Shit For Which I Judge You, Media Edition

Because Shit For Which I Judge You, Personal Relations Subcategory would be a whole book, and let’s not even get into SFWIJY: Personal Grooming. (Chapter 7: Wearing Toe-Delineating Jogging Shoes Anywhere But Jogging).

I’ve been meaning to write this ever since the whole “Joker” thing came out, but really I’ve been thinking about it for a while.

Because on the one hand, I absolutely agree that there are no “guilty pleasures” in reading or watching TV, people can like problematic things without being horrible themselves, and anything you like is a valid thing to like…about 90% of the time.

Back when I was on OKC, any guy with Ayn Rand or Richard Dawkins in his “favorite reads” profile was an automatic nope. That’s easier–that’s nonfiction, and obnoxious nonfiction. Thing is, Catcher in the Rye or Fight Club would also get the pre-smartphone equivalent of a left swipe, despite the fact that a couple of my friends really like both of those things and are not horrible people. Here’s why:

Where fiction is concerned, I don’t judge what you like, because any work of fiction is a complex ball of different elements and so is any given person. When I was ten or so, I was really, embarrassingly into Gone With the Wind, basically because I was a dumb white girl and the book had a lot of descriptions of really pretty dresses and being the prettiest girl ever. Now, thinking back, I still think it contains nuggets of sadly wasted potential–the psychological effects of going through a major war at sixteen, no matter how justified that war was, how much ruthlessness is required to protect yourself and family, the hidden depths of “soft” people under pressure, the way misunderstandings and just being stupid get in the way of relationships, the propensity to love someone for what they represent that’s gone rather than who they are–but they’re buried in a hip-deep layer of racism and a slightly more shallow one of sexism, and I’m not going to advise anyone to start wading through that. Kipling? Racist as all fuck, and also there’s that poem where he spends a verse insulting his son and son’s wife for choosing not to have kids, but there’s still a lot of his work that speaks to me. How to Be A Fan of Problematic Things: it’s a whole subject, other people have covered it.

And even when you can’t put a name on what you like, sometimes a work–well-written or not–just pushes your buttons. Romance is full of things that do not work in real life, or that readers absolutely would not want in real life, that just push people’s buttons. YKIOK, and you don’t have to explain it.

You do kind of have to label it as such, though, and that’s where the judgment comes in. Someone who likes Wuthering Heights might have a thousand different reasons for it–admiring the writing style, liking to watch the train wreck, finding the portrayal of women and class interesting, having encountered it at a time in their life they’re nostalgic about, and yes, even It Is Fucked Up But Heathcliff Gives Me Pantsfeels. Someone who legit thinks it’s a wonderful story of deathless romance, on the other hand, is someone I’m going to avoid, especially if they’re over 25, because they have some ideas about romance that will make me want to scream until I shatter glass. “I dig Catcher in the Rye because it’s an interesting portrayal of an unreliable narrator,” doesn’t say anything about you, but “Holden Caufield is a sympathetic character and a voice of truth for our age,” does, and none of it’s good. You can like Lovecraft, and I do, but thinking the man had a point about all those swarthy foreigners is not okay.

Human nature is human nature. If I know you, I’m more likely to assume you have non-fucked-up reasons for liking what you like, and, to be honest, if I don’t know you I’m going to go by demographics when deciding whether to give you the benefit of the doubt or not. There aren’t nearly as many POC, women, or LGBT folks who think Tyler Durden has a point as there are white cishet guys who do. I’m sure there are people in those other categories (especially white cis women, OMG, we’re awful) who defend mass shooters and incels because Well They Were Picked On So You Just Have to Understaaaaand their Paaaaaain, but most of that bullshit I’ve heard has come from white men. For that matter, I’d have been way less skeptical about “Joker” as a whole if the director had been Taika Waititi or Patty Jenkins rather than Bropants McDudeface.

Sidebar: when I say “skeptical about,” I don’t mean “I think everyone who watches this is an incipient serial killer” or “theaters should refuse to show it” or any of the other slippery-slope ridiculousness that the Reddit Crowd tends to yell about. I haven’t seen anyone say or imply that. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, it’s a big Internet, but what I tended to see was:

Person: “Ugh, no thanks. If I wanted to hear mediocre whiteboys whine, I’d save my $20 and hit 4Chan.”/”Really, DC? Read the room much?”/”…fuck no.”

Forty-Seven Twitter People With Anime Avatars: “ZOMG CENSORSHIP FREEZE PEACH DON’T JUDGE BY THE TRAILERS EVEN THOUGH THAT IS LITERALLY THE REASON TRAILERS EXIST FIRST AMENDMENT!”

Aaaanyhow. Like what you like. It’s fine. But if what you like has massive problems–and not just “all your faves are problematic,” which is true, but real Yikestastic works–maybe be prepared to, or pre-emptively, explain your reasons, or at least indicate that you recognize the Yikes!ness.

And don’t like Ayn Rand. There’s never a good reason to like Ayn Rand.