Politics & Power Quote by Roger Ebert

Ebert is doing something deceptively radical here: separating taste from tribal loyalty. In an era when movies get pre-sorted into “for us” or “for them,” he insists on an older, messier idea of criticism - that a film’s political message is only one ingredient, and often not the decisive one. The opening clause, “It’s a good question,” signals a familiar Ebert move: he treats the audience’s anxiety (Can I like this if I hate what it stands for?) as reasonable, then gently redirects it.

The subtext is a critique of ideological shortcutting. Ebert isn’t claiming politics are irrelevant; he’s refusing the lazy syllogism that the “right” politics guarantee quality or the “wrong” politics guarantee failure. His phrase “usually good or bad for other reasons” points to craft: storytelling, performance, rhythm, image-making, moral complexity. Politics can be a theme, but craft is the delivery system. A film with sympathetic politics can still be clumsy propaganda; a film with objectionable politics can still be formally brilliant, which is precisely why it can be dangerous, persuasive, or culturally sticky.

Context matters: Ebert reviewed everything from overt political cinema to mainstream entertainment that smuggled in assumptions about class, race, gender, and war. His line recognizes that disagreement with a film’s worldview is a legitimate reaction, but not a substitute for analysis. It’s a defense of criticism as criticism - not just consumer guidance, not just ideological refereeing, but an attempt to describe how a movie works on you and why.