Alexandra Heller-Nicholas guided us through Monday’s class today. Alex is an Australian film critic, broadcaster and writer, and her cross media knowledge was an interesting and insightful view into the Australian media industry. Starting the class by introducing herself, she successfully compartmentalised the aspects, responsibilities, and privileges of criticism that I previously hadn’t thought of. One topic that resonated strongly with me was the idea of privilege, as she stated ‘that a single mother working two jobs, wouldn’t have the luxury of watching two feature lengths films that I do each week’. This got me thinking about the true inclusion of criticism, and how in our day and age, where ‘everyone’s a critic’ that might not be such a bad thing. One thing I have been tackling with quite personally this semester is the differentiation between high and low culture, and how does one voice and opinion get credentialed over another. Alex investigated this with the class, modestly stating how she still doesn’t understand what determines her right of say over some else’s art.

Applying this questioning to my own skepticisms, specifically in relation to the investigations I have conducted PB3, I have decided that cultural criticism is my most interested format. Conducting investigations about the content’s relationship with context as oppose to the value of content itself.