By David Futrelle
We’re in the grip of a pandemic that has already killed more than 132,000 Americans. The Black Lives Matters protests continue across the country. And somehow at this fraught moment in history the internet babies are throwing yet another tantrum about “Captain Marvel” actress Brie Larson — though at this point I doubt many of them can even remember what they’re ostensibly mad at her for. (Because she’s named after a cheese?)
A couple of months back, professional and amateur outrage merchants on YouTube pitched a fit over her appearance in a Nissan commercial. Now they’re mad that she’s started up a YouTube channel of her own.
Her channel has been up all of three days and already her haters on YouTube have started pumping out attack videos.. Here’s a selection:
Yes, that last one is three and a half hours long.
I would offer some more commentary on these bullshit videos, but I refuse to watch any of them on principle, the principle being that I don’t want to watch any of these bullshit videos.
But scrolling through the search results on YouTube I did find one relatively unoffensive video about Brie Larson that I would like to share with you. It features Ms. Larson wearing a pantsuit, and it was put up online by a channel that specializes in “Female wearing suit shirt & tie.”
I have to say, that’s the best clip of a woman wearing a pantsuit I’ve seen in some time. And it’s got puppies! How can anyone be mad at someone with such obvious rapport with puppies?
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My understanding of “Death of the Author” is that the theory is such that the creator of the work does only a part of the process of conveying the work of art, and that the remainder of the process is completed by the people who consume the work. That the viewers of the work will form their own interpretations of that work which are their own, and that the author is not able to dictate how people are supposed to interpret their work after they have presented it to the public.
So, for example, if JKR said that the goblins in Harry Potter are definitely not an antisemitic stereotype, and that anyone interpreting them in that way is wrong, Death of the Author would state that her word does not get to dictate the way that other people view her work, even if she was the creator of it.
Death of the Author is a form of literary/artistic analysis, and is not intended as a overarching philosophy in which the work is immediately orphaned from its creator and that the work itself is entirely independent from the person who created it. Any piece of art, especially a piece of art that is produced by a singular creator rather than a team (see: a novel versus a movie) is a product of the views of that creator, and allowing that understanding to inform our viewing of the work is an important part of consuming media critically.
Personally, I think that one can still consume the works of problematic creators and enjoy them, while still being aware of the messages that the work may be conveying. Mainly because I do not think that there are any creators who are entirely unproblematic. We are all products of a flawed system, and we all have biases and shortcomings. That said, there’s a matter of scale. When there is a creator who uses their power and influence to directly and horribly harm a vulnerable group of people like JKR is doing, I think it is important to no longer support what is granting them that power. I do think that people should stop buying merchandise, seeing movies, etc. If they want to consume the media, libraries and used bookstores are better options, and piracy is a wonderfully easy thing to do in this day and age.
Plus, there is a wealth of better media out there that we could support instead.
There’s the oft repeated (by Asimov) anecdote that Isaac Asimov attended a lecture where his work was being critiqued. Afterwards he introduced himself, said he found the comments interesting, but that was not what he meant at all. The lecturer supposedly responded “Just because you wrote it, what makes you think you know what it’s about?”
At the risk of turning this into a seminar, the minimalists were trying to encourage death of the author in art. They saw minimalism as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It was meant to be an interim step in creating a new art where the goal was solely the subjective experience of the viewer. Their theory being that all artists, whether intentionally or otherwise, imposed their own interpretations on the work. Whether that be by style, subject choice, composition etc. So by eliminating as many of the cues as possible then minimalist works would be like a palate cleanser; almost an exercise in Zen, clearing the mind of all preconceived ideas and influence of the artist. Once artists and observers got used to this, then the theory was that each observer would appreciate the art in an individual way, unique to themselves.
Although personally I think they just had some boxes they needed to store somewhere so they stuck them in a gallery and came up with all that as an excuse.
My issue with this idea of death of the author is that, while works can be interpreted differently, the context of the author’s life and comments can often help create interpretations, and ignoring that altogether means people could miss useful information. There must be a middle path between the author being totally irrelevant and the author dictating all.
@Alan
Of course, doing this erases meaning entirely, because everything is contextual.
I’d argue that Death of the Author doesn’t argue for the author’s comments to be considered totally irrelevant to the work, but only that the author’s comments on the work should not be taken more seriously than any other analysis of the work based solely on the merit of them being the author.
Honestly what a bunch of fucking losers. Maybe focusing on actual political issues has left me out of the loop with the “random actors who like social justice are oppressing me” crowd, but reading the comment section made me feel like it was 2015.
I’m one of the first to criticize liberal celebrity politics, but only because it doesn’t challenge power enough and tends to be incorporated as just another neoliberal brand. These people freak out that it challenges power at all. They pretend they’re so concerned about the wellbeing of the common person in the face of some sort of elite Hollywood menace, while supporting conservative politics at worst and not giving enough of a fuck to support anything at best. Genuinely insidious.
@naglfar
You hit upon an interesting point there; it’s one I ponder a lot.
It’s relevant to my own experience when I consider creative works that ‘move’ me on an emotional level, and things I don’t necessarily like, but I find interesting. That’s a clumsy way of putting it, but maybe I can give some examples.
I love Frankenstein because it’s a rip roaring tale. I would, and did, enjoy it even if I knew nothing of its author or how it came into being. But once I learned about the party and the scary story competition, or Mary Shelley’s loss of a child, or even the contemporary fascination with galvanism, then that adds a whole new level of understanding.
Same with how knowing a bit about Kurt Vonnegut’s life and family puts a lot of his stories into perspective.
Similarly with paintings. I wouldn’t give Girl With a Pearl Earring house room; but I very much subscribe to David Hockney’s hypothesis as to how it was created; and I love all the scientific testing on it. So I enjoy the painting in the same way I enjoy learning about how steam engines work or the history of railways.
@ dali
Well it’s like what they say about how to bluff your way in the art world. Don’t ask “what is the artist trying to say?”; make something up about “Well, what this means to me…”
But the paradox of minimalism is that it’s probably impossible to achieve. You can pick the blandest most mass produced object as subject; but that is still choice. And even how you display it narrows the parameters for the observer.
I suppose you could theoretically design a computer programme that randomly selects something from a list of every object in existence; and where to exhibit it from every possible location. Then just throw it backwards over your shoulder and display it as it lands.
But we’ve discussed here often enough how even neural networks can’t help but pick up the biases of their creators. And the mere act of deciding to do all that would in itself be a statement of intent that can’t help but be a factor in interpreting the piece.
It’s a nice intellectual exercise though; and I do really like minimalist works in the same way I like droney trancey music. It’s like the sensory deprivation allows my mind to wonder a bit and fill in the void itself.
Re: JK Rowling, she sucks obviously. I’m not familiar with death of the author as an academic concept, but as a layman I feel neither a desire to separate the art from the author completely or let them ruin the media (in most cases) either.
Someone actually made the point that we (as in the people in my online circle) should have written off Rowling a lot time ago for being rabidly anti-Corbyn, and that definitely stuck with me. Most forms of popular media I enjoy are gonna made by people I disagree with strongly on multiple issues, there’s just not usually such a high profile controversy to go with it.
Personally I read and loved Harry Potter as a kid, and even though I no longer consume the media as an adult, this doesn’t take away from the enjoyment I got out of it and the fact that I do think it’s a well-crafted children’s series. Sometimes shitty people are just talented.
I don’t want to make anyone feel bad for consuming Harry Potter stuff going forward because refraining isn’t gonna make her change or mind or take away her insane wealth and power. No ethical consumption and all that. I’m honestly just grateful for all the people standing up for transpeople and fueling the backlash socially. At the end of the day that’s pretty much all we can do to a powerful individual.
@Alan Robertshaw
Exactly this. There are so many works of art for which I find this to be true, and so I think it can still be valuable to look at context and/or what the author has said about a work. This doesn’t hold always, as authors sometimes do say deceptive things on purpose or add weird retcons that weren’t in the story, but often it can add to a text to factor comments in. Consider it like any other interpretation, not definitive, but it can be worth considering.
@Perry
I recognize that she is already rich, but at the very least one way we can show disapproval is by not buying things from her.
In related news, it’s looking more and more like Fantastic Beasts (originally planned to be 5 movies) will get cut shorter than that, as the actors and the broader HP fan community seem to be getting fed up. To be fair the spinoff was already not doing great at the box office, but this may have sunk it.
It’s weird how terves seem to become completely and openly consumed by terfosity, even when you’d think they have enough sense not to let this happen. This mostly doesn’t occur with other bigotries. If someone is an anti-semite, for example, it usually doesn’t become their hill to die on, unless they’re an Anglin-level loser.
@Moggie
I think it’s a sort of sunk cost fallacy. They get recruited into a cult like group, love bombed repeatedly so they stay, then when they start talking about it people call them out and they double down. Their cult then reassured them they’re right and to keep going. Eventually they see the toll it’s taking (for example, that Graham Linehan can’t find work), but they think they should just keep going because of the sunk cost fallacy.
JK’s got some issues on the antisemitism front as well, her Gringotts goblins bear a strong resemblance to some unpleasant stereotypes.
@ Alan Robertshaw:
A few years back some Swiss conceptual artists created a bot that made random purchases on the darknet, with the idea being they’d then exhibit the loot of the algorithm’s shopping spree in a gallery. However they and the bot temporarily got into a bit of legal trouble when it bought a bunch of ecstasy and a fake Hungarian passport. Somewhere the ghost of Marcel Duchamp is still laughing about this.
@Moon Custafer
Not sure if this was related, but xkcd had a comic about something similar:
@ moon custafer
Oh my, I love that. Both the original concept, and the consequences.
O/T: JK Rowling’s fans are now claiming there were no women authors before her. The responses to this tweet are great as well.
@Keeeeevin
I wouldn’t call a bunch of immature man baby’s, Incel’s and MGTOW’s operating under Misogynistic, Male Chauvinist Sour Grapes throwing shallow, banal, churlish, kindergarten level attacks, threats and nonsense: “criticism”.
I call that a bunch of sexist bullying assholes who hate diversity because their fragile male egos can’t stand not being endlessly pandered to 24/7 for even a moment.
Seems however your doing some heavy Incel virtue signaling, given that you throw around terms like “Simp” like your like minded, Neo-reactionary kin versed only in what Tolken might call: Orc Speak.
> Naglfar (à propos of gamergaters stuff)
Yes, i agree with you that they may have lost a bit of a voice by comparisson to the GG time, but depending on how far you are invested in playing video games, i still found them too much presents.
A quick skim in comments/evaluations of plateforms like Steam may show they are still vivacious, plumbering game rates with such “enlightened” reviews like “2 woke” or “not sexy enaf” (Yeah, Steam is fucking bad here too, they do not care, money still flowing).
If we take the view outside just video games themselves to what gravitate around, they are flooding comments when there are discussions about Twitch strikes against assholes/rapeys streamers and the “day without Twitch” that was proposed by woman streamers in support to those whose had denounced the problematic streamers.
They are also mock Ubisoft reaction to declare deep inspections (even if i do not hold my breath on that) on some of their male staff behaviors following harrasment and worse declarations from the female staff, as they always do when women complain about the dirty atmosphere at work in videogame companies (and any technological ones, if i am not wrong).
I know i could ignore them, put them under the rug and all, but they are often so enraging (may be part of their goal, i guess)…
Anyway, sorry for the digression, let us go back on Youtube. They have at FUCKING least kick out Alain Soral channels. About fucking time. Being a holocaust denier seems to be okay since yesterday (/sarcasm).
@Catalpa
At least in the EU, authors get monetary compensation from libraries. As the amount they get is related to how much their books circulate, one suggestion on how to trick the system is to borrow a book and then circulate it among your social circle so that others can read it without adding to its official circulation, but that only works for fast readers.
@Naglfar
Reminds me of the HP heydays, when clueless Finnish journalists were writing articles on fantasy books and fan culture for the first time. Apparently fan fiction was a new phenomenon in the early 2000’s, and no one had ever heard of Terry Pratchett. Also IIRC, one of them defined “spoiling” as revealing a book’s ending before the Finnish translation has come out. It was hilarious.
OT and I’m sure you all know this already, but
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/06/amy-cooper-charged-black-birdwatcher-new-york
plus extra 🙂 for @Alan Robertshaw because of Christian Cooper’s use of “scofflaw”. Possibly the first time I’ve seen that term outside of 1066 And All That or texts explaining what it means.
@ naglfar
It’s so funny you mention that. When I read that story that was the first thing that jumped out at me; loved it.
Apparently the word was also used a lot in relation to Prohibition; but Mr Cooper does strike me as the sort of person who might well have read 1066.
Rather honoured to be mistaken for @Naglfar! 😀
In this case I think I must be a boat built solely out of the nails of the opposable thumbs of the dead, so I guess about a tenth of the usual size and taking ten times as long for the demons to build 😀
@occasional reader
I am aware that there still is misogyny in games, my point is that most of the powerful GamerGate figures have dropped off the map again, like Milo Yiannopoulos, Sargon of Akkad, and Thunderf00t.
@Masse_mysteria
I’m not 100% certain how this works in the US, but I think authors only get money if the library buys the book (and many books are donated to libraries).* OTOH, if a book is popular amongst library patrons that might prompt the library to buy more copies.
*If this is incorrect, please correct me. Apologies if I am wrong.
@opposablethumbs
Ah, but if ten times as long is taken to collect the nails, wouldn’t it be full size?
@Naglfar, I̶’̶m̶ ̶g̶u̶e̶s̶s̶t̶i̶m̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶2̶ ̶o̶p̶p̶o̶s̶a̶b̶l̶e̶-̶t̶h̶u̶m̶b̶-̶n̶a̶i̶l̶s̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶2̶0̶ ̶n̶a̶i̶l̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶(̶a̶s̶s̶u̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶u̶l̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶g̶e̶r̶-̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶e̶n̶a̶i̶l̶s̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶s̶o̶n̶)̶ ̶-̶ ̶
dammit, you’re right.
@opposablethumbs
Well, I also always did figure there was another issue with ships made out of nails: what happens to nails when they get wet? I guess I’m sunk. 😛
O/T: Margaret Atwood called out JK and reasserted her support for trans* people, and TERFs are losing it. This isn’t a new position for Atwood, but apparently the people who go around calling women they disagree with “handmaidens” didn’t know this until now.