The Petty Politics of Anonymity

In a country like Pinas with its history of several systemic impediments to social change, such as colonial occupation and authoritarian regimes, anonymity has proved to be a useful, even honorable, device. Underground opposition groups benefit from posting their critiques in their long-running cat-and-mouse skirmishes, proceeding from the guerrilla-warfare examples of predecessors throughout global history.

11011What I find concerning in my circumscribed area of specialization though is a contemporary “viral” poster who’s been dispensing judgmental remarks and ratings for the past several years. I’d previously posted observations about the flaws in this person’s methods, and apparently several practitioners as well as some of his followers have started expressing dissent or dissatisfaction wtih his pronouncements. But what alarms me is the lack of objections among practitioners to his insistence on maintaining anonymity.

11011It’s producers and artists I have to call out, because as far as I know, they’re the ones who’re aware of the identity of this so-called critic, who requests attendance at their press previews. Organized groups have responded differently (or worse, indifferently), as would be their wont. The most recent group, honest enough to drop the C word in their name, was the Society of Filipino Film Reviewers, which offered to provide membership to the writer in question on condition of identifying himself in his public posts. On the other extreme is the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Filipino Film Critics Circle, on which more later), which remained quiet except for one of its members expressing amusement with and tolerance of this particular commentator’s practice.

11011The most successful anonymous activist group at the moment is called, aptly enough, Anonymous, a hacker group that punishes abusive Western institutions by launching cyberattacks against their internet operations. I’m old enough to acknowledge participating in underground media in some antidictatorship projects in the distant past; but I also found myself at the receiving end of so-called critics, organized by a publicist suspected of being a government informant, who wrote a series of anonymized attacks against personalities they considered compromised because of popular success and therefore fraudulent in their claims to progressivity, and included writers they considered supportive of such individuals. Part of my entire critical mission, even before these ideological purists came along, was to point out that the condemnation of mass patronage leads to unproductive culs-de-sac, premised on flawed readings of leftist culture theory and not much different from reactionary critical approaches.

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11011Anyone who’ll say that the current author in question is spearheading new ways of thinking on media that could potentially endanger his personal safety is as much of an ignoramus as he and should be permitted to withdraw from our present discussion. The only argument left for said writer to wield is that of privacy, which should normally be observed by anyone including myself, regardless of my unqualified support for outing closeted celebrities. However, as I’m sure most practitioners are aware of, media producers and creatives are not entitled to the same luxury of privacy, unless they prefer to withhold from themselves the benefits that accrue from successful (and therefore profitable) practice.

11011There are two speculative possibilities then, one mildly positive and the other positively awful. One is that media practitioners don’t really have much regard for criticism: whether you append your name to a review or use an alias, they’ll pretend to be concerned but really couldn’t care less, since for the most part the commercial performance of any release can be historically overdetermined (e.g., James Cameron’s Titanic will make its global box-office record even if all the world’s critics unite in describing it as an entry that deserves to sink to the depths of forgettability). The other possibility is that artists keep quiet when some of them acquire acclaim from an author, and resolve to just wait their turn, hoping it comes sooner than later.

11011This second option parallels what happens on a more comprehensive annual scale, when bands of critics retreat into the anonymity of film awards, as the Manunuris were first to exemplify. Like the writer under discussion, they declare their decisions as unhampered by influence and motivated by concern for artists and audience—both self-serving distractions, as any intensive analysis of the historical record will reveal. The community of artists appears less inclined to buy into these shameless lies at present, compared to earlier generations’ responses, but enough of a supportive press machinery springs to action during awards season to celebrate these critics’ decisions; which means those excluded from nominations or awards are expected to display good sportspersonship, allow their winning colleagues to praise the critics’ critique-less integrity, and hope their own good behavior will be rewarded at some future point.

11011As I wrote in a prior study, the practice is not even modern if we were to look for Western equivalents. The uncommon practice of less-than-adequate writers who benefit from collective protection and keep their interests intertwined, resulting in a scary but fascinating spectacle, resembles the hold that the Rattenkönig or rat king once had on the public imagination. Defenders of tradition might respond that our contemporary viral critic is unnamed, unlike the members of the critics’ group that I compare him to. But the analogy I make is simple enough to be comprehensible to anyone: when any local industry practitioner tolerates his anonymity, she may just as well be replicating her response to organized critics when they unify their individual identities in a judgmental scam that purports to be above everyone, most especially the recipients who compete for it and feel fulfilled even without the benefit of productive critical commentary.

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Á!