Bad Faith Criticism: Context

There was a while where subtitles on Hulu didn’t seem to be working (or at least, not in sync with the audio); but that’s been fixed, so this week I finished The Three Musketeers: Milady in French! Had a cliffhanger ending, though, which was, uh, a bit of a surprise.

Presently reading an Alatriste book. 

I will be out of town next weekend, so I don’t know if I’ll have time to write another Saturday Note. But we will see!

Bad Faith Criticism: Context

[sigh]

Do you ever read or hear a really bad faith argument about a piece of fiction that makes you want to slap someone with a fish? Of course you do, we’re in the age when people are making actual money by vocalizing their hatred for things in YouTube videos. Anyhow, with the release of this year’s Superman, because we live in the Bad Timeline, everyone and their brother has a Hot Take on it and its “Message”, including former Superman actor Dean Cain:

He takes issue with Ma and Pa Kent being portrayed as “stupid rednecks” in the movie. This is… a stupid criticism. If you haven’t seen the movie, Clark’s adopted parents are not depicted by famous movie stars, but instead by ordinary-looking people who speak with country accents, and their first scene is them on a phone call with Clark struggling to understand how to use the speakerphone. Apparently Dean Cain saw this scene and decided, “Wow! They’re stupid!” and then just didn’t watch the rest of the movie.

Because they’re not depicted as bad people! When it comes down to it, the movie shows us that these down-to-earth folks who don’t understand modern technology or alien heritage or whatever are actually the best possible parents that Superman could have had. They raised Clark as their son and loved him, let him grow, and never forced their expectations or wishes on him unnecessarily. What made Superman such a good hero, a champion of humanity who will always try to do the right thing that inspires other heroes to do the same, is because of “stupid rednecks” you moldy biscuit!

And it’s absolutely insane that one of the reasons this guy is calling this movie “woke”, when his issue is apparently that he would have preferred that the rural working class farmer couple who lovingly raised their son in a hostile world were instead played by movie stars who knew their way around technology and talked like they were from the big city. Like, yes, I know this man recently announced that he’s joined a law enforcement camp that’s sending innocent people to concentration camps and calling it assault when a drunk guy throws a sandwich at them, so it’s not like logical thinking is his strong point, but it’s so monumentally stupid that it makes me want to punch a pumpkin.

I’m also reminded of another recent occurrence. This summer, I saw a performance of Waitress: The Musical. On the way out, I overheard another group talking, and the conversation went something like this:

Person 1: What did you think?

Person 2: I didn’t like it.

Person 1: What! Why not?

Person 2: I don’t like stories with adultery.

Which, um, first of all, maybe look up the Plot of a play before you buy tickets. But also, yes, Waitress: The Musical heavily features adultery in its story. There’s a message about it, in fact! And the message about adultery is: adultery is bad. The protagonist cuts off the affair at the end of the play because she knows how self-destructive it is and how it hurts the people around them. Her growth as a person comes with recognizing that she never should have done it, and turning her back on it completely.

Now, if your criticism is, “I don’t think the story conveyed that message well,” now maybe you’ve got something. That is an actual criticism, if you have something to back it up, like, “Hey, I thought the song about them having an affair was really catchy and fun, so it’s hard to believe I’m supposed to find it as a bad thing.” Sort of like how the ending of The Count of Monte Cristo is telling everyone how ‘Revenge is Bad,’ after a really long book of the title character pulling off the coolest revenge scheme anyone’s ever seen. TV Tropes calls it the “Do Not Do This Cool Thing” problem.

Reminds me of a discussion on Tumblr about Huckleberry Finn, and how someone complained there’s so much racism in that book. Yes, because it’s a book about how racism is bad.

These works are not above criticism! There are absolutely critical conversations to have about the new Superman, or Waitress, or whatever. That isn’t the point I’m making. The point is that so many times, somebody got worked up over one element, without looking how it fits into the whole story. It’s stupid and I hate it. More objectively, it’s not even really criticism, it only says that you’re not actually paying attention to the story in the first place.

—