Brantley responds to the Star-er, lover accusations

In his article on celebrity-driven productions in the last ten years, Brantley ends with a passage that caught me by surprise, in what amounts to a response to the accusations I frequently hear on the board of his being a Star-...er, lover in his reviews.

" I suppose what most rankles is how most of us are transformed into awe-struck gogglers in the presence of a majesty so fleeting, so illusory, so factory-made.

People say stars imported from other constellations are easy targets when they appear on Broadway, but I have found that reviewers, myself included, go out of their way to be respectful. Its difficult, after all, to escape the reflexes bred by your culture. As hard as we may try to resist it, when visitors arrive from even an ersatz Olympus, our first instinct is to take off our hats."

It may be true, but also something of note when the most powerful critic in the country admits it!

Seems he feels comfortable attacking theater actors, but takes his hat off to celebrities...
Link

I think what he's admitting to is being human, and subjective, which critics are.

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Shouldn't a professional critic leave his teeny-bopper star worship at the door?

He's a joke.

A bad one.

I usually enjoy his writing, but that quote reads as if he sat at his computer and used a thesaurus to make it sound more sophisticated. It comes off as sssssoooooo snotty!

AMEN After Eight!

I thought it was a well written, very easy to understand peice that's about more than just the last two paragraphs.

It's supposed to be "Starfuc*er"

"Isn't he the person that said that his "heart sank" when he learned that Brooke Shields was going to take over the role of Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town and then went on to say she was a "delight", when he actually saw her in the role?
How was that respectful? To judge a performer before the performer was even in the show."

i bet he judged her on a much easier scale though. i mean, i didn't see her performance, but I bet that if not for the "celebrity factor," her singing and acting wasn't up to what most theater actresses bring and he would have been a lot more critical.