The New York Times: The civilized dinner party is probably over — even when you’re dining with friends. Everything means too much now. Everything. Our politics, obviously. But our genders, our food, our television. Our television. Last month, I was in a six-way conversation about HBO that narrowed into two people hung up on “Insecure,” a sitcom co-created by and starring Issa Rae about two best friends — Issa and Molly — in Los Angeles. It just ended its third season on HBO, and I’d describe my ongoing viewership as “exasperated fealty.”
2 comments:
I get what the author is saying. It is hard to be critical of art when that art is the result of the world’s progress towards equality, but I personally continue to critique art no matter how progressive or important it is. To me, it is much more important to continue progress rather than to settle for “good enough”. I feel like this notion is why shows like Miss Siagon are still produced despite being incredibly racist because at least East Asians are in the spotlight for once. One point the author makes though, is that sometimes personal artistic preference also shouldn’t be voiced when it is against these important pieces of art if they aren’t problematic but simply aren’t all that good. I personally still think it is important to think about these things. Bad plot structure or flat characters shouldn’t be ignored simply because the work is produced by a minority. That said, this kind of critique can be tricky as sometimes we can fall into a trap of saying something is bad because it doesn’t fit our mold which can be pretty patriarchal, whitewashed, Christian, or any other combination of standards related to negative power structures. That is the issue that we have right now and one that should be thought about carefully when judging art works from other walks of life.
I can see where the author is coming from and a part of me agrees with him. Mediocrity should not be accepted because it is made by a person of color. Any form of art should be critiqued for its quality. People of color have been on hen back burner for a long time when it comes to TV shows and it is nice to see someone who looks like me on tv and who can be a source of inspiration for children. At the same time, there are some shows and movies I criticize a lot even though it has minorities because the quality is it up to par. Being up to par at the same time should not be decided by what is considered excellence by a white-dominated industry. So before we can criticize the work, we have to make sure it is actually dependent on the work and not on the what is considered “excellence”. All this goes to say that make sure you’re not biased before the critique happens. The author talks about artists who are problematic and those who are problematic-faves and the treatment we give to the different classes of people. That makes me ask the question, can an artist be completely separated from their art? Celebrate the art but not the artist.
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