In life, there are few things as satisfying as communally hating something. Yes, yes, we know, peace and love and all that, but let's face it, whenever there's a warranted chance to dunk on something with little to no real-life consequences, the little monkey clanging symbols in our heads starts smashing them like some all-brass rendition of “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins.
One man who understands the dopamine rush of a solid bitching sesh is Ridley Scott who, with the release of his latest film Napoleon, an almost three-hour epic about history's most hot-headed short king, has reclaimed his crown as cinema's No. 1 hater. In the past few weeks alone, he's taken aim at historians criticising the accuracy of his film ("Get a life"), Martin Scorsese ("Since [Scorsese] started Killers of the Flower Moon, I’ve made four films") and the entire nation of France ("The French don’t even like themselves").
At 85, Ridley Scott has truly run out of fucks to give, although, honestly, he never seemed to have that many in the first place. In press runs of past, he's lambasted everything from millennials, superhero movies, mobile phones and Top Gun: Maverick ("Meh"). It's not that he hates everything, there's no joy in that. It's just that, the things he hates, he hates with abandon, not fussed about towing the party line and saving himself a churn of discourse. He's probably not even aware of the discourse. He's probably already made another two films since it started.
And therein lies the real freedom of being a hater, the unabashed emancipation from toxic positivity. The innate sense of self that comes from being ambivalent about keeping the peace or good PR. We could learn a lot from Scott. They understand the nuanced balance of throwing out just the right amount of snark, which is a volume that earns them viral aggregated quote tweets on Twitter but doesn't tar them as tiresome grouches. They also understand that good snark should, for maximum effect, never punch down.
True haters know that no one wants to be around people who are miserable about everything. Hating has to be concentrated, laser-focused and precise. It's why this summer was a banner year for ragging, as everyone pulled focus on The Idol for the express purpose of flinging out a zinger or two at the expense of Sam Levinson's writing or Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye's rat tail. Ah, halcyon days.
In one of his latest interviews where, yes, he was a bit of a hater, Scott said that, unlike Martin Scorsese, he doesn't think about when or what his last film will be, implying that Napoleon will not be his last hurrah (or, in his case, harrumph). This means we will likely get the Ridley Scott hate parade again in years to come, for which we are eternally grateful. As time moves on, we lose some of our greatest traditions to modernity, like building a fire or buying stamps or answering a phone call without a crippling sense of dread. We must never let the art of hating die out. At least for now, thanks to Ridley Scott, it hopefully never will.
