In his column at the Hollywood Reporter Kareem Abdul-Jabbar about the mobs that assemble to punish “social infractions” makes a very sensible observation:
We need to have a rubric to judge social infractions. What exactly was said or done? In what context? What was the intention? Who was offended or hurt? How badly? How long ago did it happen? Is this a first offense? I, too, want to eliminate offensive speech and actions as quickly as possible. I still believe justice delayed is justice denied. But we need to judge the totality of the person, not just a stray utterance. How many of us would survive under that strict litmus test?
One of the things I’ve noticed about the defenestrations of James Gunn, Amy Powell, Roseanne Barr, and John Schnatter is how rarely those leading the charge are those who’ve been injured by the remarks. That suggests to me that an element of opportunism is involved.
That is not to say that there is not a genuine problem as Mr. Abdul-Jabbar concludes:
We must not let these discordant sounds distract us from the deeper injustices. Companies quick to fire seem more interested in promoting a memorial to their virtue than attacking the systemic problems that would address putting more people of color, women and LGBTQ people behind the camera and in executive positions. In the 1,100 top films from 2007 to 2017, only 4 percent of the directors were female. And even if women do direct a successful film, they are rarely hired to direct another of the same level. Over the same span, only 5.2 percent of the 1,223 directors were black, and 3.2 percent were Asian.
although I have a nit to pick with his concluding formulation. How many is the right number? “Asians”, a characterization that itself makes me uncomfortable, comprise 5.6% of the U. S. population. That they are 3.2% of the directors does not sound like a grave injustice to me unless, that is, you believe that 12% of directors should be black, 16% Hispanic, 6% Asian, 1% Native American, and the other 65% white. How is that to be accomplished? Also, check out the roster of those in front of the camera. For many primetime television programs such assignments would mean that more whites would be in the casts rather than fewer.
I also hasten to point out that Hollywood is a business. More women will be directors when women directors make more pictures that lots of people want to see. That time may already be here as the great success of Wonder Woman suggests.
My proposal for handling hurtful utterances would be, in descending order of priority:
- Do your level best not to intentionally hurt another’s feelings.
- If you are so sensitive that even an unintentional remark causes you severe distress whether you are the object of the remark or not, seek counseling.
- Grow a thicker skin.
and that rubric applies to presidents and presidential candidates as well as to bloggers and people who post on Twitter.
I hope that we are in the adaptive phase of social media, but I can’t be sure that this won’t change and might even get worse. It is so easy to use and so easy to herd people where you want them to go. There just isn’t much of a measured response. Everything is overboard. I agree that people should be judged in context, and a lot less whining and playing the victim would surely help. However, there remains a lot of people making a lot money to keep everyone angry. Even if there were some grassroots effort to reduce the heat level those people making thousands and millions of dollars are very good at what they do, so I am not optimistic about this changing much.
Steve
This piece on Quillette by Toby Young on his “fall” is an interesting, if longish, read.
This kind of thing is exactly why I’ll remain pseudonymous on any kind of public social media.
The current spree of outrage-based character assassination is, IMO, pretty awful and emblematic of our political and societal dysfunction.
I’m actively teaching my kids about this. My daughter now is on Facebook and I pound into them every chance I get that “the internet is forever.”