Growing up my father tried to instill in me the idea that “the better man walks away from a fight.” Of course, it was a hard sell. We live in a culture that loves a good fight. We’re taught that all bullies are really cowards and that all they need is a good whoopin’, and then that bully will never mess with you again. Of course, that’s not necessarily true, either. Sometimes bullies are fairly fearless or even worse, have friends, and those friends form a gang and then they can whoop the daylights out of you for what you’ve done to their friend. The real truth is that few people ever actually *win* a fight. Sure, you might be the last man standing, but if your nose is busted and you’ve got a hell of a shiner, “you should see the other guy,” is little consolation.
This is even truer when it comes to internet fights and PR wars.
Last week a fairly prominent director decided to take two paragraphs worth of spite out on me through his Twitter account (in front of his almost 2 million followers) in response to a rather strongly worded piece I’d written on the state and perception of his career. I won’t repeat his smacks here, nor will I respond to them. I’ve been asked for over a week now “Why didn’t you say this?” or “Why didn’t you call him on that?” or “Why don’t you come on our podcast and let him have it?” And I have only one answer:
“Because nobody ever wins these things.”
PR fights are nasty things. Whether director on director (like Spike Lee/Clint Eastwood), Actor on Director (Megan Fox/Michael Bay), Director on Critic (Vincent Gallo/Roger Ebert), or even critic on critic (Vanity Fair/Cinematical) it’s never a good idea. The very act of tipping one off bloodies your own nose. While everyone loves a fight, no one wants to see the nasty side of someone they think of as cool, funny or a nice guy. Seeing their dark, wounded side – showing thin skin or a quickness to anger – is a big turnoff for folks, so you have to make damn sure that you’re leveling just criticism about a genuine wrong against someone before you fire that first shot. You need to be certain that the people who read what you have to say will side with you. Because if they don’t, you’re just going to look like a bully – and an emotional one at that. You also have to hope that the target of your criticism doesn’t fire back better than you gave, because if he does, you will end up a laughing stock.
Sadly, more often than not, the response is just as petty and emotional as the initial attack – and the fight continues until one party (or the audience) tires of it. Usually, when all is said and done, all anyone remembers is what a (insert expletive of choice) one or both of the parties were being. Only once in modern history has anyone been declared the winner in a PR fight – and even that one is up for debate*.
It’s easy to understand why celebrities might want to defend themselves from commentaries or editorials – especially particularly brutal ones – but there are reasons PR firms exist, and one of those is to curtail and control this kind of response. Responding to someone lower on the totem pole than you doesn’t knock them further down the pole as one might think – instead it places them higher; it makes people think that there must be some credence to what this person has to say if someone so important is spending their afternoon flaming them, trying to counter that opinion. But that’s certainly no way to build a career, either.
So last week I politely responded, urging said director to consider that he might have read the piece with the wrong tone and insisted that he take to heart what I was saying about how he was perceived in the critical world – and that was that. No more flames, no more bitter words. Just two guys walking away with bloody noses. Only two blogs bothered to even cover the story. It wasn’t sexy – it was just an afternoon car accident not worth mentioning after the fact; something I’m certain the director hasn’t even thought about again and gets mentioned to me in polite ribbing by my buddies over beer.
Celebrities should never respond to their critics. If they do, Critics should not fire back. And audiences shouldn’t cheer them on or join in the fray. This is not one of the advantages of a socially networked world; it is one of the drawbacks.
*Roger Ebert is thought to have bested Vincent Gallo in 2003. Gallo criticized Ebert’s blasting of his film, The Brown Bunny, which Ebert regarded as the worst ever shown at Cannes. Ultimately, after several jabs back and forth, Gallo wished cancer on Ebert who responded that he’d recently had a colonoscopy, that they’d brought in a TV for him to watch it, and even that was better than The Brown Bunny. Point to Ebert. Though some argue that Gallo hexed Ebert, who soon after developed cancer and lost his ability to speak. I know more than one superstitious critic who will not say anything bad about Gallo in print. And no, I’m not kidding.
