Inverse cost and quality law

The inverse cost and quality law attempts to formalize any Hollywood cinema production characterized by a large budget and, by negative correlation, poorly perceived critical attributes. American writer David Foster Wallace[1] coined the term and established the genre's attributes, symptoms or diagnostic features in a 1998 article titled, "F/X Porn"[2] by which Wallace primarily critiques the weaknesses of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), a blockbuster[3] film directed by James Cameron.

Overview

David Foster Wallace, in a 1998 essay which first appeared in Waterstone's Magazine and was later anthologized in the essay collection Both Flesh and Not, posited that Terminator 2: Judgment Day was the archetype or apotheosis of the inverse cost and quality law:[4][5]

"'T2' is thus also the first and best instance of a paradoxical law that appears to hold true for the entire F/X Porn genre. It is called the Inverse Cost and Quality Law, and it states very simply that the larger a movie's budget is, the shittier that movie is going to be. The case of "T2" shows that much of the ICQL's force derives from simple financial logic. A film that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make is going to get financial backing if and only if its investors can be maximally – maximally – sure that at the very least they will get their hundreds of millions of dollars back – i.e. a megabudget movie must not fail (and "failure" here means anything less than a runaway box-office hit) and must thus adhere to certain reliable formulae that have been shown by precedent to maximally ensure a runaway hit."

Despite the dislike by Wallace, Terminator 2: Judgment Day is critically acclaimed. It won four Academy Awards, and review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports 92% positive reviews.[6]

Notes

  1. ^ "David Foster Wallace Biography and Information about the author". DavidFosterWallace.com. Archived from the original on 14 September 2008. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
  2. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-05-20. Retrieved 2008-09-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ^ "Terminator 2: Judgment Day - Box Office Mojo".
  4. ^ Foster Wallace, David. "F/X Porn". Waterstone's Magazine. Archived from the original on 2021-05-18. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  5. ^ Foster Wallace, David (November 6, 2012). Both Flesh and Not. New York: Little Brown & Company. p. 125. ISBN 978-0316182379.
  6. ^ "Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved October 12, 2018.


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