Sturgeon's Law

You know what I really hate in reviews? The presumptuous use of "we" to speak for more people than the reviewer is actually qualified to speak for. (This is much more prevalent in movie and mainstream book reviews than in poetry reviews, fortunately, though it still pops up in poetry reviews.)

Surely you've seen it (yes, and don't call me Shirley): the writer, in speaking of something in the book or movie or whatever, says something like "This twist stretches our suspension of disbelief to the breaking point." Well, now. Funny thing, but 99% of the time, I didn't experience any such thing, making me wonder if the reviewer is trying to tell me what I think I felt is incorrect, or if he/she is simply using the royal "we" to seem more important.

There are a few instances where the use can be perfectly acceptable, mainly if the writer is using "we" in a more general sense of an audience being presented to ("the movie never tells us the reasons for so-and-so's motivation") or to make a statement that's not really subjective ("we're all human"). Most of the time, however, it's junkity junk junk. In one of the "Questions for the Movie Answer Man" books he did before he became utterly useless, Roger Ebert condemned the use of "we" in movie reviews. Now he uses the word constantly, in grating fashion.

We don't know about you, but it really bothers us when other people try to put words in our mouth or thoughts in our head.