On Brad Torgersen’s Straw Man Left
If I could have a nickel for every time a Sad/Rabid Puppy used a straw man version of the left to defend unethical behavior, I’d probably be a lot less broke than I already am. Alas, straw man arguments don’t come with free nickels. Instead, they come with a headache.
On Ridley Scott’s Exodus and Bannings
The Washington Post reports that Egypt has banned Ridley Scott’s controversial Bible film, Exodus (starring Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, and Ben Kingsley), due to “alleged historical inaccuracies and a ‘Zionist’ agenda.” You can read the article for more detail, though I would suggest extra care here given the region under discussion and the inevitable spin that will come out of U.S. news sources. For the record: the BBC has reported the same thing, more or less. I should also note that I’m not going to defend Exodus from the charges that it is inaccurate in any direct sense. Honestly, I don’t think the movie should have been made. Its white-washing of history and clear manipulation of Biblical narrative for “sensationalist imagery” — not to mention Ridley Scott’s absurd defense of the former — have not endeared the film to me. In fact, I’m perfectly content with never seeing Exodus, and I sincerely hope it does so poorly that Hollywood thinks again before letting Ridley Scott ruin anything else. But none of this is a reason to ban the film. They made it, and if theaters want to play it, then so be it. Now, to my thoughts: As a general rule, I am against censorship, allowing for exceptions that might arise in which censorship might be necessary (no, I haven’t a clue what those exceptions might look like). Of course, when I say “censorship,” I mean “from the government or its subsidiaries.” While I might be bothered by a theater refusing to play a film, my objections would be personal, not ethical or legal. Censorship from the government, however, moves beyond a personal level. One business entity making a quality judgement has little bearing on the public’s perception of a work of art. After all, there are theaters devoted entirely to independent films, and so they intentionally leave out all sorts of films that do not fit their criteria, in part because so many of those theaters are small and cannot play every indie film that gets released. The Hippodrome Theater in Gainesville (where I live) does this. They probably play 10% of the “significant” independent films released in a year because they do not have the space — nor the funds — of a company like Regal Cinemas, which receives, I imagine, 100 times the attendance of the Hipp. And so the Hipp must make judgments on what it wants to play and for how long. Those judgments might involve content, the assessment of the local audience, money, and so on and so forth. All fair in the economics game. But the government doesn’t have the luxury of reflecting the voice of one entity, let alone a small collection of people working within that entity. It is meant to reflect the voice of a nation. In the case of the U.S., that voice is a protected voice, not just by our Constitution, but also by the individual laws we have put in place to protect artistic and everyday expression. We have a history of that protection lapsing, and we still struggle with a culture of book banning. Ever more the reason to discuss these rights and to continue fighting for them. Egypt, however, is not the U.S. and is not bound by our rules and legal structures (as should be obvious). Here, I think the principle of expression is paramount, and that’s something that I find difficult to support beyond the confines of the U.S. After all, it’s not every day that I am asked to defend my perspective of human rights with someone who does not share my nation’s history. How do I justify a position which says that Egypt’s banning of Exodus is wrong — even somewhat fascistic — when that position arrives from a growing up in a nation where such values are mostly upheld? Even if I suggest that expression is a fundamental right, can I defend that without resorting to a Western view? As it turns out, I can. Sorta. Egypt has been part of the United Nations since 1945 (Oct. 24). In 1948, they adopted the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, which contains a handy little section on expression: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. In short, Egypt agreed to the same principles which protect artistic and everyday expression in the U.S. (though, I must admit that the U.N.’s language is a tad clearer on the implementation). Egypt’s decision to ban Exodus, in other words, is a clear violation of this right/principle. We could certainly get into arguments about whether the U.N. has any authority or whether its Declaration is anything other than symbolic. Regardless, that Egypt adopted the Declaration suggests that they agreed with the principles written within it — or, rather, that a previous government did and no government afterwards saw fit to contradict that adoption. A banning, in short, is fundamentally unethical, and it sets a precedent that allows for other moralistic decisions about art. After all, that’s what Egypt’s banning is. Exodus was not banned because it is obscene or can be shown to have any real impact on Egypt’s population; it was banned because it does not represent history as Egypt’s government would want it. While it is probably true that Exodus is disgustingly wrong about its history (it certainly failed on the racial front), there is a suspiciously religious-moralistic flavor to this particular banning. If it were not so marked, then one could look back through Egypt’s history and find instances of other blatantly inaccurate films being banned. But Egypt released Gladiator, 300, 300: Rise of an Empire, The Patriot, and 10,000 B.C. One might argue that some of these simply take creative license with historical periods, but you can’t say that they are accurate films; given that at least two of these intended to be accurate, they
On The Interview, Terrorism, and the Artistic Expression
By now, you’ll have heard that Sony had opted to cancel the release of Seth Rogen and Ethan Goldberg’s The Interview (2014)(starring Rogen and James Franco) in response to threats against their employees and movie theaters (many of which have refused to show the film). They have since announced that the film will play in select theaters on Christmas Day and that they are still trying to find places to play the film so it will have a proper release. Now, it seems, the film’s future is up to theaters. Update: On Christmas afternoon, Sony will also release The Interview via several streaming sites, including Google. So at least we can all see it if we want to. Chuck Wendig has already written an interesting post on the situation, and if it’s not already obvious, I have a few thoughts. But first, a quote from Wendig: This proves that hackers, terrorists, and enemy nations now have a vote as to the media we make and the stories we see. That’s blood gone cold scary. This sounds like the plot of a Neal Stephenson or William Gibson novel, or worse, the plot of a novel by someone trying to emulate them. (“The sky was the color of a movie theater screen not carrying Sony’s THE INTERVIEW.”) Disagreeable and controversial art is an essential element of our cultural discourse. These are the two points that I want to address here. Precedents and Cowardice The first is actually more terrifying than Wendig indicates. It’s not that hackers, terrorists, and enemy nations now have the vote, but that anyone perceived as representing the interests of such groups have the vote. Sony and the theaters which pulled The Interview didn’t need to know with 100% certainty that anyone would be attacked, nor that any 9/11-level events would occur; they only needed to believe that the threat was credible. This gives far more power than I think Sony or anyone realizes. Extremists of any stripe can dictate the terms upon which art is presented to the public based on perceived threats, rather than real ones, and corporations will listen. Those threats needn’t be credible beyond the scope of the corporation. The U.S. government, after all, doesn’t believe the threats are credible (and neither do a lot of Americans, apparently), and it’s unclear to me whether anyone actually consulted the U.S. government in any capacity (or any government, for that matter) about the matter (though they certainly did not Free speech isn’t an issue here (well, it is, but not in any legally binding way). We’re not talking about whether a company has a right to withdraw its own artistic products, whether businesses can refuse to carry something, or whether criticism of any kind should be ignored simply because art is art. This is about precedents. Sony and theaters have now set that precedent. North Korea, or any entity which has the means to present credible threats, can dictate terms and expect a response. So, congratulations, Sony and every theater which pulled The Interview. You’ve set the precedent. Now Paramount Pictures has recalled its 10-year-old comedy, Team America: World Police. A Steve Carell vehicle entitled Pyongyang will never see the light of day, too, since its studio decided to can it. And by doing so — by responding — North Korea has been granted power. They now know that when something they don’t like occurs somewhere else, they can issue a threat and be heard. A nation which most of the world views with contempt or pity now has the validation of the international community, or at least a portion of it. In the end, I agree with President Obama that Sony’s decision to cancel the release of The Interview was a mistake, even more so because Sony never consulted the U.S. government about the matter. This sets a terrible precedent, one which we all should find disturbing regardless of our political affiliations. That art can so easily be stifled by the threat of violence should give us pause. This is not the first time, and it won’t be the last. If this is the trend for the future, then we should all be deeply concerned. There’s hope, of course. Sony has retracted its cancellation, and the community of viewers seems to have roundly rejected the notion that Sony should have caved at all. Thus far, that’s had an impact on Sony, but we’ll see if the other studios and the theaters which pulled the film, cowards that they are, will do the same. At least Sony listened. Controversial Art To the second part: indeed, controversial art is not just essential, it is required in our cultural discourse if culture is to advance in any discernible way. Controversial art challenges existing cultural patterns, not necessarily to uproot them but to introduce advanced thought about our traditions, our everyday lives, and our cultural vices. In that respect, The Interview is a necessary feature of our artistic world, even if the film itself isn’t all that great (I haven’t seen it, so I cannot assess its merit). That fact became apparent the moment North Korea responded to it with threats. Any artistic work which is met with (threats of) violence is a work that deserves careful attention. Communities which resort to such threats are ones which have insulated themselves from criticism, and by doing so, they have stagnated, as North Korea has. The same thing has occurred in the science fiction community (albeit on a much smaller, perhaps less violent scale) and in gaming (regardless of what GamerGaters may think, there are people who identify with their group who have attacked women for criticizing gaming). Insularity breeds violence, literal or figurative, and to the insular community, artistic expression, particularly of the satirical mode, is perceived as a threat. For that reason, art must continue unabated. It must be shared. It must be free to satirize and mock. It must be free to be controversial. And that means it must have a place to be shared. Without controversial art, insularity
On Language and Reinforcing Bigotry
[Note: statistics will vary considerably depending where you are in the world. I’m using statistics and studies which are mostly relevant to the United States, and so this post will focus accordingly. This is my comfort zone, but I encourage others to take a look at these same concerns as they relate to their cultural contexts.] Language is our responsibility. How we use it determines everything from our ability to communicate with one another to how we talk about other people to how we describe the world we all share. Language is also one of the most effective ways by which we can share, distribute, and reinforce cultural values. Among the most pervasive values is bigotry in its many forms. If it were not already obvious, language and bigotry go hand in hand. What we call other people, how we refer to them in the media or “polite” conversation, and how we deal with the narratives presented to us by others not only defines the character of our bigotries and the language we use to talk about and reinforce those bigotries in the future (or the opposite, as the case may be). Language can do good, too, but when we are careless with it, it can do an almost immeasurable amount of damage to our cultural and individual identities, to our bodies, and so on. One of the most obvious examples of this involves the rhetoric surrounding Muslims in the United States and abroad. I can’t speak to the European context, but as an American, I know all too well how easy it is to fall into the trap of using language which, perhaps unintentionally, denigrates an entire people. Given that the majority of us get our information about Muslims from what we read, it is unsurprising that the majority of Americans have unfavorable views of Muslims or that a sizable portion of the population agrees with profiling Muslims/Arabs. There are numerous studies which confirm this view. For example, Christopher Bail’s upcoming book, Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream (2014; Princeton University Press), argues that representations of Muslims after 9/11 have tended to privilege narratives of fear by treating fringe (read: “radical, violent Islam”) Muslim groups with the same value as non-fringe (read: “everyday Muslims”) Muslim groups. In essence, this practice “created a gravitational pull or ‘fringe effect’ that realigned inter-organizational networks and altered the contours of mainstream discourse itself.” Additionally, Evelyn Alsultany suggests in “Arabs and Muslims in the Media after 9/11: Representations Strategies for a ‘Postrace’ Era” (2013; American Quarterly, Vol 65, No 1) that narrative television and news networks have engaged in a mode of discourse in which [positive] representations of Arabs and Muslims have helped form a new kind of racism, one that projects antiracism and multiculturalism on the surface but simultaneously produces the logics and affects necessary to legitimize racist policies and practices. It is no longer the case that the other is explicitly demonized to justify war or injustice. Now the other is portrayed sympathetically in order to project the United States as an enlightened country that has entered a postrace era. (5) These studies are not contradictory. Rather, they suggest that the complicated portrayal of Muslims in the media (broadly speaking) has created a discourse surrounding Muslims that either confirms a fear-based narrative about “radical Islam” or a form of Orientalism which places U.S. culture in opposition to a “savage Islamic state.” Thus, what we have are two mainstream portrayals: one which conforms to U.S. cultural desires and the other which conforms to U.S. cultural fears. This fear narrative has been recently bolstered by the graphic and gruesome violence of ISIS, which has, in one account, provided fuel for the anti-Islamic fire which holds “Islam” as a threat (distinctions generally absent). I can’t say for certain if these images are deliberately curated to produce this effect, though it is unlikely that it is all accidental or subconscious. Regardless, I hope it illustrates the point I’m trying to make here: namely, that language (and, by extension, the images attached to it) has such a profound affect on our culture that to ignore it, especially when it produces an ill effect, reinforces a bigoted position. Ignorance and “doing nothing,” in other words, makes us unintentionally complicit in these discourses. The same could be said of the term “feminism.” Polls suggest that most Americans do not identify as feminists, with some variation between the genders. But when given a textbook definition of feminism (that it stands for the political, social, and economic equality of the sexes), as respondents were provided in this YouGov poll, the results swing drastically in the other direction. Sadly, those numbers are still disgustingly low when you consider the clear moral question implied in that textbook definition, but the poll also suggests that Americans are horribly ill-informed about feminism at its most basic. A lot of study has been done to determine why “feminism” has become less appreciated (and even actively disliked) in our contemporary culture. In “The Framing of Feminists and Feminism in News and Public Affairs Programs in U.S. Electronic Media” (2002; Journal of Communication, Vol 52, Issue 1), Rebecca Ann Lind and Colleen Salo conclude from an analysis of 35,000 hours of network broadcasts that “feminists are demonized more often in the media than [women],” but also that feminists are less likely than women to be trivialized by for physical characteristics than general women (219)(this came as a surprise to Lind and Salo). What becomes apparent in the study is not that feminists are necessarily treated worse than everyday women, but rather that they are discussed far less frequently than their non-identitarian counterparts (or, rather, those who are not identified as feminists in a given broadcast). As they note in the conclusion, feminists “are indeed absent from the news and public affairs programs analyzed for this study” (224). In effect, demonization and absence become cultural mechanisms in a narrative which, as Lind and Salo demonstrate in their linguistic
Gender Essentialism, Genre, and Me
I’m late to the party. The first major SF/F controversy party. And while this post won’t be about Kemp’s argument specifically, it does come out of the discussions about his post — most particularly the criticisms.[1] Part of the problem I have with traditional gender roles is the way they assume what manhood (or womanhood) is based on behaviors which are definitively not gendered. There’s nothing explicitly masculine about aggression or nobility. There’s nothing explicitly feminine about child rearing, except insofar as it is currently required for women to be the carriers of unborn children. Gender essentalism, however, assumes there are definitely gendered behaviors, such that chivalry is read as “male/masculine” and cowardice is read as “female/feminine.” If this association sounds negative, that’s because the construction of male/female or masculine/feminine is frequently a negative. These associations are also oriented around agency, where masculine behaviors are active and feminine behaviors are passive. There are all manner of gendered constructions, and each is based on arbitrary, culturally-determined factors. The impact of gender essentialism in this particular context is often unintended, but, by the nature of a culture’s ability to transmit its behavioral modes, it is also pervasive. We are all coded by our gender without ever having a say in the matter. My culture tells me I should behave in certain ways because that is what men do; it tells me there is a true form of manhood; and it tells me that I am deviant, even in an innocuous sense, if I do not conform to these standards. It’s that absence of agency which should make all of us pause. In effect, I am, as Louis Althusser might argue, interpellated by/into my culture’s gender paradigms as it codes my identify for me and I, as all children do, react by internalizing these values.[2] As I grew older, it became clear how pervasive and abusive these standards and values were. When I was told as a young man that I was not masculine (i.e., male enough) because I did not engage in feats of strength, it was implied that I must acquire that masculine behavior to properly assert my manhood. If I wasn’t into sports, I was naturally feminine. If I shared my emotions, I was more woman than man. In other words, my youth was a process of cultural assault, by which my behaviors had to be coded along gender lines, interpreted, and then rejected if they did not conform to the norm. This is not exactly a unique experience, either, though my examples above are certainly reductive. Women are told all manner of similar things, too, so I imagine I’m not wrong in asserting that the psychological impact of gender essentialism is rarely positive for any gender. It reinforces gender roles as fixed, when in fact they are anything but, and it shames those who do not conform by implicitly stripping them of their gender and assigning a new one. Thus, women who are aggressive are “manly.” A great genre example is Grace Jones’ performance of Zula in Conan the Destroyer (1984). Here, we’re presented with a woman who is every bit as aggressive and noble (or not) as Conan (Schwarzenegger). She wields spears and screams warcries as she cuts into enemies. She doesn’t shy from battle or give in to injury or the intimacy of others.[3] But she is definitively a woman, and expresses that behavior in ways particular to herself, not to her gender.[4] That she is the female opposite of Conan is not insignificant: she isn’t an enigma, but the embodiment of an anti-essentialist stance on gender (incomplete though that stance may be). Women can be warriors without becoming “men.” Women can be brutal and limited in their emotional expression without sacrificing their gender association. In other words, this idea that there are “gendered behaviors” in any pure or stable sense should seem absurd to all of us. We can easily point to examples whereat someone behaves contrary to their assigned gender, and yet in doing so, they do not cease to be whatever gender they so choose.[5] That’s the point I think more of us need to grasp in the SF/F/H community. If you want to write characters who behave like chivalrous knights, then do so. But there’s no reason to assume those characters must be male, or that their behaviors are masculine by nature. We can do without thinking in those terms. We’d certainly be better without it… ————————————————— [1]: Based on my interactions with Mr. Kemp, I think I am correct in saying that his post was ill-considered in certain respects. I understand what he is trying to say, but his methods for making that point were unintentionally sexist. Instead of saying “I like writing masculine stories because men,” he might have said “I like writing stories that feature these virtues and behaviors.” He might even have said he is most comfortable writing men, which is hardly an offense in my opinion. I, for example, am only semi-comfortable writing men, which might explain why many of my protagonists (in written, not published fiction) are women (or sometimes something other than straight white guys); whether my writing is good is a whole different question. In any case, it’s the fact that his post reinforces traditional gender roles and applies certain virtuous actions specifically to male behavior which poses the problem for most. [2]: This is a horrible reduction of Althusser’s work. I hope you’ll forgive me. [3]: In all fairness, she is perhaps naturally distrustful of others because she is treated quite poorly by the people of her world. I wish she had appeared in more Conan films, though. Zula is such a fascinating character, and easily one of my favorites. [4]: I should note that Zula was actually a man in the comic books. She may not be the best example to make my point, but I love her, so I’m sticking to it… [5]: I realize that there is some slipperiness in the
Diversity is Not a Selfie (or, Amazing Stories + Felicity Savage = Here We Go Again)
Apparently Amazing Stories has become a version of controversy bingo. Attacks on liberals? Check. Attacks on subgenres? Check. Attacks on women? Check. Attacks on people of color? And check… I’m obviously not going to link to the story here. Instead, I’ll point you to “Diversity is not Narcissism: A Response to Felicity Savage” at The Other Side of the Rain, “Mirror, Mirror: Quien Soy?” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and “False Equivalence: Selfies and Diversity in SFF” at Radish Reviews. They’ve covered much of what I’m going to babble about here, though I’ll try to add to that existing discussion.[1] So here goes. Savage begins her diatribe by discussing the validity of “selfies,” an understandably amusing practice which has become the subject of much parodying. Of course, Savage doesn’t note that selfies have also been used for arts projects, such as the numerous videos on YouTube in which the user takes a single picture of themselves everyday for a set period of time — the purpose of these videos is not unlike a self-portrait, which Savage raises to “art” status, albeit in the form of a time capture. You might wonder what selfies have to do with diversity in SF/F. You’d be right to wonder just that, as the analogy Savage wishes us to buy into is already fallacious from the outset, as the purpose of a selfie, as she defines it, bears little resemblance to the purpose of diversity projects like Expanded Horizons or the various other magazines which have posted diversity policies. In Savage’s own words, a selfie is as follows: The principle here is a familiar one. The harder you try to look good the worse you will actually look. The pictures on the left and right illustrate of the difference between a self-portrait and a selfie. Hint: the self-portrait is the one where the subject isn’t trying to look good. Selfies remove objectivity from the subject-artist loop of creation. Add in a professional photographer or portrait artist and beauty happens. Conversely, grotesquerie is inherent in the selfie creation process, this having been reduced to a mirror-gazing session. What does this have to do with diversity in SF/F? Well, Savage doesn’t exactly say. She throws out a random line about the community seeming like a hall of mirrors, and then conveniently changes topic, leaving the weak analogy in place, but without even the attempt at explication. The only other line that references the several-paragraph description of selfies is a throwaway I’ll come back to later. The implication of these first paragraphs, however, is quite clear. If we’re to take the analogy as it is presented, then Savage believes seeking out diversity in SF/F is grotesque in the same way as a selfie: it is without objectivity; it is without art; it is simply staring into a mirror. We’re off to a good start, no? The central premise of Savage’s argument is simply this: attempting to create diversity by deliberately seeking out non-white and/or non-male writers is narcissism of the highest order: But the call for diversity is usually interpreted with deadly literal-mindedness as a call for more characters who are female / black / Asian / what have you. Why are we all so keen to see ourselves on the page? Never mind that people of all colors and genders (let alone orientations) are calling for diversity, and leave it to Savage to conveniently forget that these variations of self are merely variations of the human, let alone that the default subject has historically been white and male. That we are seeing exceptions to that rule makes those variations no less valid or important than the stock standard white dude. Savage, of course, seems remarkably oblivious to the impact of fiction or imagery on a population’s view of different peoples. There’s a reason by the Romani people are still viewed so unfavorably, and it’s not because there’s something inherently wrong with them. The public image of Romani people, as fed to us through the arts and other mediums, is rarely positive; culture undeniably functions via transmittal, and the most effective way to do so is through various forms of media. The narratives of colonization were transmitted through written travelogues, art, advertising, and so on; these held, in many cases, for centuries. In the U.S., the image of the “lazy negro” persisted well into the 20th Century, supported by plantation propaganda in the form of comical advertisements (look up “negro with watermelon” for an example) and so on. The dominant class, whoever that may be, will always seek transmittal of their cultural values.[2] The production of such diversity in admittedly artificial. Savage, however, seems to believe diversification in such artificial terms destroys SF/F’s image by reducing it to the literary equivalent of a drug-addicted celebrity: “Just don’t stare into the mirror too long or your reflection may start to look like a trout-pouted minor celebrity with a cocaine hangover.” She likewise criticizes Expanded Horizons as a space for mixing and matching “your preferred ethnic / sexual identifiers to create your very own comfort zone.” The point, however, is quite clear: diversity is actually a bad thing. Either it is a form of tokenism — a legitimate problem — or it destroys the face of genre. The latter of these two problems is an attack on diversification as a process, as it seems to suggest that a challenge against the status quo — inserting people of color or women into roles which had previously been dominated by white men — violates the sanctity of a pure space of difference. This becomes more clear when Savage writes the following: What speculative fiction does well is diversity on the species level. Our aliens, dragons, orcs, and even or especially our far-future selves ask us, in as many ways as there are books, what it means to be human. The pure space of difference — a largely white and male space — is challenged by diversity only in situations when the purity can be preserved.