YOUR FAVE IS PROBLEMATIC. SO IS MINE.

August 10, 2015 by Rowan in Culture, Feminism, Geek, Internet, Social Justice
[Content note: Mentions of rape, abuse, and potentially how your fave is problem
atic.]
I live in a world where literally everything is problematic. There is no unvarni
shed good. I was going to say wild strawberries are unproblematic, but even thos
esomeones allergic. Baby otters are cute, but otters engage in aggressive sexual b
ehavior that could be considered rape.1 Everything is problematic to someone.
A couple of times recently, someone has pointed out to me that something Im enjoy
ing has a problematic aspect. Usually with tones of hushed shock, as if they cant
believe that someone committed to social justice could be enjoying something wi
th problematic content or connections. As if to be a real, true SJW, I must forg
o every piece of media, all the time, because I might otherwise look like I am e
ndorsing the worst media has to offer.
Ive been thinking about that a lot, recently. Because I dont want to support truly
problematic content (theres a reason I will never watch a Woody Allen film, for
example), but at the same timeevery human being in the world is raised in a socie
ty that fills them with problematic messaging and values. I, personally, am stil
l dismantling internalized biases and prejudices. I catch myself using the word b
itch to refer to other women even now, years after I began the work to remove it
from my vocabulary. I live as on guard against these things as I can, but Im not
perfect, no one is. Not even those weve raised on pedestals and given celebrity.
And I think in many ways it must be harder as a celebrity, because youre dealing
with your problematic shit in public. When Nicki Minaj says something cis-centri
st, it immediately undoes all the work shes done to be feminist, to be intersecti
onal. When Marvel Comics makes Miles Morales the official Spider-Man in continui
ty, fans take it as an opportunity to talk about how Peter Parker should be black
, because hes the real Spider-Man. Every time someones fave is shown to be problema
tic, others take it as a chance to leap on the bandwagon of condemnation.
Im not saying that we should, as individuals or a community, simply ignore the pr
oblematic shit that comes before us. Im not asking anyone to deny that there are
microaggressions in the world around us, that there are celebrities who engage i
n heinous behavior and say ugly things being lauded by their friends. Im saying i
nstead that everything has the potential to be problematic, and that it is ok to
like problematic thingsas long as we work on acknowledging why theyre problematic
, and work to dismantle the systems that enable these continued biases and aggre
ssions to exist.