Lee Henman
Thursday 15th July 2010 1:32am [Edited]
5,183 posts
Just on the subject of writers' "hissy fits" when being told about their perceived failings. (WARNING, TENUOUS ANALOGY ALERT!)
Earlier today I watched a council worker put up a fence near my parents' home. (Exciting, I know.)
Anyway it was a bit of a shoddy job to be honest and I'm sure he could've done better, but imagine if I'd gone up to him as a complete stranger, tapped him on the shoulder and said "Hi. I really liked that last slat you nailed in, in fact it's one of my favourites. But the next one you did left me cold." He'd be offended and would probably (and rightly) tell me to f**k right off. So what's the difference?
Confession: A few years ago I posted on Linehan's "Why That's Delightful" site what I imagined at the time to be a helpful critique of a certain Black Books episode. What a c**t I feel now. I swear to God, if I could buy a DeLorean that could travel backwards in time, I'd be speeding at 88 mph towards that day right now to stop myself typing those words. After all, I'd never in a billion, trillion years tap that council worker on the shoulder and attack his workmanship, so what the Hell I was thinking when I offered my shitty misguided advice to one of the country's most celebrated, talented comedy writers I will never know. It still makes my toes curl now.
Comedy forums like these are different though. They're a place for fans and writers alike to vent their spleens about shows they love and hate, and thus anything goes I think. That's why if I ever had a sitcom broadcast (hah) I'd avoid these pages like the plague. We all know how much criticism of our work hurts, but to have that on a global audience scale - well it doesn't surprise me when writers tell me they don't read the reviews.
S'pose all I'm saying is there's a big difference between airing your views on a site like this, and using the internet to personally "help" an artist. It's a simple matter of manners. Isn't it?