But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. That dish transports Ego back to his childhood, warms any remaining blood in his icy veins, and ends up eliciting a follow-up critique, which he reads out loud for the audience: But then things take a turn for the better when Ego samples some very good ratatouille at that same restaurant, prepared by a talented vermin known as Remy. An evil successor known as Skinner nearly destroys the restaurant’s reputation by focusing on cheap frozen food. Ego’s linguistic depredations commence with the lethality of a dagger: His initial brutal review of Gusteau’s is followed by the death of that venue’s chef (a possible allusion to a tragic real-world instance of self-harm). Getting called Ego isn’t an insult - it’s a compliment.įor most of Ratatouille, Anton Ego falls right into the villain-critic cliche, voiced by Peter O’Toole as if he was playing a devious funeral home director and drawn as if the animators put Loki’s head in a vice and aged him 40 years. In Burnt, an Evening Standard critic played by Uma Thurman says her reviews are responsible for shutting down “bad” restaurants and she greets Bradley Cooper’s chef character (with whom she had sex) by exclaiming “one hoped you were dead.” And who could forget Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding, where the filmmakers portray her as a quick-to-judge food critic to portend her deeply sociopathic tendencies? In John Favreau’s 2014 movie, Chef, a film about a washed-up white guy who manages to attract serious crowds by serving Cuban sandwiches in Miami, a food blogger pokes fun at the lead character’s weight and emotional neediness. But whenever food critics show up on the big screen, they’re portrayed as typical semi-villainous cardboard foils for the film’s true heroes. Hollywood has managed to create unlikely save-the-world figures out of dashing archaeologists, addled historians, dull office workers suffering from panic attacks, activist shopkeepers, Russian-speaking house cleaners, and in one notable case, a remarkably violent navy cook played by an actor who likes to pal around with Vladimir Putin. I get that, as someone who makes a living as a critic, calling out a fellow (if animated) critic and the entire art of criticism as heroic might seem less than surprising, but humor me as I so boldly declare the following: Getting called Ego isn’t an insult - it’s a compliment. Shortly before the finale, Ego delivers a review that doesn’t just save the rat-run restaurant from financial ruin and cultural oblivion, it also seeks to upend the stodgy world of fine dining - and serves as a rousing defense of how good criticism can make the culinary world more democratic, more creative, and more stimulating for everyone. If I don’t love it I don’t swallow.” But the critic, alongside criticism as an institution, actually ends up being a savior in the film. Yes, Ego’s office is shaped like a coffin and he says things like, “I love food. He’s not the villain he’s one of its unlikely heroes. The thing is, these critics and a few other Ratatouille fans are misunderstanding Ego. Indeed, a quick scroll through Twitter shows folks selectively cutting and pasting Ego’s famous mea culpa: “We thrive on negative criticism.” A Chicago-based food columnist once deployed the character’s name as a pejorative verb, asking New York Times critic Pete Wells on Twitter whether it was cynical “to Anton Ego” Guy Fieri’s old Manhattan establishment.Īll things considered, being compared to the secondary antagonist of an Academy Award-winning Disney-Pixar feature really isn’t the worst thing in the world on previous occasions I’ve been told to “deep fry in hell” and “dine with ISIS.” This is far from the first time that an internet naysayer has tossed around the name of Ego as if they were hurtling a schoolyard insult, a reality that jibes with a recent spate of popular artists (and their stans) lashing out against critics. Standing in the way of that makeover, however, are a pencil-mustachioed health inspector and a very skeptical restaurant reviewer. “How Anton Ego of you Mr Sutton,” the user wrote, referring to the svelte, indoor scarf-wearing food critic from Ratatouille, an animated feature about a rat who ascends to the apex of French gastronomy by turning around a once-famous restaurant that had fallen into a rut. Not too long ago, a Twitter user accused one of my restaurant reviews of being “weirdly mean,” linking my words to perhaps the most feared and famous fictional journalist of our era.
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