How mainstream media erases social justice progress

I can't really put into words how much the attitude of "this world is too politically correct these days" or "people really can't take a joke any more" bothers me; it's like trying to explain a colour or emotion to someone.  The closest I can really think of, and it's more of an explanation through example, comes from Byron Clark who ran a little experiment, replacing the term "political correctness" with the phrase "treating people with respect" and showed how off-base political correctness critics are with their comments (a link to an article about this is here).

What I want to write about today, however, is more on how this sort of dialog players out in mainstream media and how I see it ultimately harming any progress that has been made in any social justice movement.  I have seen it play out the same way regardless of what the context is although my primary exposure to this whole thing is around trigger warnings and sexual violence since that's what was my entry point to the social justice movement.

Recently, Amy Poehler's TV show made a very tasteless and harmful joke about child sexual abuse (a link to the article is here) and many people, rightly, turned to social media to voice their frustration.  Now comedy is, and has been, a very touchy topic because apparently there are people out there who think that because we're supposed to laugh at this stuff that it should fall outside the realm of critical analysis.  Part of this, I would imagine, has to do with the fact that comedy is very closely tied to a very normal human need for laughter; there are a fair amount of examples out there of laughter being tied to positive overall mental health.  Moreover, who we find funny and what we laugh at tends to be unique to an individual so critical analysis of whatever it is we're laughing at can feel like a critical analysis of us as individuals.  With that said I'd like to bring in what Anita Sarkeesian has said, repeatedly: it is possible to enjoy a piece of media while still being critical of that same piece of media.  Also, if you find yourself getting defensive because a comedian, show, or piece of media is receiving criticism I'd ask that you check in with yourself and do a little self-exploration into where that is coming from.  After all, you're not the one receiving the criticism, the piece of media you consume is, so there's something else that's really bothering you and I would suggest it has something to do with your own privilege being challenged.

Getting back on track.

Amy Poehler has taken some heat for what happened on the show and I believe that criticism to be completely justified.  "Jokes" about child sexual abuse, sexual assault, or any sexual violence should not be something mainstream media employs as a tool to build character, create suspense, or raise the proverbial stakes in their stories.  Sexual violence, in general, is something that many people have experienced and seeing it trivialized in popular media can being triggering, traumatizing, and provoke victim blaming.  Sexual violence can be shown but a great deal of care and thought must be involved to ensure that what is being depicted is being done for clear and honest reasons, while also ensuring that what's depicted does not sensationalize or eroticize sexual violence.  From what I understand, the child sexual abuse comment in Poehler's show was meant as a way to communicate to the audience that the comic in the show is a particularly inept comic.

If the only way you can communicate that a fictional comic is "inept" is by having them make a "joke" about child sexual abuse then I don't believe you're a very good writer.  This goes for any depiction of sexual violence in the media as well, if you can't make a joke, develop a character, or move a story forward without employing instances of sexual violence I would suggest picking a different career.

Unfortunately, mainstream media loves this sort of thing because it can take legitimate criticism of a very harmful mistake by producers and use it to dismiss and belittle the criticism and it's source.  Amy Poehler has been anointed by mainstream media as a feminist icon, which is something they like to do, and like every other "leader" mainstream media has picked out for feminism they tend to evaluate the merits of feminism by this person and this person alone.  So long as their successful the narrative tends to ignore the feminist support or involvement and does so until this "leader" makes a mistake in some form or another.  Then one of two things tends to happen: they dismiss the leader entirely or they dismiss the criticism as being a sign of a movement being "too sensitive" and prone to "toxic infighting."

With the articles cited above, we're seeing the latter of the two in this case.

Mainstream media is happy to tow the social justice movement's line so long as it's not making anyone uncomfortable (like Emma Watson's UN address, for instance) but the moment some critical dialogue is needed mainstream media cuts bait and, ironically, overreacts.  A large aspect of the feminist movement, as well as any social justice movement (although it's hard to honestly separate them if we consider intersectionality), is accountability.  Accountability is key because it means that at any given time care is being taken to acknowledge privilege and take steps that are being motivated by an intention to dismantle systemic oppression.  Accountability isn't, however, a fun or comfortable thing; in fact, if comfort and fun is a factor then I'd argue that accountability isn't precisely being consciously involved.

Unfortunately for social justice movements, the nuances of accountability are not sexy and are hard to fit into short, punchy, "click-baity" headlines or quick buzzfeed-esque, pseudo-social consciousness raising articles that mainstream media rely on so heavily.  If they can't summarize it in two minutes they're not interested.  Moreover, if they can paint it as in-fighting then they can dismiss the movement and maintain the status quo in one fell swoop.  So, once again, we are seeing critics of Amy Poehler's show being written off as "over-sensitive" and the movements they represent being dismissed as childishly unfocused.

I've often wondered how certain things like how the feminist movement has carried this stigma of being entirely about "man hating" through the decades, well I would have to say that situations like this seem to offer, at least, a partial explanation.

I would encourage anyone who's seen articles on this situation to look a little deeper and read a little more about the criticism.  Mainstream media is lying to you and they are attempting to manipulate you, there's a much more important discussion we need to be having.

You're not edgy for being deliberately offensive and you're not oppressed for being called out either

Two things have sort of sparked this post:

1) An article on the Escapist extolling the virtues of the latest Doom trailer ended with an overly self-righteous cavalcade of word-smithery worthy of any soap-box: "Make exceptions. Make statements. Make what you dream about making, and do it unapologetically. Bring it on, DOOM."

2) An article on the Escapist by a video game reviewer that gleefully exclaims that it's fun to deliberately offend people because the people being offended aren't saying anything worthwhile anyways.

The fact that both of these are coming out of The Escapist, a video game site that I've generally appreciated and respected up until now, is particularly alarming but not all that damning, after all these people only write for them and their views don't necessarily represent the views of the entire organization.  I hope.

Anyway, while both authors have undoubtedly patted themselves on the back for their righteous defense of privileged creators and developers for their right to offend people-righteously defended the already defended against those evil, sensitive, emotional people who would have the audacity to not agree with material that was deliberately meant to offend-I want to address this frustratingly annoying stance that by publicly stating that a piece of media has problems people are being oversensitive and missing the point.

First, though, can we appreciate the irony of getting defensive when people are offended by something that was deliberately meant to offend.

Doom, the game and developers, were not trying to be subversive.  As the author of the article details, and I agree with him on this, Doom was never meant to be a sunshine and rainbows game; it was violent then, it's violent now, that's Doom.  But to hold it up as some righteous crusader for all that's good in video games, as some kind of subversive piece of art, is an embarrassing exaggeration of what Doom is.  I played Doom, hell I grew up on it, and there is a great deal of nostalgia I have for the franchise even though I'm not particularly inclined to play the latest iteration.  I'm not particularly inclined not because the violence has turned me off, but rather my tastes have changed and it, simply, doesn't interest me any more.  It's not my cup of tea, but it's not like I think they should stop making it the way they want to make it.  Want a game to be exceptionally violent? Go for it, but you must realize that not everyone is going to like it and you must realize that some of those people are going to, guess what, *through cupped hands* say that they don't like it.

Seriously, for all the claims being directed at social justice/PC people being "too sensitive" it sure seems like we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black here.

Doom's gameplay trailer was excessively violent, it was intended to be that way because that's what the game is and it's okay that people have pointed that out.  It's also okay to ask the question as to whether or not a game needs to be that violent.  I can assure you that if it were the case that excessive violence wasn't commonplace for video games, and that there were a plethora of other types of games out there, there would be less of an impulse to ask why there needs to be yet another extremely violent game like Doom.  The criticism is a product of the greater discussion in the gaming industry, not an attempt to censor the creators of that specific game.

Doom is not a subversive work of art, defiantly resisting an oppressive regime, because the majority of games are violent, but I seriously don't think the developers of the game had this in mind when they chose to show that trailer or create the game.  Doom can be Doom, but don't try and put it on this righteous pedestal because you don't like people asking for the industry to do better in terms of the variety of games it offers

Which brings me to my second point in this rant.

Being deliberately offensive is also not something that falls into the category of righteousness either.  Again, if you set out to be deliberately offensive then you can't seriously be surprised when people have some negative things to say about the thing you created to be deliberately offensive.  I can't believe we have to walk through this but people are not being over-sensitive when you deliberately set out to offend them, they're just reacting the way people do when someone has deliberately offended them.

In the wake of Charelston (since drafting this there's been another, Lafayette Louisiana) and a devastatingly long list of mass shootings we do not need a game that sensationalizes those types of events and turns them into entertainment; mainstream news outlets do enough of that as they give us wall-to-wall coverage with intermittent advertisements.  We do not need media that deliberately picks at open and healing wounds (real and societal) whose creators misuse "Freedom of Speech" rhetoric to defend their actions.  There are ways to create media that poignantly addresses violence, hatred, and oppression in our world and I would state that we need media like that if we're going to make any kind of change.

However, if you're going to incorporate a topic like mass shootings or sexual violence against women (Game of Thrones is referenced) you can't be careless in how you present it in your piece of media because there are people out there that have experienced what you're using.  That is the criticism that's routinely getting ignored in this discussion, that it's more about how the violence is being sensationalized and eroticized than the violence existing in the first place.  Game of Thrones deserves the criticism it's getting and the amount of fans choosing to opt out of the series because it carelessly used violence against women as a sensationalized plot point as well as choosing to be dismissive of critics.  "Hatred," the game (I use the 'game' term loosely), deserves to be called out because it sensationalizes a horrifying act that is happening in regular intervals in today's society.


Oh and if you're one of those people who is upset that people get mad at you for playing "devil's advocate" on serious social issues like violence against women, systemic racism, heterosexism, cissexism, or any other area of society that we need to be better, then I'll just leave you with this:

Self-defense, sexual assault, and victim blaming

I've only been working in the sexual violence sector for a short time and even I'm a bit frustrated with how easy it is for traditional sexual assault prevention techniques to gain traction and acceptance in our society, so I can only imagine how frustrating it is for feminists who have been having this discussion for decades might feel.

I don't know how many times I've said this but I'll say it again: there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing things that give a person a sense of safety and give them enough peace of mind to move through the world comfortably. This is not about criticizing those techniques that do give someone a sense of safety nor is this about dismissing the people, themselves, who engage in these techniques.

Having said that, working in the sexual violence sector as an educator has allowed me to learn and understand the pitfalls of traditional sexual assault prevention techniques, as feminists working in this sector have been thinking about them and talking about them in great detail for decades.  There is the greater philosophical, societal issue of the unfairness of putting the onus on female-identified people to prevent experiencing assault because society has deemed male-identified people as not responsible for their actions under the "boys will be boys" clause.  There is the in-practice issue of victim blaming that comes up when someone does experience an assault and begins to think it was their own fault because they didn't do one thing on the impractically long list of things female-identified people have been told they need to do to keep themselves safe.  And there is the issue of practicality in that most "prevention" techniques only apply to very specific situations that mostly involve strangers in dark alleys, whereas the more common sexual assault happens where the person choosing to assault knows the person they're assaulting to some degree (friend, coworker, partner, etc).

For the record, when I say "victim blaming" I am referring to the more subtle ways in which society makes a person who experienced abuse feel like they were partly, or totally, responsible for the assault they experienced.  This is done not in overt "this was your fault" finger wagging kinds of ways, but by unthinkingly questioning the behavior of the person who experienced the assault: "are you sure it was assault?" "what were you wearing?" "did you lead him on?" "you're a guy though, don't all guys want sex?" Questions imply judgement and sexual assault is one of the only crimes where society feels justified in questioning the person who experienced the crime and determining to which degree they participated in the crime they experienced.  This is something we don't do for people who are victims of drunk driving, murder, theft, physical assault, identity fraud, or whatever other crime you can think of.

We engage in victim blaming subconsciously because it is a way of distancing ourselves from the assault in that if we can point to what the person who experienced the assault did wrong, then we can make sure we don't experience assault by not making the same mistake they did.  It's understandable because the alternative means accepting that sexual assault is something that we might experience, and that's certainly a scary thought, but this practice ultimately makes it a more hostile and difficult environment for people who have already experienced sexual assault.  Moreover, it creates an environment where the people who actually have control over whether or not an assault takes place, the people who chose to commit it, are not held accountable for their actions.

These are not new insights.  Feminists identified these a long while ago and have been campaigning for years to try to get this points across to society at large in order to push sexual assault into the same category as drunk driving; a category where there is a social consensus that regardless of how sympathetic we might be with the person who committed the crime, we still hold them fully accountable for the decision they made and the harm they caused.

So when you see criticism being directed at the recent study that came out of the University of Windsor and made it's rounds of various mainstream media sites, know that all that I've discussed above is motivating that criticism.  Know that the criticism is coming from a place of this study being nothing new and know that it is an indication of a growing community of people, who want to take this discussion of reducing sexual assault into a more effective realm of holding those who choose to do it accountable.

What is further motivating the criticism of this study and it's quick, broad acceptance, is that there are way too many unanswered questions; there are any number of reasons one could cite to account for the alleged reduction in sexual assaults.  For my part I can't help but think that the more likely reason there is such difference between those who took the training and those who didn't, is that those who took the training and still experienced an assault would be far less likely to report their assault because there is a much higher likelihood that their behavior will be questioned because they took the training:

"Why didn't you use your training?"

"What was it about the training that wasn't effective?"

"Didn't you know what to look out for?"

Moreover, those who took the training and still experienced an assault are likely asking themselves those questions already having grown up in a society that has normalized "prevention" techniques for female-identified people.

Again, I get the appeal.  Those numbers are certainly attractive.  It would be easy to just accept the result of this study, implement the training, and continue on with our lives.  Unfortunately, this would be a lateral move in the efforts to reduce the number of sexual assaults in our society as this kind of thing gets us no closer to holding the people who choose to assault accountable, which is where we need to go in order to really see some change.

The Power of Social Media

More often than not when people in position of power (cops, politicians, celebrities, etc) exercise their privilege over another it winds up on social media and many thousands of people immediately point out how shitty what they did was.  Then, said person of privilege claims what they’ve experienced is unfair and unjust, that the people calling them out are ignoring the great tenant of: “innocent until proven guilty.”

Mainstream media usually comes swooping in to remind us all that “there are two sides to every story” and that the people that are angry are playing the [race/gender/orientation/etc] card in an attempt to make the issue about “something it’s not.”  They continue to push this “two-sides” thing until people, who have their own lives to live and other things to take care of (feeding families, meeting ends-meat, etc), begin to quiet down.

It is a truly corrupt system that allows certain people to hurt and oppress people that are already oppressed and then claim that we were wrong to hold them accountable for their actions.  All the while they are demanding we hold ourselves accountable for our “irrational” and “overly PC” response to legitimate oppression with the claim: “we can’t have a dialog until you all calm down.”  Then they’ll dismiss the outrage even further by saying this got “blown out of proportion” all because social media allows people to “react before thinking.”

In the last few weeks we’ve seen a major coming together of people who are pissed off about blatant displays of oppression and who have had enough with the lies and dismissal of mainstream media.  Social media allows the collective outrage of people who won’t stand for oppression, of any kind, to be a visible force that cannot be ignored.  The trolls and bigots will always be there, but thankfully they’re pretty skilled at making themselves look like idiots and they ultimately galvanize the resolve of all those social justice warriors out there.

And leave it to the privileged people to try and make “social justice warrior” into a derogatory statement; to try and frame the ability to recognize oppression, the courage to speak out against it, and actively practicing empathy as traits that are somehow shameful.
Never underestimate the power of the simple act of sharing, reblogging, or retweeting.  For each time you do it contributes to the greater social consciousness and contributes to the strong social morality that does not tolerate oppression of any kind.