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minoanmissI often see #MeToo specifically and the rise of accountability in general blamed for the rise in holding to account abusive people who are famous creators. But it seems to me that the fault lies with the creative assholes. It's not Dylan Farrow's fault that Woody Allen has suffered a loss of esteem. It's his fault for having abused her. It's not anyone's fault but Joss Whedon's that Joss Whedon is [finally] being called to account for his patterns of abuse. It's not victims' faults for not staying silent.
Also, when people lament "losing" work by terrible people, one of the [many] things wrong with that lamentation is that the lamenters are leaving something out of their calculations. Something unquantifiable, to be fair. They're leaving out all the lost creative potential of all the people who were driven away from creating by predators. For example, I've heard more than one tale from women who didn't achieve their goals in academia in part because advisors were predatory or neglectful in direct relation to whether or not those advisors wanted to fuck them, with no regard to actual advising. And I'm just one person. How many scholars and works do we not have because of predatory assholes derailing their careers?
... I also had a comment about Black people in the Western Hemisphere diaspora and how our ancestors built communities and cultures from literally nothing but memories, working through huge trauma and in stolen bits of time around massive amounts of backbreaking work and how that accomplishment is worth celebrating but most US-educated peeps at least don't/won't even recognize it exists, but a Discussion is happening nearby. Maybe I'll come back to this post and expand.
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Date: 2022-02-04 01:22 am (UTC)I wish I could quote exactly, but something to the effect of the white power structure assigned them a race, but out of that they forged a people and a community.
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Date: 2022-02-04 01:39 am (UTC)^This. THIIIS.
Also, when people lament "losing" work by terrible people
To those people I say look, I was a huge fan of Marilyn Manson when I was a depressed, self-harming teenager and there's a lot of history there, Manson/NIN was one of baby's first concerts, etc. But I cannot listen to Manson anymore without having visceral disgust reactions because of surviving my own history with abuse and sexual assault, so his mp3s went bye-bye. Ditto for R Kelly. [Yes, I have eclectic music tastes.] I was also a huge Buffy fan as a teenager and used to be a huge MCU fan and I'm going to miss that part of my history, but I can't fuck with Joss Whedon's stuff anymore either. It's sad but my life isn't over because I stopped listening to Manson.
The thing is, there's still enough people who either still stan Manson/Kelly/whoever [and will threaten their victims], or people who still engage with the content because they can separate the creator from the content** that the folks whining about "losing" work have nothing to complain about, these assholes are still making plenty of money. And even if they weren't...
Fuck Woody Allen's fee-fees, and Joss Whedon's. They didn't give a fuck about other people's feelings.
**As a rule, I don't come at people for what media they engage with. I didn't say "fuck Harry Potter" till December of last year when Rowling made a statement about trans women being rapists - as a trans man I obviously have an issue with other TERF things she said but I was in the "the content is not the creator" camp till that happened. I still don't tell friends they're wrong if they want to read/write HP fic. So I get that it's messy and people have to make their own decisions.
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Date: 2022-02-04 01:41 am (UTC)... I also had a comment about Black people in the Western Hemisphere diaspora and how our ancestors built communities and cultures from literally nothing but memories, working through huge trauma and in stolen bits of time around massive amounts of backbreaking work and how that accomplishment is worth celebrating but most US-educated peeps at least don't/won't even recognize it exists, but a Discussion is happening nearby. Maybe I'll come back to this post and expand.
If you write this, I want to read it.
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Date: 2022-02-04 01:43 am (UTC)My little contribution this week was that the board issued a bunch of Black History Month quotes to read out on the announcements every day. Mostly of the inspirational variety? Which is fine, but. I came up with a bunch of alternatives, from Afrofuturist writers and artists and Black Lives Matter activists and historians, all of them living people and not historical figures, directly confronting anti-Black racism in Canada. It's a small thing but hopefully it'll speak to someone.
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Date: 2022-02-04 03:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-04 03:28 am (UTC)Yes, this. Nobody's going around purging all known copies or anything. If people are free to say "I want to watch/listen to/perform this", then they are also free to say "I no longer want to".
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Date: 2022-02-04 03:32 am (UTC)Fortunately, you're not writing for most US-educated peeps who don't/won't recognize it exists. You're writing for you and for people you have chosen to associate with and who have chosen to associate with you. I, uh, like to think our bar is a little higher.
If you want to write it, I'm interested in reading it. And if writing it is exhausting or otherwise drags you down, then I and your other friends will completely understand if you don't. You don't owe us. Put your own oxygen mask on first, as they say. I value you more than I value any particular post you might make.
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Date: 2022-02-04 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-04 04:05 am (UTC)And I know what it's like to be barred from a career by men offering to advise me when I was in college. The head of the physics department told me, in so many words, to switch my major from physics to elementary education, meet a nice young man, get married, and have lots of kids, because that's what women are supposed to do - womens brains aren't capable of understanding science. (He didn't want to have sex with me - if I'd offered, he'd have refused me, because I wasn't attractive enough.)
I'm really sorry that Joss Whedon - who made fairly feminist noises back in the day - is not the science fiction hero I wanted him to be.
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Date: 2022-02-04 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-04 01:05 pm (UTC)And then there's the whole cultural phenomenon-- fairly quiet now, but for how long?-- of denigrating people for *being* victims. Thorough advance shut-up.
Have you read Kate Manne's Down Girl? I recommend it highly.
And I would love to read more of what you have to say.
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Date: 2022-02-04 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-04 01:42 pm (UTC)I think this is what prompted adding Black Israelites to my meandering monologue (thank you for listening to me).
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Date: 2022-02-04 03:00 pm (UTC)Black people in the Western Hemisphere diaspora and how our ancestors built communities and cultures from literally nothing but memories, working through huge trauma and in stolen bits of time around massive amounts of backbreaking work and how that accomplishment is worth celebrating. This, too.