NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > ROGER EBERT TO REPLACE THUMB WITH EMOTICONS IN PRINT REVIEWS

ROGER EBERT TO REPLACE THUMB WITH EMOTICONS IN PRINT REVIEWS

July 16 2009

Chicago, IL – Film review has never developed a standard format. Stars, numerical ranking, and descriptive opinions have been the standard way of declaring an overall opinion. The most unique and most powerful final verdict has long been the thumbs up and thumbs down employed by Roger Ebert the late Gene Siskel, arguably the
most popular film critics ever. Now decades after making famous the ancient Roman gesture Roger Ebert is contemplating a change that may once again change the landscape of film criticism forever.

The emoticon has been around in one form or another for decades with the first documented appearance in an 1862 speech by Abraham Lincoln. As technology has advanced so has the lowly emoticon from the simply winking gesture employed by the former President to the more complex and involved figures used by computer worldwide. With nearly the full gamut of human emotion now being represented by modern advances in emoticon technology their appearance in the mainstream is becoming more common. That ubiquity and power hasn’t been lost on traditional media types and now Ebert, who has moved to print only reviews, has decided to go with the flow.

“The thumb has often been criticized for its simplicity and while we always believed that was part of the beauty, we did recognize the power of more complex reviews. Now that I have fully moved to print only reviews the power of the thumb has been reduced and that has motivated me to look at new ways to communicate my feelings about the movie to my audience,” wrote Ebert on his website. “By employing emoticons I will be able to express a much wider and therefore much more accurate representation of my feelings towards a particular film in hopes of better informing my readers. Rest assured that the core content of my reviews will not be altered but simply spiced up a little.”

Ebert became famous through his show ‘At the Movies’ but has not been on television since mid-2006 when a surgical complication left him unable to speak. He has continued to write film reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and on the paper’s website.

“It is truly the end of era but this was inevitable I suppose. The world has become
more complex and people in the media need to keep pace if they want to continue to connect to an ever younger audience. It also has the added benefit of giving a more sophisticated impression of the film,” said Scrape TV Media analyst Sarah Piper. “There may be some that look at this as pandering but Ebert has earned his stripes as a reviewer and critic and at this stage has the right to adjust his technique however he feels is best. If this is more appealing to him and his audience than that is what is important not what others may think. Critics often don’t look at the whole picture, Ebert excepted of course.”

Ebert plans on punctuating the written reviews with emoticons throughout and then will offer a final character at the end surmising his review, similar to role the thumb played previously.

“I’m sure there will be more than a few confused readers who are used to the
simplicity of the thumb. After all they have been using that for the better part of forty years to make all their movie going decisions and now will have to adapt to a totally new and largely foreign format. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people just give up on going to movies entirely,” continued Piper. “Older people don’t like complexity which is why the thumb was such a success in the first place but now they are going to have to adapt if they want to continue going to the movies.”

Ebert will also include a primer on his website describing the meaning behind all the various emoticons. 

Samantha Dryden, Entertainment Correspondent  

NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > ROGER EBERT TO REPLACE THUMB WITH EMOTICONS IN PRINT REVIEWS