Criticism, culture, and freeze peach

[sabotabby]

I keep having thoughts about the Michael Moore/Seth Rogen/Clint Eastwood/loads of even stupider people thing, and what its implications are in terms of free expression. Which I resent, as I try very hard not to think about most of these people at all.

The short version of this story is that Clint Eastwood made what looks like a very slick movie based on a book written by a murderous pathological liar. I haven't seen the movie. I'm semi-planning a viewing party if I can get a good torrent of it and reviewing it on this blog, but there's no way I'm going to pay for something that's going to give me a headache. But my issue has very little to do with whether American Sniper is a good movie or not. It might be—I'm too much of a Sergio Leone fangirl to discount Eastwood's contribution to cinema—but that isn't the point. The point is when Seth Rogen and Michael Moore, both film professionals, went on Twitter to criticize it, they got an avalanche of shit in response that forced them to retract—er, clarify—their positions.

I find this fascinating.

Let's cycle back a few weeks ago, when we were all Charlie, and freedom of expression was supreme. Did you lose friends in a Charlie-based debate? I sure did. Some of my points have been vindicated, in that the result of Je Suis Charlie is that the rights of white men to say whatever racist shit they like has been confirmed by the international community as sacrosanct, whereas anyone else's tasteless and shitty attempts at satire are grounds for arrest. So the freedom to be an offensive asswipe (or to not engage in collective gestures of national mourning) is, far from being a universal value, largely contingent on skin colour, much like every other freedom under a white supremacist system. Quelle surprise.

Digression: I'm not a free-speech absolutist—few people are, when you take free speech absolutism to its logical, fire-in-a-crowded-theatre conclusion. One must have certain societal safeguards in place. Hate speech contributing to a culture of persecution is one such logical limit—but, naturally, works poorly as a law, since those in charge of enforcing it are generally on the winning side of said culture, so this limit is best enforced by pieing, egging, and public humiliation (not, however, by murder. At most, several months hard labour in gulag.). Presenting false information as fact is another limit; otherwise you end up with FOX News blatantly making stuff up, and large numbers of people believing it, which is a tangibly bad thing to happen to a civilization.

Why am I talking about Charlie again, when I promised not to? Because this new construction of free speech, which is in no way new, has an interesting twist. Previously, you had the right to say whatever (as long as you were a white man). Now, you are free to say whatever (as long as you are a white man, and you are offending the correct people)...and no one else has the right to say you suck for doing so.

Let's break it down. We know what free speech legally means in most of the Western world: It means that the government cannot break down your door and arrest you for publishing something. That's a pretty good rule. On a more informal basis, we can extend it to the right to not be killed by extra-legal actors, such as idiot terrorists, for publishing something. Most people can get behind that.

But we also know what free speech means on the internet. It means that I can't be banned from your journal for responding to your post entirely with pages and pages of pornographic ASCII* because I disagree with your opinion on MRA, because if you ban me, you are censoring me. It means that you can't say that Charlie Hebdo is racist and unfunny, because if you do, you're against free speech and pro-terrorism and insufficiently European. It means that you don't get to block your aunt on Facebook after she forwarded you that anti-vax propaganda. It means that all speech, no matter how offensive, wrong, or sub-literate, is absolutely equal in value and deserving to be heard.

The result of this confusion over what freedom of expression actually is and is not is twofold. First, Jenny McCarthy's opinion on vaccinations is allowed to occupy the same space in the public discourse as that of actual doctors with medical degrees. Second, it becomes taboo to criticize, because criticism is equated with censorship. Saying that something is balls is equivalent, in today's parlance, of saying that you think it shouldn't have been made and want to silence the person who made it forever.

Which brings me, via a roundabout route, back to American Sniper.

What Michael Moore said is that snipers are cowards. What Seth Rogen said was that the movie reminded him of that bit with the Nazi propaganda movie about the sniper in Inglourious Basterds. (I find the latter comparison insulting, as I suspect Tarantino shits out better movies than Rogen, Moore, or Eastwood-as-a-director could ever hope to make, but I'll admit that my bias is towards movies that I actually find entertaining.) Both are fair statements well within the tradition of film criticism.

In fact, the very point of film criticism is for someone who knows a lot about film to take a giant shit over someone who has just made a film. This is a fine tradition, and there are many shining, hilarious examples of critics utterly destroying an awful movie that reinforced cultural hegemony and thus was wildly popular, such as Zizek's takedown of Avatar or Kermode savaging Sex In the City II. One would think that film criticism—in this case, the critique of a film made by a white man by other white men—would fall squarely into the realm of Culturally Approved Free Speech.

But. It ignited a Twitterstorm. It became a Thing that I had to read about in the Real News. Apparently it was such a controversy that both filmmakers had to step back from their initial statements and say positive things about the film, like they liked Cooper's acting or they enjoyed the movie.

This is not film criticism. This is kindergarten, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything," no fee-fees allowed to be hurt bullshit. And I find it deeply disturbing, chilling, because the freedom to critique is all about the freedom to question, and in order to maintain some sort of justice or equilibrium in a culture where anything can get said, you must also have a culture where anything that gets said can be questioned. Obviously, we've never really had that, but we've also historically had gatekeepers. Now it's all about the loudest, richest voices, and if people out there are loud and rich enough to force loud, rich Seth Rogen to back down on a tweet, what hope is there for anyone marginalized ever getting a say?

* Why did you click that? You know better. You know what I'm like.

Comments

[robby.livejournal.com]

No one forced them to retract their positions. They are probably both just weasels.

[sabotabby]

No one forced them, so why would they feel the need? Both stand to gain financially from "igniting a controversy," Moore in particular. Feuds in the media are good for business. Moore of 15 years ago would have totally stood his ground, but nowadays, culturally speaking, you can't.

[robby.livejournal.com]

If Michael Moore experiences counter-criticism, free speech isn't working? I think we got two weasels that can't take the heat.

[sabotabby]

I doubt it. Moore missing a chance for a public culture war? Rogen being more afraid of Sarah Palin than North Koreans? I'm just sensing a shift in the discourse, of which this dust-up is the most recent example.

[flummoxicated.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you posted this, I just read a great critique of Humans of New York and was baffled by the responses berating the writer. Especially weird to me are the "you can't criticize someone's work unless you too have created something similar." Dafuq?

[sabotabby]

"you can't criticize someone's work unless you too have created something similar."

This one has been with us for awhile. Everyone loves to hate critics and editors, but they serve a vital social function, dammit!

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

I always hate this kind of remark. A part of the way in which things work is that when I spend money on a ticket and then waste two hours of my life watching a movie, I can talk about whether I felt like that was a wise usage of €6 and two hours of my life. This applies to other forms of media too. It's like saying that you have to be great at drawing to study Art History or great at writing anything other than essays to study Literature.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

In other news, you are not allowed to express an opinion on a restaurant unless you are an experienced Cordon Bleu chef.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

[sabotabby]

Bingo!

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Replicas of goatse keep being taken offline because as soon as they come up, teenagers and people like us everywhere link the shit out of them, bringing their hosting servers down. So of course I'm going to click on that link!!

[sabotabby]

Is goatse still a thing? I felt like I was dating myself with that reference.

ETA: Metaphorically dating myself, not dating myself in a goatse-type way.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Sure this is kindergartenish. But, I don't see where there are free speech problems:

1. Someone made a movie. The government didn't prevent that movie being made or shown, or arrest the makers. Free speech success.
2. Some people criticized the movie. The government didn't prevent that criticism, or arrest the makers. Free speech success.
3. Lots of people reacted to the criticism with more speech. The government, again, didn't intervene.
4. The people in stage 2 heard stage 3 speech, and they speechified some more. Again, not government interference. All perfectly free speech.

I don't see anybody's right to free speech being violated anywhere along here.

[sabotabby]

Part of my point here is that the framework we use to discuss free speech is incomplete. By a strict legal definition, the Charlie Hebdo shootings were a violation of no one's free speech, as there were no state actors involved. (The round-up of insufficiently respectful Arabs that followed was certainly a suppression of free speech under the traditional definition.) But try saying that anywhere public and you'll have your head bitten off.

Likewise, GamerGate is not an issue of free speech. Legally. But both the CH shootings and GG have a strong effect on what can and cannot be publicly said.

My concern is not about legal freedom of expression—which is a fiction to begin with, as it only applies to a certain segment of society—but the culture of critique, which tends to be formed in far less dramatic ways. No one's busting down Moore's or Rogen's door for their comments. No one needs to. And the reason for this is not the gub'mint but a culture where criticism is heavily frowned upon. Hard repression is much easier to oppose than soft repression; the latter first needs to be defined, which is one of the things I'm teasing out in my own head here.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

If this twitter-storm included doxing, and and credible threats of harm, then I could see this argument. Did it? If so, I agree that it could be considered suppression of free speech.

Gamergate did include large amounts of this, and I agree. That attack on Charlie Hebdo's offices didn't just include threats of violence, it was outright violence.

But back to this soft repression. How do we prevent this without hard repression of speech? In the example here, Moore made a twitter post. Fine. Then each of the reactions... each of those individual persons also had a reaction to Moore's speech, and engaged in speech. Should we somehow say that after, maybe 10, of those people have spoken -- the others saying the same or similar things should be silenced? And how silenced? Is that not a worse suppression of their speech? If they are making threats, most places that protect free speech don't consider that to be protected speech, and that can (and should) be repressed. If not, it seems iffy.

[sabotabby]

Yes, but the legal definition of suppression of free speech isn't about violence, it's about state involvement. Which is where much of the incompleteness stems from.

But back to this soft repression. How do we prevent this without hard repression of speech?

Because we don't rely on government. Soft repression calls for creative tactics, not state intervention. Calling out people on their hypocrisy would be the logical first step. It doesn't always need to be gulags or laws.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Not sure about the legal, but for example Amnesty International will actively support people whose freedoms are threatened by non-state actors. I think a proper definition of freedom of speech has to include freedom from the threat or use of violence by non-state actors to suppress one's speech - and, crucially, the failure of the state to protect one from such violence or threats. Otherwise, repression can simply be (and often is) outsourced.

[sabotabby]

Yes, absolutely.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

I think this is one of those situations in which nobody is really a winner. I think we should bring back gladiator combats but with straight white men that almost everyone else dislikes, just because it's the only good thing that could come out of it.

[sabotabby]

As long as Tarantino gets to film it. Yeah, he's a straight white man, but he's really good at filming gore.

[angiereedgarner.livejournal.com]

I think Rogen and Moore are trying to signal that they are wise to the grievous plight of the small percentage of Americans directly bearing the costs of our foreign wars... thus they backed down. The fight they want is not with veterans and families.

I would personally also be (physically) scared of Clint's ppl.

[sabotabby]

That's a much more charitable explanation. (The lack of ability to say anything negative about Our Troops is also, however, a problem.) But I don't think the people who jumped on them were primarily veterans or families; they were people like Palin. I think your latter explanation is more likely.

[croneitude.livejournal.com]

Excellent post.

[sabotabby]

Thanks!

[matrixmann]

This is far one of the best contributions I got to read to that topic.
Didn't lose some "friends" through that debate, but sure got tempers heated.
Surely everyone I've talked to over the topic of events in France who was from overseas had his problems in understanding that media creators should get some kind of inner censorship within themselves (as a person) because there are people out there which are willing to kill you for what you say and the government is not able to protect you.
Or, as in the case of The Interview, that there are situations you don't make jokes about because they're just too serious.
It's like attacking a dogma in Western world.
It's like talking to a believer in the Middle Ages that the clergy are just humans as well if you try to say freedom of speech also has become a cover for throwing around with dirt randomly.
They literally shrink back from perceiving - and I don't know what they think about you in the back of their minds if you give an indication to that.

[sabotabby]

Weirdly, I'd have had less issue with The Interview if it was actually good, or if it had been made by Koreans with some inkling of what went on in North Korea. A huge part of the problem is that practically no one makes good satire anymore because there's a conflation between "I have the legal right to say a thing" and "I should actually say a thing."

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I suspect the reason nobody makes good satire anymore is deeply tied up with other themes you have explored here. I believe that to be effectively satiric one needs a deep understanding of the target. That's what makes, say, Life of Brian, so effective. They aren't parodying Jews or Romans at all. They are paodying a certain kind of middle class christianity, public schools etc. American film makers probably could make good satire(*) about mega-churches or Fox News but they don't want to or dare not.

(*)Well maybe. I'm not actually sure Americns are capable of irony.

[sabotabby]

Hah, good point.

That's what makes, say, Life of Brian, so effective. They aren't parodying Jews or Romans at all. They are paodying a certain kind of middle class christianity, public schools etc.

Don't forget the sectarian left! They obviously know what they're talking about there, and it's beautiful.

(*)Well maybe. I'm not actually sure Americns are capable of irony.

Americans are sincere to a fault. That's largely why I find most of their comedy so horribly unfunny.

[matrixmann]

Maybe that would ease some things.
Been writing some pieces about that topic, how entertainment is twisted around these days. And it addresses the core "lots of people create something, but in the end they only create spectacular unrealistic shit which makes the people even go dumber about reality and clouds them in a parallel universe which only exists in their minds". Even the news follow these rules and that's the one main factor why people are stupid about the reality and why there's so much violence, hate and mistunderstandings. People are under the influence of fairy tale writers which try to refuse to even be aware of it and try to reject that they carry some kind of responsibility for mankind if they spread their fairy tales.
Recently read a translation of text written by some Russian and it seems like the problem becomes more aware in the East - freedom of speech has also become a cover for people who have nothing meaningful to say or who want to throw around with dirt.
You can extend it even more, saying: It (also) has become a cover for highly egoistic anti-social behavior.

[sabotabby]

You can extend it even more, saying: It (also) has become a cover for highly egoistic anti-social behavior.

Oh, yes. It's never about the protection of unpopular speech; the big free speech battles are all about the right of white guys to be jerks. Funny coincidence, that.

[radiumhead.livejournal.com]

The seth rogen thing wasnt that big a deal. Moore is an asshole.

[sabotabby]

Of course Moore is an asshole. But that's hardly the point. If everyone's Charlie—and Moore's detractors are Charlie to a man—the right to be an asshole is sacrosanct.

[outcastspice.livejournal.com]

Yes! Yes to all this. I have been so disturbed by the backlash against any kind of critique. Messed up.

[sabotabby]

Yeah. It's hard to put my finger on what is so disturbing about it, hence this little ramble.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

This says a lot of what I've been thinking. And the point about just whose free speech gets protected and who's doesn't is a really good one and an angle that I hadn't properly taken in.

One thing that particularly got to me was the German newspaper that accidentally included a cartoon caricaturing a Jew along with the ones caricaturing Mohammed/Muslims/Islam, and apologized for that. We apologize for offending Jewish people, it had only been our intention to offend Muslims.

Now, there are excellent reasons for anyone, and most especially a German publication, to want to avoid publishing offennive images of Jews. But then you can't say, as a lot of people seem to have been doing, "We are publishing these cartoons of Mohammed because Free Speech". If you are publishing them, it is because they are sending a message that you wish to send, and if it's offensive to some people then you consider it either perfectly justifiable to offend them, or that the offense is at worse an unfortunate side effect. And if you don't publish other cartoons/articles etc., it is because you do not wish to send those messages.

[sabotabby]

Joe Sacco's commentary remains my favourite on the matter. A close second was Scalzi's, who wrote something about the vast majority of Muslims who consider the depiction of Mohammad to be offensive are not the sort of people to ever do anything about it, so why offend millions to get back at a murderous few?

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

Just today I was reading an article on that transphobic Green Party douche in Cambridge that explained the meaning of the word "cis" in a really 101 way, and someone in the comments kept posting over and over again this weird faux-Soviet pastiche along the lines of "Comrade must use assigned word. Comrade will use 'cis' unless comrade wishes to go to gulag" -- they responded to each of like a dozen comments in this way. I don't know if they were just trolling or if they really thought they were making some kind of trenchant critique of the left by showing how politely asking people to learn what "cis" means is ENFORCING MINDCRIME, but either way, it's interesting how the disempowered are assumed to be using literal state apparatus to force people to talk about their identities in approved ways. Like, even if this guy was just a troll, he clearly thought that the shadowy powers that control the country are all sex workers and trans activists, or at least thought that image made some kind of sense. The total reversal of the real power structures at play (see also: White Guys Who Just Can't Get A Break, Persecuted Christians) makes people genuinely think not just that minorities have power, but that they have GOVERNMENT power. So in this perverse way, within their worldview, their cries of "censorship" are actually technically correct!

[sabotabby]

How do I get in on this sex-workers-and-trans-activists conspiracy?

Seriously, though, it blows my mind that when I say (at least in a cultural context), "this is a bad thing people should not do this thing," the immediate leap is to "Great Leader Sabs wants to ban everyone from doing this thing." As if I had that kind of power!

P.S. We still on for tomorrow?

[whatifoundthere.livejournal.com]

MEETING YOU WAS FUCKING FUN LET'S DO IT AGAIN SOMETIME

[sabotabby]

YES ZOMG!