Arting and Ponders

At times, Gatwa’s casting in those projects has been dismissed as an exercise in ‘box-ticking’. Gatwa scoffs. ‘First of all, you don’t know anything about me. Secondly, tick fcking boxes! People need to be fcking seen. What are you going to do, tell the same stories? Have the same people fronting things for all of eternity? Representation and inclusivity and branching out… it enriches us all. How embarrassing. You people with your tiny mindsets – open a book, look out the window and then f*ck off.’ (source)

What do I mean by the Third Argument? Well, I'm not sure I've ever made a post about this directly, but as far as I can see it, there are three main arguments for greater diversity in popular media. The first two are the most common, and they go like this:

It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see people like them on screen. That is, the beneficiaries are marginalized people.

It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see and learn about people who are not like them through art. That is, the beneficiaries are non-marginalized people, who then (hopefully) pass on the benefit by treating marginalized people better.

These two arguments are the source of a lot of debate here on ye olde tumblr. Despite both being arguments for representation, they pull in different directions. What counts as 'good' representation for the purposes of Argument 1 often would not be good for the purposes of Argument 2, and vice versa. Authentic versus sympathetic. Ugly or over-sanitized. You see this debate play out constantly. It's really hard for a piece of - say - queer media to do both at once.

But these debates tend to leave out Argument 3, the one that Gatwa is making above. And that argument cuts through a lot of this debate.

3. It is good for media to be diverse because art needs variety. The beneficiary of representation is art itself, absent any social effects that may or may not be present.

For this argument, diverse stories are intrinsically good. It is good to make art that's not just the same thing you've seen a hundred times before. Putting the kinds of people who don't often make it into mainstream media into your art is an extremely efficient way to make that happen. It's not the only method, but it's a really good method.

For representation to be 'good representation' according to Argument 3, all it needs to be is interesting. A story you haven't heard before, at least not in that medium. That which counts as 'bad representation' by the lights of this argument are stock characters, like the Eternally Patient Mother, the Gay Best Friend, the Wise Black Advisor. Perhaps there was a time in which these characters were new, but that time has long passed. There's no art in pulling a bog-standard character trope off the shelf. Show us a new kind of guy. The world is infinitely diverse. You're not going to run out. Telling the same stories with the same voices for all eternity, as Gatwa says, is boring. Even if there was nothing else wrong with it, this would be. Art isn't supposed to be boring.

The only things that work without rest are machines; literally everything that lives requires rest.

Like what do you mean every single year the Harkers, the suitor squad and Van Helsing are forced to relive the worst year of their life

Sure they win in the end but over and over they are forced to loose the people they love, be striped of their personhood and fight what must have seemed like an impossible battle.

And nobody is even aware of this time loop except us and we just feed into this narrative. “Oh my friend Jonathan has just sent me another letter let’s hope this goes better than last year ;)”

And from a literary analysis standpoint this whole change is inane because it frames the book in an entirely new light. There is a meta layer of horror being applied to the book that was never possible before.

[tags via : @heavenly-havoc]

Ratmir 

In a recent trip to a used bookstore, I found this, which looks like a wormy can indeed:

But I figure, if someone wrote this book they’re either going to be extremely wrong or have some really interesting things to say.

Much to my amusement and amazement, the introduction of the book is talking a lot about queer theory, abuse, harm (all things that are my areas of expertise), and Palestine. Couldn’t have timed this one better, I guess. Worth noting that it’s from 2016, so a lot has changed as far as the global perception of that conflict (understatement).

It is worth noting here that the author does not deny the reality of abuse or the harm of abuse, but clarifies that she's talking about a different thing. A different thing that is when stuff that is not abuse is treated like abuse and that rhetoric and mindset is used to justify subsequent actions.

This caught me cold:

HUH.

For screen-reading compatibility and ease, the text is as follows:

In this book, I bring fifty-seven years of living and thirty-five years of writing to a critical conclusion: that from the most potent potential for intimacy between strangers, to intimate domestic moments between lovers, to the claims of the state on its citizens, to the geopolitical phenomena of mass murder, we witness a continuum. Namely, false accusations of harm are used to avoid acknowledgment of complicity in creating conflict and instead escalate normative conflict to the level of crisis. This choice to punish rather than resolve is a product of distorted thinking, and relies on reinforcement of negative group relationships, when instead these ideologies should be actively challenged. Through this overstatement of harm, false accusations are used to justify cruelty, while shunning keeps information from entering into the process. Resistance to shunning, exclusion, and unilateral control, while necessary, are mischaracterized as harm and used to re-justify more escalation towards bullying, state intervention, and violence. Emphasizing communication and repair, instead of shunning and separation, is the key to transforming those paradigms.

Fuckign. Yes. (Emphasis added is mine.) Her particular example here is the resistance to the silence imposed from above regarding the AIDS epidemic, and how those protests were treated as active harm by the government and punished as such.

This is exactly the shit I've been thinking about for the last few days to an uncanny degree.

She goes on to talk about how Part One of the book is about distinguishing between conflict and abuse, starting within households and relationships and expanding to the realm of the state, then going on to "trying to understand how the police became the arbiters of our relationships" (YES!!!!! HOW???), and exploring these concepts in historical context.

Then on to summarize what she's doing in part 2, and this hit me like a water balloon on a hot day:

First paragraph:

Once this relationship between overstating harm and the Abuse by the state is established, I start to unravel some of the reasons why people are compelled to escalate. The centerpiece of this dynamic is the role of "bad" groups in encouraging bullying and shunning instead of peacemaking. Escalation is the key consequence of refusing to problem-solve or negotiate, and it demands our attention as a central obstacle to peace and justice.

But then I really want to linger on this last paragraph here. The rest is putting into words insights that I think I've already had. This last one is bringing up something that I have literally never thought of before.

In Chapter Five, I examine how Traumatized behavior and Supremacy ideology resemble each other, how both produce distorted thinking that seeks unreasonable levels of control over other people and does not tolerate self-criticism or difference. I propose a release of the stigma around recognizing mental illness, distorted thinking, and anxiety, and suggest that they be publicly and commonly recognized as contributing sources of this intolerance and control. And I try to look at cultural denial of these manifestations of distorted thinking as a strategy for the enforcement of dominance.

This. This feels like it might be cooking with fire. This is an extremely interesting thought and I think it bears a lot of exploration. It feels true, which means I'm going to be extremely critical of it going forward as I read and see how well it passes stress tests.

So: I had a pretty non-violent upbringing. Though it wasn't without disruption and trauma, it wasn't violent and I didn't experience much death and loss close to home. I also had an upbringing that left me pretty ignorant of the world at large. I didn't encounter anti-Black racism, and the media myself and my family consumed was purposefully diverse (like the middle Star Treks).

Now, I always had a drive to Do Justice. Naturally, I was attracted to police work first, because of the impression that copaganda had left with me. I thought that was how to do good and protect people.

Because, on the surface, the threats that I understood existed in America came from criminals and guns and violence. How could it be any other way? What I saw on TV was Bad People doing Bad Things and police putting things to Rights.

When did I learn that the causes of violence were so complex? Not until I was boots-on-the-ground meeting abjectly poor people and promising to defend them, earning their trust, hearing their stories, and coming to understand them. And even on top of that, really feeling out the shape of the criminal justice system and its numerous traps, which I have sketched out for Tumblr in the How The Justice System Works posts, took even longer. It took years of seeing and experiencing things firsthand and hearing from every person involved and realizing how complicated the truth is and following common threads anyway.

At this point, I've spent a literal decade learning this system. My knowledge and understanding of the juvenile "justice" system particularly in my state... like, I'm definitely in the top 100 experts, probably in the top 50, and maybe in the top 25. (A terrifying realization.)

Understanding required on-the-ground knowledge. It wasn't just viewing individual acts -- this crime, that police shooting, this prosecution, that mental health call -- and reaching conclusions. It was knowing where the training comes from. What the rules are. What the "gold standard" is. And even smaller things too: what the police sergeant says before he sends everyone out on patrol. The in-jokes. The sideways glances. The shorthand.

It's not that I think I need a master's degree to understand the Middle East (though to put together enough history to really get to causative roots, someone might need one). It's that my experience of the Israel-Palestine conflict is a whole lot of people Confidently Stating what they believe to be the Truth on Tumblr, combined with individual journalistic pieces. Lads and ladies, I've read the individual journalistic pieces on the criminal justice system, and they are the tiniest of windows, and they don't explain anything. I just don't trust all these sources of information!

Not that I think this information is necessarily wrong -- though, of course, it might be. Let's say everything I've seen and heard relates truthful facts, such as they are. Knowing that certain acts took place is only the first part of understanding a conflict. It's barely enough to start understanding who's responsible for even just that one act!

I think young people especially have a very difficult time with this. They haven't had the experience to really settle in one place and start to Understand how a system works, any system. There's nothing wrong with them; they're still growing. They don't know yet that when you open yourself up to points of view that are truly, absolutely foreign to yourself, you learn truths you didn't even imagine existed.

Today, when I see a kid shoot another kid, I don't see a little gangster criminal who needs to be locked up. I see a tragic trend of young black people in my city feeling like they need to carry a gun for protection, and the natural escalation that occurs from that point. I see causation that involves a world of violence and risk for them, where they do not trust the police and where owning a gun and having a gun is glorified. And I think it's pretty common now to acknowledge that gang violence is something that is perpetuated by the actions of the police and solidified by systemic barriers to economic freedom and progress. It's nice that the broader understanding has made it into the story so I don't have to explain it from jump every time.

But I'm just lacking that understanding when it comes to Israel and Palestine. Reading books will only go so far. (Which, I do still read books, but like. I understand the limitations therein.)

I simply cannot attain the level of understanding that I have for my clients with an overseas conflict. Not without without, like, a huge learning curve, and abandoning a place where I truly believe I am doing good.

I don't know their ground reality. I haven't held their hands and looked into their eyes and listened to their voices. And don't tell me "there are documentaries" -- I was a film production major on top of a poli sci major and I've done documentary filmmaking. I know how easy it is to make even a neutral event into propaganda. And there are so many people who want to make propaganda out of Israel and Palestine.

So, yeah, truth is complicated. My kid-who-shot-another-kid example: I'm drawing from a real life case here. My client was obviously not without blame. Brought the gun. Pulled the trigger. Took a human life. That is murder. It affected so many people. It removed a person from the world forever. War-related violence is also not okay!!

(In fact, at this point, I think I've come down pretty hard against violence of all kinds. From the state especially.)

And, even setting All This Shit aside, I think judgment and blame are impediments in a peace process.

So, while I can make some pretty simple statements, the majority of my judgment is reserved. That's just how it's going to be. Not because I'm pro-Jewish. Not because I'm pro-Arab. Not because I'm picking a side. Because of who I choose to be. I choose to be this.

I want Palestinians to be able to thrive without the oppressive and traumatic infliction of state violence. I would also like my Jewish friends here to be able to thrive without fear of a shooter breaking into a house of worship and killing their friends and family.