#valid criticism

The first thing everyone needs to understand is that everyone has very different tastes and things they enjoy.  Even in such a niche fandom as Tokusatsu. One person’s all time favorite series might be someone else’s least favorite.  A show currently airing that you might be enjoying might be savaged by fandom in general.  

I think the biggest problem is that people (myself included at times) tend to consider our favorites to be ours, a part of who we are and we take them to heart.  When we see someone else tearing them apart or getting upset about then, we feel a need to get defensive and protect “our” series.  This is just a part of human nature and even if the attack isn’t directed at us, we can feel that it is.

There are a lot of people in the tokusatsu fandom that I deeply respect and who follow me but we have wildly different opinions on individual series and series creators.  While I do not agree with their takes on things, I always respect their opinions as long as they are respectful of mine.

On the other side, there are elements of any fandom that get so upset about a series that they insult the people who are enjoying it.  That’s not acceptable.  Dissatisfaction with a television series or a movie should not ever be seen as a fault of the people who do enjoy it.  It is not the fault of the people who enjoy it that someone else finds the quality lacking. 

An example from my own experience.  I had serious issues with Kamen Rider Gaim.  I didn’t hate the show but it didn’t blow me away like it did with some other fans.  

Yet, I didn’t go out of my way to attack people who enjoyed it by posting on their posts about my issues.  I answered questions about my criticisms when I was asked but for the most part, I don’t want to rain on anyone’s love parade anymore than I want them to come to my blog and dump on a post I’ve made about something I am enjoying.

I wish we could all be mature about our likes and dislikes but sadly, this is the internet and expecting maturity and respect is oftentimes expecting too much. We need to strive to be the ones who bring that to the table and not respond to negative comments with more of the same.  It just feeds a cycle that escalates into name-calling and derision that no one has any time for.  

We should all be too busy watching toku to get involved in flame wars and personal attacks.

Mary : I’m not ‘just a mom’ and you’re not a ‘child’.

Me : Of course, Mary! You’re not ‘just a mom’. Why should you even be a ‘mom’ at all?

-  Just because Sam and Dean are your biological sons?

- Just because you had an unfortunate death while Dean was 4 and Sam was just a baby?

- Just because your husband and their father went completely nuts to seek revenge for his beloved wife’s death?

- Just because in that process, their entire childhood, teenage-hood and most of adulthood got severely damaged?

- Just because your sons finally and this time, actually have a real chance at knowing their ‘mom’ and living a mother-sons relationship with her?

- How dare does this 35+ old man ask for a chance to be a ‘child’ for once because he never had an opportunity to be one?

- How dare does the man sitting next to him refuse to understand you and show his displeasure because he never had the chance to bond with any of his parents?

- Just because God’s very own sister resurrected you as a thank you gesture to your eldest son?

- Just because EVEN God/Chuck and Amara knew how deprived the Winchesters were and are of love? Particularly the parental love?

- Just because it all started with YOU, because of YOU and for YOU?

- Just because you have an opportunity to have a second shot at life, an opportunity to start all over again, an opportunity to have a family again?

- How dare they be angry at you? How dare they express their hurt, anger and disapproval? How dare do they show you any disregard or disrespect? Just because you have been working with, siding with, advocating the people who have both tortured and tried to kill your sons, lying to them straight in the face, betraying them and their trust, putting their lives at risk for those people. So unfair! 

- How dare do they show you the door! Because after all, you’re their ‘mom’. Oops! Sorry, you don’t want to be a ‘mom’, ‘just a mom’ or whatever is that your definition of a ‘mom’ is.

You don’t have to be a ‘mom’ at all. Please don’t even try to be a ‘mom’ anymore. You know, why? Because, in all honesty, you do not deserve to be one. Not anymore.

In other words: the valid criticism is about the content IN the show and not about what ISN’T IN the show. That’s what makes it VALID criticism instead of bullshit criticism made up to shitbag on the show.

And you know what? This is the last time I’m going to bother defending the show because at this point I’m realizing that it doesn’t matter what bullshit criticism people who don’t like it come up with… They come up with it because they want to shitbag on it - why? I don’t like to assume but I’m pretty much convinced now that it’s for discriminatory reasons and likely a load of confirmation bias against teen drama shows. Although that never seems to be the problem when it’s a STRAIGHT and WHITE teen drama show. 😤

But the issue I take with all of this is that people are saying ‘First Kill’ is trying to be more than what it is.

It isn’t. Not once have I seen the creators, cast or crew claim that ‘First Kill’ is anything more than what it is. And what it is is a supernatural romantic teen drama show. So it’s not going to be deeply detailed.

What it is going to be is cheesy nostalgic fun.

If you’re not into that - that’s fine.

But just shut the fuck up then because many people are and they don’t need to see your negativity about the show before they see the actual show.

That’s my entire issue with this. I’ve been trying my damnedest to defend the show not because I like and enjoy it, but because it’s really great and necessary representation for QUEER and Black/POC people. We have had shows like this before. More than I can count. But they have never been for US before and that really matters to me and I’m sure many people.

- WTYP put of context

The terror attack on Israel by Hamas has been a divisive—if clarifying—moment for the left. The test that it presented was simple: Can you condemn the slaughter of civilians, in massacres that now appear to have been calculatedly sadistic and outrageous, without equivocation or whataboutism? Can you lay down, for a moment, your legitimate criticisms of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, West Bank settlements, and the conditions in Gaza, and express horror at the mass murder of civilians?

In the fevered world of social media, progressive activists have often sought to discredit hateful statements and unjust policies by describing them as “violence,” even “genocide.” This tendency seems grotesque if the same activists are not prepared to criticize Hamas, a group whose founding charter is explicitly genocidal: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees.”

Many of those making inflammatory statements come from what’s sometimes known as the “intersectional left.” This tendency is strongly influenced by the academic disciplines of queer theory and critical race theory, and by the postcolonial idea of the “subaltern,” or marginalized class. Like woke, intersectionality has become a boo-word for the right—but unlike woke, it is a label that some activists proudly embrace, particularly academics and young feminists.

Fitting Israel into the intersectional framework has always been difficult, because its Jewish citizens are both historically oppressed—the survivors of an attempt to wipe them out entirely—and currently in a dominant position over the Palestinians, as demonstrated by the Netanyahu government’s decision to restrict power and water supplies to Gaza. The simplistic logic of pop intersectionality cannot reconcile this, and the subject caused schisms within the left long before Saturday’s attacks. In 2017, Linda Sarsour, one of the organizers of the Women’s March, told The Nation that Zionism and feminism were incompatible: “It just doesn’t make any sense for someone to say, ‘Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and do not criticize it in the movement?’ There can’t be in feminism.” In January 2018, several pro-Palestinian groups boycotted a Women’s March because it featured the actor Scarlett Johansson, who once made an ad for an Israeli company that has a factory in the West Bank. On the other side, Jewish groups condemned three of the Women’s March organizers, including Sarsour, for associating with the openly anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

The leftist belief in the righteousness of “punching up,” a derivation of standpoint theory, is also important here. Again, this idea has mutated from the reasonable observation that different groups have different knowledge based on their experience—I have never experienced being pulled over by a traffic cop as a Black man, and that limits my understanding of the police—to the idea that different rules apply to you depending on your social position. When an oppressed group uses violence against the oppressor, that is justified “resistance.” Many of us accept a mild version of this proposition: The British suffragettes turned to window smashing and bombing after deciding that letter writing and marches were useless, and history now remembers them as heroines. But somehow, in the case of the incursion from Gaza into Israel, the idea of “punching up” was extended to the murder of children. I simply cannot comprehend how any self-proclaimed feminist can watch footage of armed militants manhandling a woman whose pants are soaked with what looks like blood and decide that she has the power in that situation—and deserves her fate.

The sheer number of apologies and climb downs that followed the initial wave of inflammatory posts suggests that some of their authors issued knee-jerk statements of solidarity before they understood exactly what they were endorsing. As the full extent of the weekend’s barbarity becomes clear, some on the intersectional left are—to their small credit—revising their initial reactions. But others are doubling down. Confronted with real violence by genocidal terrorists, they failed the test.