# What were the biggest critical reappraisals? (All media) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 12, 2019, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324 "2019-11-12T12:16:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/121 "2019-11-18T16:19:18Z")
The initial reviews for The Big Bang Theory were negative. The nerd falls for pretty girl meme has been done to death, and the critics did not think the show would last. They were wrong. ---
**Author:** ![fjs1fs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fjs1fs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fjs1fs)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/122 "2019-11-18T17:14:50Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I didn’t see it when it was in the theaters, but when I did see it several years later, I understood why so many people didn’t like it, which was why I didn’t pay money to see it while it was in cinematic release. > > I loved it, but yeah, the reason so many people didn’t like it was because they were LIVING it. Looks like it’s still doing really well overall on Rotten Tomatoes: > **[American Beauty](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/american_beauty)** > > Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a gainfully employed suburban husband and father. Fed up with his boring, stagnant existence, he quits his job and decides to reinvent himself as a pot-smoking, responsibility-shirking teenager. What follows is at... ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/123 "2019-11-18T20:12:57Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > They were wrong. Tragically. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2019, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/124 "2019-11-19T21:50:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’ve always been fascinated that punk, disco, and rap all originated in New York at around the same time. (British working class punk was a separate phenomenon.) Here’s another set of generalizations for you to pick at. Punk was a bunch of suburban white kids coming to the city and rebelling. Disco was a bunch of gay kids coming from around the country to let loose. Rap was a bunch of black kids already in the city letting their anger out, after an early dance phase. Remember, the late 70s was New York’s lowest point, when the city was bankrupt, crime-ridden, filthy, dangerous, and cheap. The perfect place for scenes to develop. Punk was primarily reactionary. I mean, I’ll quote one of the earliest _auteurs_: > [@The Ramones](#): > > Do you remember Murray the K, > Alan Freed, and high energy? > It’s the end, the end of the 70’s > It’s the end, the end of the century > > Do you remember lying in bed > With your covers pulled up over your head? > Radio playin’ so no one can see > We need change, we need it fast > Before rock’s just part of the past > 'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me > Oh oh oh oh, oh oh The Ramones were the Rockettes without any of that obnoxious “technical chops” crap. They made old-fashioned pop songs… pop songs on speed and without anything like social graces, but there’s definitely more in common between “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “Rock Around The Clock” than there is between it and most of what King Crimson made, or Pink Floyd’s later period. They were a bunch of angry weirdos (Joey especially) pushing back against jazz and classical music infecting their dance music, and turning it into dirges in the dark, as the poet once said. Even the Brits understood _that_ well enough for the Clash to rip off Elvis for the cover of _London Calling_. Anyway. Punk was rock’n’roll merged with anarchism, the idea that anyone could have a hit record… which merges right neatly to whatever Asexual Weirdo said that everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. It ties into a mythology, the Great American Garage Band, a bunch of (straight, White, male) teens getting together and making the Next Big Thing without needing anything but their middle-class allowance and enough Third Space to practice without being shot. The equivalent to that now is… uh… Soundcloud Rappers, who can become the Next Big Thing with a laptop and an Internet connection. Punk, disco, and rap all came out of the same cultural ferment. Punk got held up as the legitimate child of New York City 1977, but it was, ultimately, reactionary and backwards-looking. Disco, the gay music, was violently Demolished in a public orgy. Rap was ghettoized. How the worms all turn around on their little turntables, eh? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2019, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/125 "2019-11-19T23:07:25Z")
Regarding ABBA: I have also heard that they started to be taken seriously when artists who thought they had at least moderate musical proficiency tried to cover their songs as a joke, and found out they couldn’t play them. Oh, they could play the simplified versions, but that wasn’t what they wanted to do. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/126 "2019-11-20T03:28:38Z")
ABBA were one of SNL’s earliest musical guests; how dreadfully uncool could they have been in their glory days? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/127 "2019-11-20T03:52:07Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > ABBA were one of SNL’s earliest musical guests; how dreadfully uncool could they have been in their glory days? Well, the season also included Lily Tomlin performing “I Got You Babe” with Scred and the Muppets.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/128 "2019-11-20T07:40:47Z")
That [SNL appearance](https://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75emusic.phtml) treated ABBA as [a complete joke,](https://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75emusic4.phtml) splashing water on them while they lip-synched (according to that SNL oral history book, writer Michael O’Donoghue hated them and this was his idea). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/129 "2019-11-20T15:35:38Z")
> [@journeyman\_southpaw](#): > > That [SNL appearance](https://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75emusic.phtml) treated ABBA as [a complete joke,](https://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75emusic4.phtml) splashing water on them while they lip-synched (according to that SNL oral history book, writer Michael O’Donoghue hated them and this was his idea). As far as I can tell, despite their commercial popularity in the 1970s, that was their only SNL appearance. How cool could they have been if they were never invited for a “real” appearance? ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2019, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/130 "2019-11-24T19:55:25Z")
What about Vertigo? IIRC when it was released it was considered a pretty good Hitchcock film at best. Since then its reputation has soared to IMO baffling levels, where it is considered a towering pinnacle of world cinema. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324.md?page=6)