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What does “calling bullshit” actually mean?

March 18, 2006 Words on the page

From comments on [Why the Matrix trilogy ultimately blows](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/why-the-matrix-trilogy-ultimately-blows#comments):

This from the guy who brought us “Charlie’s Angels”. Guess what? I’m calling bullshit too.

— Aaron Giles

Knock yourself out, Aaron. But I don’t think you really understand what “calling bullshit” means.

You may not like the Charlie’s Angels movies — hell, I don’t particularly care for the second one — but the fact that I wrote them doesn’t lessen my ability to point out sucky things about the Matrix sequels. I have the right to call bullshit, and so do you. But I think you’re doing it wrong.

Not that I can say exactly what “calling bullshit” means. There’s probably no perfect definition, but to me it involves pointing out inconsistency (or worse, hypocrisy) in a person’s statements or actions. If you do a Google search on the phrase, that’s how it’s almost always used.

And here’s where I think Aaron went awry: you can’t just call bullshit and not back it up with something. If he’s going to say that I played obscurity for depth in one (or more) of my films, the proper form would be to give examples along with the bullshit-calling.

Otherwise, he’s just swearing.

Related Posts

  1. Why the Matrix trilogy ultimately blows
  2. To google google
  3. They still haven’t found what they’re looking for

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