mixed review film that I thought was fantastic, but 51% of critics hated it - again, most of them are just looking down their noses at it because of the violence, gore, and weirdness and will dress up their virtue bias with a lot of big words and intellectual disagreements with what the film is trying to achieve. Add in a gimmick to show some shallow political point, the way pleasantville did, and they’ll think it’s brilliant (not a knock on Pleasantville, I love that film).
The comedy type that critics tend to be OK with, but the general public tends to frown on are the really obscure niche types, like the Coen Brothers Hail Caesar! I’m not even going to say it’s because critics want to feel smart by saying they enjoy it. I think it’s the sort of film that’s aimed at people who have a large appreciation for film, most critics fall into this category. Hail Caesar is a fantastic film if you’re familiar with the history and Hollywood films of the late 40s and early 50s, the communist blacklistings and all that stuff. Because it’s Coen Brothers it won’t hold your hand either, and most people will watch it and think “WTF is the point of this?”
Why? The great feeling of looking down your nose at something especially when there’s the side effect of making someone else embarrassed to have enjoyed it. Dirty Grampa is a great example - it’s been called racist, sexist, and the worst film of all time by critics. It got a 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. The funny thing is nearly all of the 10% of reviewers who gave it a positive review were black or women.
Dark comedy is a little more complex because I think there are multiple reasons people want to look down on it. First, they don’t want to be seen liking something disgusting and violent, which is often the case. Second, some people just fundamentally don’t enjoy being disturbed or made to feel uncomfortable. Ravenous is a great example of a very mixed review film that I thought was fantastic, but 51% of critics hated it - again, most of them are just looking down their noses at it because of the violence, gore, and weirdness and will dress up their virtue bias with a lot of big words and intellectual disagreements with what the film is trying to achieve. Add in a gimmick to show some shallow political point, the way pleasantville did, and they’ll think it’s brilliant (not a knock on Pleasantville, I love that film).
The comedy type that critics tend to be OK with, but the general public tends to frown on are the really obscure niche types, like the Coen Brothers Hail Caesar! I’m not even going to say it’s because critics want to feel smart by saying they enjoy it. I think it’s the sort of film that’s aimed at people who have a large appreciation for film, most critics fall into this category. Hail Caesar is a fantastic film if you’re familiar with the history and Hollywood films of the late 40s and early 50s, the communist blacklistings and all that stuff. Because it’s Coen Brothers it won’t hold your hand either, and most people will watch it and think “WTF is the point of this?”
