I sincerely apologize for this misunderstanding, because that is the contrast I thought you were using (the demographics of the artists, not the nature of their music).
Oh, I’m sure I must have annoyed you out of your wits by now with all this, so absolutely no need. Perhaps I should have made that clearer, but my posts are already so much longer than yours that they’d feel like a mini-dissertation if I added any more qualifiers. But I think that’s also a good moment to point out that people seem to increasingly reach for ‘identity politics’ in such debates, i.e, there is an assumption that I would be referring to whether someone is Black or white, rather than the content of their music.
I think that her content may be more contemporary, but so is her style. And I think it's the style more than the content that is at the root of the difference in treatment of them.
Re: Cardi B vs Eminem, I firmly believe the latter (the content) is the cause, and I also believe that he would not have reached those heights if he tried to make the kind of music he used to make now from scratch, as a non-established artist, but that’s definitely an opinion-driven conversation and you may well be right, so let’s leave that.
But as a viewer, I dislike the idea of pulling out the human element from how we respond to a film. I think that the response to a movie (or any art) is some mix of appreciation for technical elements and an emotional response to the story/characters.
I do hear what you’re saying. And perhaps it might be beneficial to add the ‘humanity’ into the mix when it comes to one’s appreciation of anything. I certainly think humans as a species are subjective by nature, so finding some way to acknowledge that without compromising scholarship would be good. But my concern is that there is indeed a slippery slope of sorts (that’s what The Telegraph article calls it). If we do admit the ‘humanity’ into reviewing films or, really, into giving any critical feedback, it will simply become entirely subjective (as has been suggested earlier in this thread) and consequently it will end up being, well, less than useful, almost?
I have noted you’ve used that word, ‘useful’, and I like that because I think it’s very relevant. I think ultimately it’s important to establish what’s useful in a review for the majority of people. Now, that’s hard to do, but we do have an established framework for, I don’t know, grading student papers, because it has to be done on a global scale without disadvantaging anyone.
But might it be more valuable to an audience of rap fans?
It might, I suppose (and then it might not), but why? Why would it be more valuable? Because young girls haven’t heard a rapper argue ‘their side’? Alright, that’s the appeal of Cardi B for them, but why would it be more valuable - especially to rap fans as a whole? This is where I think the educational and aspirational aspect comes into play again, and I’m very uncomfortable with that. To me, the above sentence implies
that it is a better use of my time to listen to Cardi B than Eminem.
Back to film (sorry, I just think the above was a helpful analogy and your response only convinced me that it’s true). Another thing that, to me, kind of stems from here and is relevant is the question of what happens to films that explore really uncomfortable aspects of the human condition. A film I’m thinking of, which I’ve already referenced in the same context a bunch of times, is
Let’s Talk About Kevin.
I know for a fact, from personal experience, that many mothers feel… unsettled by this film (I would cautiously dub the feeling
LTAK instills in them as ‘fear’). They dislike what it says about motherhood, that, ooops, you may not love your child, your child may be a monster, etc. Very uncomfortable, inconvenient ideas that I know for a fact cause distress to many mothers, who lament that
LTAK was made as it might discourage their kids from having kids (by disillusioning them, I guess).
So it is not an extreme extrapolation but a natural one, to me, that the ‘motherhood lobby’ (entirely fictional, as far as I’m aware, outside the abortion debate) could try to bring their humanity in and argue that they are offended by the suggestion that motherhood is not all rosy. And this is where the ‘victim mentality’ comes in, because instead of them being told to suck it up, they’re likely to gain a platform to, if not ‘ban’
LTAK, argue why they think no more such films should be made… (we’re kind of back to the point I was making about
Joker).
As for the uncomfortable: I have seen most of the films ever made about extremism, especially the white suprematist kind. I was reading theology at the time and I wanted to understand where people are coming from when holding these views and, especially, how Christianity and Immanuel Kant’s writings were used to ground them. Most of the films on the subject suck, but
American History X to me seems fairly balanced, given the dire state of the said sub-genre overall. I think it’s important to continue making films about white supremacy that explore that side (like
The Hater), because in the very least it will keep the subject in the public eye and people will ‘know their enemy’. These films, understandably, may be offensive to some reviewers’ humanity. But if we didn’t take a look (your expression, and I like it, it’s apt) at what drives these people, how they get to that place, we would never understand or be able to address the problem. Or, on a less socially conscious level, people like me, who find these themes fascinating, wouldn’t get to see those films and think about these things in such depth.
Re: this:
But also, you should not have a test question centering on a text that includes rape. That's just basic common sense. A lot of high school and college-aged students (male and female) experience sexual violence. It would be appropriate if you gave students the choice of two questions and gave a disclaimed that one of them contained such content. Even then--poor teaching practice.
One student brought it up, others then agreed. See, I feel it is the purpose of education to show children the real world, even if it may at times be a sick and ****ed-up place. Not having to read/engage with that work in an exam setting won’t protect children from sexual violence or help them in any way if they’ve already encountered it. It will insulate them and give them a false and incredibly damaging feeling that you can refuse to engage with unpleasant reality in the adult world. It will prevent them from building a thick skin and a healthy critical tolerance of ideas that are distasteful and it will damage them in the long-term.
Now, this was actually a rather long time ago, but another case in point: someone at my school wanted to do a Sixth Form/high school project on Nazi Germany, exploring how the ‘Third Reich’ became economically successful; the blasted and rather obnoxious argument, which also gets applied to the Soviet Union, that ‘the trains did run on time, though!’. All said student, aged about 17, if I remember correctly, wanted to do in her project is explore how Germany in the 1930s was able to get up from its knees and rejuvenate its economy, which, what with the post-WWI reparations, was no mean feat simply in admin terms.
The student got shut down by the school’s board/Head of Sixth Form, or whichever entity was in charge of overseeing such projects, within weeks of submitting the project proposal. The reason I mention this is the people in charge were particularly concerned about the impact of said student’s project defence presentation on whoever might happen to be present and forced to listen to distasteful ideas.
I think (and this is not a new argument, it has been made by many on the right in the context of a range of works and statements made by private individuals causing ‘offence’ to particular people and the possibility of persecution on those grounds), that if the ‘humanity’ of reviewers is taken into account in this way, it risks taking precedence over someone’s desire and right to explore an uncomfortable subject. Yet again I cite
Joker.
Yes, it did win awards and become a box office success, etc. (although I would still argue this is in danger of not being the case for much longer if this ‘woke’ state of affairs prevails), but the female reviewers I’ve already cited suggested it was ‘dangerous’ and that it ‘shouldn’t have been made’.
Setting my personal feeling about this aside for a moment, if society stops teaching children about the Holocaust because it’s ‘upsetting’ (yeah, no ****!) and ‘affects someone’s humanity’, we are at a danger of creating and living in an insulated, artificial world where we see no evil and no controversial opinions, preferences and beliefs because they are uncomfortable and inappropriate.
I honestly believe that would be a much bigger problem that could have much direr consequences. This is a REAL example I’m citing about the Holocaust that I saw with my own eyes before the pandemic.
You are an educator; I have always loved working with children and have the utmost respect for those who educate for a living, because, boy, that takes guts. Having spoken to you a lot and enjoyed it very much, I don’t believe you would shy away from uncomfortable questions from your students: uncomfortable generally or uncomfortable to you personally.
Do you not think that it is our job to give children objective, non-biased opinions about history, at least, or the ‘basic’ facts about the world? Sure, we can’t entirely succeed in being unbiased, but shouldn’t we still try? Books like Ishiguro’s
The Remains of the Day touch, in a nuanced and restrained manner, on the lives of British aristocracy that was rumoured to be (and was) sympathetic to Nazism (the Mosleys-Mitfords, mainly).
I happen to believe it’s extremely important to be upfront about these things and have the guts to admit to children that yes, British aristocracy at the time thought Nazis were the lesser evil compared to the Soviets, that, yes, British aristocracy more or less approved of eugenics and ‘not mixing’ and so forth.
Yet if I made a film like that, entitled, I don’t know,
I, Unity Mitford (I’m looking at you, Craig Gillespie) and tried to portray Unity sitting on her knees before Hitler and telling him she was in love with him, I would be sure to insult many people’s humanity. Heck, my own family, being ethnic Russians, would throw a fit and disown me. But avoiding showing such things won’t make them go away. I just feel that any attempt to make the world more emotionally comfortable to anyone to respect someone’s humanity may sugarcoat this world and silence crucial, life-and-death level debates/conversations.