Always Lashing the Same Back

[ludickid]

It continues to amaze me every day how completely and thoroughly we fail to understand our own culture.  It’s especially baffling considering that this country, really, only has pop culture going for it; having given up on the Supermanly troika of truth, justice, and the American Way, and having shipped all its manufacturing to places where the gap

Comments

[fengi]

I think generalizations can be a valid tool used correctly in a grounded way. And I get what is driving these posts, but a reductive narrative of the transcendent few vs. the ignorant mass sacrifices coherence and grounded persuasive argument for easy, dubious ranting against those doing it wrong. Instead of inspiring me to think about art in a more transcendent way, I'm provoked into picking at the bad faith flaws.

First, let me offer an example from Ta-Nishi Coates which addresses similar issues, but in a generous manner:I've looked at the painting a couple of times at the Met. I'm always draw to the woman in blue--to the far left--being carried away. The painting always reminds of a very obvious truth: This era, where women (and some who are not women) are not taken as property, is such a recent innovation. The great charge of feminism has always been, to my mind, ensuring that we never go back

[fengi]

Other criticisms, which I admit could use some editing: You write "Backlash culture is no longer a tool of popular revolt against racism and sexism in the media, but a means of defending them

[ludickid]

Would you be willing to entertain my suggestion that your frequent citation of Ta-Nehisi Coates - who I love - as an example of how the art of criticism is thriving is just as broad a generalization as my frequent citation of a million other voices who suck as an example of how the art of criticism is stagnating?

Activists have inspired backlash against racist/sexist art, but backlash has never been exclusively progressive.

I did not say that it has been exclusively progressive, nor did I say that it has never been conservative. I said that it has been progressive in the past, and that it is currently quite reactionary. I’m getting pretty tired of defending myself on the basis of statements I didn’t make. Your problem isn’t that your criticisms need editing; it’s that you’re not reading very closely.

It's unclear why "means of defending them" is linked to an essay praising feminist backlash against a sexist Catwoman illustration; what is the backlash defending racism and sexism - the catwoman picture? Isn't the backlash

[ludickid]

So perhaps a truly transcendent essay about Harmon's firing would move beyond the easy lionization of him as singular betrayed genuis, a trope spouted by many fanboys.

Except that three of Harmon’s producers (one of them a woman) and six of his writers (two of them women) also quit the show in protest of his treatment, or were fired out of fear they’d show too much loyalty to him. I’ve never argued that Harmon isn’t an asshole, or that he is free of personality disorders, or immune to having bad opinions. But as a creator vs. bosses narrative, it’s hard to think of anyone who fits the bill better; and it’s hard to think of a recent time (outside of comics, anyway) when so-called serious critics were so quick to defend the bosses over the creator.

It's raising a topic of discussion: "And those walkouts may not have seen this debate over slow films involving hundreds of readers and set off, in part, by Mr. Malick’s film." Not perfect, but not the embrace of ignorance claimed in the paraphrase. It’s a topic unworthy of discussion.