A friend and I went to a modern art museum that was having a free-admission day yesterday. I almost canceled the outing, because modern art isn’t really my cuppa, but I went anyway, and I'm glad I did. I learned that my friend has the same feelings about modern art that I do, so we spent the day playing curators, deciding which pieces we’d keep in the museum and which should be sent back to the artists.
There were some stunners in the museum’s collections. I swooned over some large-format pieces that looked like black-and-white night-time photography but were actually charcoal on paper (and I had to get to within inches of the piece to begin to see the proof of that). There were two pieces with blown glass that we both loved, one that needed some work (a slow-motion film about fire being projected through blown glass bubbles that made their own fire/nebula-like patterns on the screen – we loved the concept but hated the film itself) and one that was perfect as it was (a huge glass bottle shaped like George Washington’s head, with grog dregs inside, lying on a carved granite pillow). An installation with indigenous American ceremonial garb made out of gaudy man-made fabrics (neon yellow organza, iridescent silver lamé, turquoise paracord, and the like) spoke to our respective native ancestry and the stripping of dignity and depth from rich, complex cultures.
Then there were the pieces we rolled our eyes at. A convoluted video installation was painfully pretentious and over-wrought. A series of banners with sloppy stitching looked like an elementary school project and insulted us with their simplistic messages. Something that looked like black building blocks getting knocked over again and again was trite and boring. Monochrome, screen-printed t-shirts with aphorisms on them looked like they belonged in the gift shop rather than a gallery.
We could respect (if not rave about) some of the pieces that clearly took skill to create (like a series of gigantic concrete sculptures about death and reverence), but the ones where it took no training, no practice, no actual artistic skill whatsoever to make them should not, in our opinion, have been allowed to take up space in a museum. That is the fundamental problem with modern art – anyone can think they’re an artist, know someone who knows someone who can get in touch with a curator, and these sad, sloppy, shallow pieces get to spend time in a place where they don’t belong.
I’m not saying these people aren’t heading in good directions, but their work isn’t museum-quality yet. Some of them need practice in their chosen medium. Some of them need more life experience to help them refine their messages. Some need to abandon whatever medium they’ve chosen and try something different that might convey their message more effectively. The curators should be looking at an artist’s work before committing to hosting it, and having an eye for quality rather than just political/cultural relevance or novelty.
Despite the drawbacks, I’m not going to abandon modern art museums. The few amazing pieces are worth the admission fee, and I can keep hoping that curators will up their game so that every piece they display has a valid reason to be there... but I think I’ll hit up a natural history museum next, to cleanse the palate.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Smash The Patriarchy
I’ve noticed a trend among younger equality-minded folks who are trying to challenge our patriarchal and shallow culture. They take words that can feel like weapons (beautiful, ugly, masculine, feminine, fat, skinny, and so on) and attempt to challenge their definitions – everyone is beautiful, respect everyone’s pronouns, be body-positive, and such.
The trouble with this approach is that it doesn’t address the root of the problem. Descriptors like ugly or feminine or skinny don’t need to be redefined, they need to not be used as weapons to attack someone’s worthiness as a human being. We don’t need to call everyone beautiful, we need to invalidate the idea that beauty is tied to worthiness. We don’t need to develop a dozen new gender expressions, we need to recognize that gender is nothing but an arbitrary social construct that has no inherent meaning or value. We need to prioritize health over beauty, and stop glorifying unhealthy people.
This is becoming increasingly problematic in trans spaces, where some trans people are so desperate to lay claim to their new-found gender identities (especially, it seems, MtF types) that they’re flinging insults like “TERF” (trans-exclusionist radical feminist) at women who are trying to point out that trying to re-define womanhood is causing damage to our ongoing fight for equality.
When someone who was brought up male in a patriarchy suddenly steps into a female-only space and claims it as their own, they’re doing so without regard for all the women who have been fighting for women’s rights for centuries, and they’re disrupting the progress we’re making. I’m not saying they’re still male, but rather that the male privilege they were given by the patriarchy at birth and conditioned to think they deserved by our flawed culture is following them into female spaces whether they intend it to or not, and they’re not taking responsibility for that.
Trans folk are in a difficult position, and they certainly have battles to fight, but one of those battles should not be for ownership of “male” or “female” as a label. It should be to render those labels invalid for determining one’s worth. A trans woman is not the same as a cis woman, and that’s okay. She doesn’t need to be. It’s not a contest, nor should it be. The patriarchy encourages that kind of conflict to maintain the weaponization of gender constructs, and that is what we all need to be fighting against.
It’s an issue with body positivity, too. With weight-related conditions like diabetes and heart disease at epidemic levels, with 2/3 of the country overweight and 1/3 of it obese, why on earth are we going out of our way to call obese people beautiful? It doesn’t address the weaponization of the word “fat,” it just encourages people (especially children who see this in their entertainment) to think that being overweight or obese is okay as long as you know how to apply makeup and wear nice-looking clothes. Fitness instructor Jillian Michaels said something about this the other day and was raked over the coals for it, and while I think she could have phrased it more tactfully, her point is still valid: health matters more than superficial appearance, and obesity isn’t beautiful, it’s dangerous.
We’re still so hung up on this idea that being able to call ourselves beautiful is important that we’re missing the point: beauty has nothing to do with one’s worth. Obsessing over who can/should call themselves beautiful is an inherently patriarchal behavior, because it supports the idea that beauty equals worth.
Let’s stop fighting over things that don’t matter, because it’s keeping us from the real work. Your weight, bone structure, chromosomes, curves, genitalia, etc. don’t determine your worth as a human being. Your character does. Start there, and we can make the world a better place.
The trouble with this approach is that it doesn’t address the root of the problem. Descriptors like ugly or feminine or skinny don’t need to be redefined, they need to not be used as weapons to attack someone’s worthiness as a human being. We don’t need to call everyone beautiful, we need to invalidate the idea that beauty is tied to worthiness. We don’t need to develop a dozen new gender expressions, we need to recognize that gender is nothing but an arbitrary social construct that has no inherent meaning or value. We need to prioritize health over beauty, and stop glorifying unhealthy people.
This is becoming increasingly problematic in trans spaces, where some trans people are so desperate to lay claim to their new-found gender identities (especially, it seems, MtF types) that they’re flinging insults like “TERF” (trans-exclusionist radical feminist) at women who are trying to point out that trying to re-define womanhood is causing damage to our ongoing fight for equality.
When someone who was brought up male in a patriarchy suddenly steps into a female-only space and claims it as their own, they’re doing so without regard for all the women who have been fighting for women’s rights for centuries, and they’re disrupting the progress we’re making. I’m not saying they’re still male, but rather that the male privilege they were given by the patriarchy at birth and conditioned to think they deserved by our flawed culture is following them into female spaces whether they intend it to or not, and they’re not taking responsibility for that.
Trans folk are in a difficult position, and they certainly have battles to fight, but one of those battles should not be for ownership of “male” or “female” as a label. It should be to render those labels invalid for determining one’s worth. A trans woman is not the same as a cis woman, and that’s okay. She doesn’t need to be. It’s not a contest, nor should it be. The patriarchy encourages that kind of conflict to maintain the weaponization of gender constructs, and that is what we all need to be fighting against.
It’s an issue with body positivity, too. With weight-related conditions like diabetes and heart disease at epidemic levels, with 2/3 of the country overweight and 1/3 of it obese, why on earth are we going out of our way to call obese people beautiful? It doesn’t address the weaponization of the word “fat,” it just encourages people (especially children who see this in their entertainment) to think that being overweight or obese is okay as long as you know how to apply makeup and wear nice-looking clothes. Fitness instructor Jillian Michaels said something about this the other day and was raked over the coals for it, and while I think she could have phrased it more tactfully, her point is still valid: health matters more than superficial appearance, and obesity isn’t beautiful, it’s dangerous.
We’re still so hung up on this idea that being able to call ourselves beautiful is important that we’re missing the point: beauty has nothing to do with one’s worth. Obsessing over who can/should call themselves beautiful is an inherently patriarchal behavior, because it supports the idea that beauty equals worth.
Let’s stop fighting over things that don’t matter, because it’s keeping us from the real work. Your weight, bone structure, chromosomes, curves, genitalia, etc. don’t determine your worth as a human being. Your character does. Start there, and we can make the world a better place.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Game of Nope
On paper, Game of Thrones seems like a show I would enjoy. It’s medieval fantasy with complex political intrigue, and a large cast that, in theory, gives me a lot of opportunities to find characters I’m interested in. But there was something about the look of it and the reviews and the MASSIVE fandom that made me wary. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it (apart from a general dislike for all things trendy), but it took me until the series was finished to finally be willing to give it a shot.
I made it through two episodes before giving up. Actually, five minutes into the first episode I was pretty much done, but I gave it two episodes worth of opportunity to claw its way back from that awful first impression, and it only got worse.
If I want to see rich white men rape and murder their way through their privileged lives, I’ll turn on the news. That’s not entertainment for me, no matter how you dress it up. I need to see virtuous characters, complex characters, diverse characters… I need a cause I can believe in, someone I can cheer for, so I have a reason to keep watching. None of that showed up in the first two episodes.
I especially want female characters I can relate to – ones who don’t stoop to male vices or methods, ones who see the horrors of the world for what they are and try to change things for the better. Instead, GoT offered: an incestuous, adulterous harpie who condones murder to cover up her incest/adultery and over-parents her spoiled brat of a son; a probably-incestuous shell of a person who allows herself to be used as a political pawn and repeatedly raped, and then… tries to please her rapist; a long-suffering worrywart who takes up doll-making (a light form of witchcraft?) as a coping mechanism for her son’s near-murder; a young tomboy who’s sort of on the right track but is in that can’t-help-but-be-obnoxious phase that children go through; myriad whores who are, as it happens, the only female characters I even marginally like in this show because they’re the only ones who seem to enjoy their lives. None of those are women I can get emotionally invested in – their personalities fit tired, over-used tropes, and they were so clearly written by men that I can’t identify with them.
Then there’s the men. An adulterous, gluttonous asshole and his also-adulterous lap-dog, an angst-ridden bastard who seems to buy the idea that he’s no good to anybody except as a sacrifice, an erudite dwarf who seems to have dedicated his life to exploring every vice known to man, a stoic “exotic” rapist, an incestuous wastrel, a spoiled brat… and not one of them a compelling character for me. If the rest of the story were better, the rest of the cast more interesting, I might have stuck around to see what the dwarf gets up to, but he alone can’t carry the show.
The whiteness of the cast is boring (the world is completely made-up... why make it whites-only?), the petty motives are depressing, the gratuitous female nudity feels pornographic, and the story is too much like current-day politics to be worthy entertainment. The show is clearly targeted to teenaged boys, and it confuses me how so many people who don’t fit that demographic watched the first two episodes and decided they wanted more. What does it say about our culture that this show is so popular?
It probably didn’t help that I watched this shortly after getting caught up on two fantastic series: The Man In The High Castle, and The Expanse. Both of those have diverse casts, complex and compelling characters, a far better balance between virtue and vice, interesting plots, and underlying themes that I can relate to and want to see more of. Even in the medieval fantasy realm, The Last Kingdom and Vikings both did far better at drawing me in (though Vikings, with its purple faux-fur, eventually lost this historical costumer’s interest) by having characters whose motives were more relatable than “gotta f*ck my sister.” Game of Thrones feels like poorly-written fanfic by comparison – nothing but a masturbatory aid for hormonal boys – and that’s not worth my time.
I made it through two episodes before giving up. Actually, five minutes into the first episode I was pretty much done, but I gave it two episodes worth of opportunity to claw its way back from that awful first impression, and it only got worse.
If I want to see rich white men rape and murder their way through their privileged lives, I’ll turn on the news. That’s not entertainment for me, no matter how you dress it up. I need to see virtuous characters, complex characters, diverse characters… I need a cause I can believe in, someone I can cheer for, so I have a reason to keep watching. None of that showed up in the first two episodes.
I especially want female characters I can relate to – ones who don’t stoop to male vices or methods, ones who see the horrors of the world for what they are and try to change things for the better. Instead, GoT offered: an incestuous, adulterous harpie who condones murder to cover up her incest/adultery and over-parents her spoiled brat of a son; a probably-incestuous shell of a person who allows herself to be used as a political pawn and repeatedly raped, and then… tries to please her rapist; a long-suffering worrywart who takes up doll-making (a light form of witchcraft?) as a coping mechanism for her son’s near-murder; a young tomboy who’s sort of on the right track but is in that can’t-help-but-be-obnoxious phase that children go through; myriad whores who are, as it happens, the only female characters I even marginally like in this show because they’re the only ones who seem to enjoy their lives. None of those are women I can get emotionally invested in – their personalities fit tired, over-used tropes, and they were so clearly written by men that I can’t identify with them.
Then there’s the men. An adulterous, gluttonous asshole and his also-adulterous lap-dog, an angst-ridden bastard who seems to buy the idea that he’s no good to anybody except as a sacrifice, an erudite dwarf who seems to have dedicated his life to exploring every vice known to man, a stoic “exotic” rapist, an incestuous wastrel, a spoiled brat… and not one of them a compelling character for me. If the rest of the story were better, the rest of the cast more interesting, I might have stuck around to see what the dwarf gets up to, but he alone can’t carry the show.
The whiteness of the cast is boring (the world is completely made-up... why make it whites-only?), the petty motives are depressing, the gratuitous female nudity feels pornographic, and the story is too much like current-day politics to be worthy entertainment. The show is clearly targeted to teenaged boys, and it confuses me how so many people who don’t fit that demographic watched the first two episodes and decided they wanted more. What does it say about our culture that this show is so popular?
It probably didn’t help that I watched this shortly after getting caught up on two fantastic series: The Man In The High Castle, and The Expanse. Both of those have diverse casts, complex and compelling characters, a far better balance between virtue and vice, interesting plots, and underlying themes that I can relate to and want to see more of. Even in the medieval fantasy realm, The Last Kingdom and Vikings both did far better at drawing me in (though Vikings, with its purple faux-fur, eventually lost this historical costumer’s interest) by having characters whose motives were more relatable than “gotta f*ck my sister.” Game of Thrones feels like poorly-written fanfic by comparison – nothing but a masturbatory aid for hormonal boys – and that’s not worth my time.
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