Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”
So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”
Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.
Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.
I'm fully 100% on board with "Know why you think things, and be able to explain the reasoning", I'm always saying this
...but can someone explain the "Art should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art"; what the hell does this mean? Why would you ever want something to have problems?
I think it's less saying that, and more saying "art will always have problems; art is made by people, and people are fallible, and even the best thing you've ever read/played/heard/watched has problems, and thus saying 'this art is problematic' is sort of a useless statement on a macro scale because yeah, all art has problems"
I'm pretty sure they meant that art has problems, as in it provokes thoughts on a specific topic that is taboo or otherwise not talked about, because that is, to my knowledge, one of the main functions of art, to take a real thing, real problem, and make it digestible to the masses.
