#am i saying the movie is inherently racist/xenophobic/etc and should be hated for that? not necessarily!

[silverislander]

zombie essay is taking me to some weird places. i'm out here defending the ancient kandarian demon summoning book

[randomshoes]

I asked @evilelitist2 this question, and we both wondered what your thoughts were: How does one deal with the "practice what you preach" dilemma I seem to run into regarding socially responsible media consumption, the idea that if you want to talk about sexism or racism or any other -ism on the internet, consuming media that contains those elements is hypocritical and undermines your own personal integrity and the argument you're attempting to make?

Ohno no no no no no.

Much disagree.

That’s actually one of those ideas that deeply offends me onmultiple levels: as a fan, as an activist, as a critic, and as anartist.

I have a LOT of problems with this idea, so I will attempt toorganize them in a hopefully coherent manner.

From a fan perspective:

If you attempt this you will fail, and also you will be sad.

There is no such thing as a perfectly inoffensive piece of media(okay, maybe Undertale, but you can’t spend your life playingUndertale and doing nothing else). These ideas are tooprevalent in our society for it to be possible to ignore anythingthat even passively contains them. You will not be “allowed” toconsume any art at all, and you will end up a very bored human.

You will miss out on otherwise good pieces of art.

I love 1940s Hollywood and Eminem. Both contain ideas that I ammore than a little ideologically opposed to, yet I firmly believe mylife would be less happy and less rich if I had failed to experienceeither. Just because something, say, supports antiquated gender rolesdoesn’t mean that it is without any value. Anything involving Katharine Hepburn has inherent value.

From an activist perspective:

You will not understand the thingyou are fighting.

If Ipurposefully avoid sexist media, how will I be able to speak with anyauthority on the subject? How will I know what specific tropes orstereotypes are the biggest problem? How will I even know what I’masking creators to change? You can’t beat something you don’tunderstand.

How can you know for sure thatsomething is problematic until you experience it?

Thisreduces the “socially responsible media consumer” to making alltheir decisions based on rumor, second-hand information, and thegeneral consensus of people who havewatched it (also, those people had to watch it to tell you thatinformation, so are they hypocrites now?).

Let’s talk about The Social Network.

I knew someone in college who refused to watch this film because she had determined, on the basis of the trailer, that it wassexist. She cited the fact that there were scantily-clad women doing drugs insome shots and not much else. However, I suspect the fact that themain character is sexist was a contributing factor. (I think the bitwhere he spews sexist shit about his ex and then makes a programbased on rating the women on campus for their attractiveness was inthe trailer.) Except, I’ve seen TheSocial Network,and the entire film is about critiquing that guy’s worldview. Thosescenes of scantily-clad women doing drugs etc. exist to demonstratethat this is the only way these men know how to interact with women.The movie opens and closes with a very smart women telling Mark thathe needs to learn how to interact with humans in general and women inspecific. The film goes out of its way to make sure we understand howmessed up this is. Overall, I would call it a feminist film.

Theone scene I did find sexist (as well as unnecessary) was this one:

Still,I highly recommend that everyone see this film. It’s a great primeron the MRA and Nice Guy mindset. And also it’s just a really goodmovie.

Tosum up: first impressions can be wrong, and things are always morecomplicated than simply being  sexist or not sexist. Ipersonally refuse to give over control of what I watch and what Ithink about it to people who aren’t me.

This mindset will lead people to reject social justicecriticism, and do it aggressively.

Think about it. If I’m either a sexistor a hypocrite for liking (or even watching) something with anysexist ideas, than I am now emotionally invested in loudly denyingthat there are any problems with a piece of media (or a media genre)at all. And then you get what is basically media nationalism.

Sound familiar? It should. This is themindset that Gamergaters and the Anita Sarkeesian haters have. Ifwe’re saying video games have some sexist ideas, then we are sayingthat they, personally, are sexist, and that they are not allowedto play video games anymore.This is one of the ideas I’ve been trying to fight.

How can we possibly convince anyone tothink critically about media if doing so means they have to give upthe things they love or feel guilty for loving them?

That’s not what we were “preaching” to begin with.

The purpose of social justicecriticism is not to tell people not to consume art; it’s to askpeople to think about art and about the ideas it contains. We’reasking the audience to think critically about what they’re watching(reading, playing) and the creators to think critically about whatthey’re producing. That’s it. So, as long as we’re all doing thefirst thing, and those of us who are artists are doing the secondthing, we are in fact practicing what we preach.

For the record: I’m not opposedto things like boycotting the Ghostin the Shellmovie, but that’s not actually about the content of the art so muchas the casting practices of Hollywood. It’s a tactic that attempts togive Hollywood a monetary incentive to actuallycast some fucking Asian actors in movies what the hell? 

Also, it’s important to remember that choosing to see the movie is not a moral transgression or a sinagainst anybody.

From a critical perspective:

You are not required to be pure to criticize a piece of media,that’s just weird.

I know most of the world hasinternalized the whole “let he who is without sin cast the firststone” thing, but criticizing media isn’t really equivalent tostoning someone to death, and also I’m not a Christian so bite me. Tobe a critic you are not required to be a saint. To be a critic youare required to be good at analyzing media. That’s it.

How can you criticize something you haven’t experienced?

The very first thing anyone arguingwith you is going to say is “what the hell do you know?” and theywill be right.

Reading, watching, or playing something does not mean you agreewith it.

I’ve read Ender’s Game. @evilelitest2 has attempted to read Atlas Shrugged.Basically every film student in the universe has seen Birth of aNation. Professional filmcritics watch as many movies as possible. You’resupposed to have perspective and understand the entire industry.

You are not a hypocrite forengaging with something you disagree with.

Howelse do you develop critical thinking skills? If you’re never exposedto ideas you disagree with, your ideas will be simplistic and youwon’t be used to defending them.

From an artistic perspective:

We would be ignoring the entire history of art.

For most of human history people havebeen racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. If we study art wewill see these things. We can and should address them, but we can’tdiscount an entire piece of art based on the fact that it expressesthese ideas. As artists, we need to learn from these things, and asart historians we need to learn about these things.

For example, I’ve heard people saythat Birth of a Nation shouldnot be taught in film classes. 

Now, aside from the fact that ignoringhorrible aspects of history doesn’t make them go away, removing DWGriffith from a film curriculum would be like removing Shakespearefrom an English curriculum. He invented a huge part of the languagefilm uses to convey ideas. He was also a shitbag, and we should talkabout that, but we also have to talk about the form and content ofhis art, because it’s part of understanding how film works.

Experiencing problematic media helpsteach artists what NOT to do.

Ioften read badly written things on purpose, because it helps meclarify in my head what I don’t want to be. This can be quite easilyapplied to morally questionable things as well. We can tell youngartists not to make sexist art, but how do they know what that means?They may just say, “well, I’M not sexist, so it’s not a problem.”But if we show them an example of how unthinkingly reproducing tropesor not thinking through situations can lead to unfortunateimplications, they have a better chance of understanding us.

You will disincentivizeartists from creating sexist/racist/homophobic characters.

If I decide to write a sexistPOV character, even if the purpose of my book is to critique theirworldview, I will risk people deciding my book is sexist and shouldbe boycotted. This could be based on something as small as an out ofcontext quote. Here, I’ll do it right now. This is a quote from TheSocial Network:

“EricaAlbright’s a bitch. Do you think that’s because her family changedtheir name from Albrecht or do you think it’s because all B.U. Girlsare bitches? For the record, she may look like a 34C but she’sgetting all kinds of help from our friends at Victoria’s Secret.She’s a 34B, as in barely anything there. False advertising.”

See?This movie is totally sexist. Also it’s anti-German and hates BostonUniversity. No one should watch this movie ever.

Now,people can and will do this no matter what, because not everyonerealizes that the writer does not necessarily agree with theircharacters (argh), but if we start telling people that their moralfiber depends on preemptively writing off anything with the potentialto be offensive, then this will happen more frequently and with thesort of people who might otherwise read my theoretical book andunderstand it, or even come out of it with a better understanding ofwhy sexism is bad.

Art is not something you “consume” in the way you consumefood.

Watching Birthof a Nationdoes not raise my moral cholesterol. Thinking of it like that reducesthe piece of art to a one idea delivery service and you to anunthinking maw that accepts all ideas it’s fed. Art is complex andfull of possible interpretations, and you have a brain.

tl:dr

How do you deal with problematic media? You watch/read/play it, and then you talk about it.

Note: if we’re purely talking from acapitalistic, “vote with your money” perspective, then avoiding(recent) media whose existence you find morally abhorrent is a validtactic to try to change what art a corporation produces, but alwaysremember that it’s just that: a tactic. It is not a moral imperative.

PSSorry it took me so long to get to this one. It was such aninteresting question and I had so much to say and my asks kept pilingup with stupid MRA stuff that I thought I’d get that out of the wayfirst. Also it took forever to articulate and organize my ideas.