Atem Talks: ‘Problematic’ Fiction and Media

Or: “Who has time for this bullshit, really, when we could be playing card games?”

There’s a disturbing trend on Tumblr where certain aspects of media are accused of being ‘problematic’ for various reasons. The characters have abusive or misogynistic tendencies. Serial killers are glorified. Drug use. Child abuse. Rape. Violence. Crime.



Some of these criticisms are legit, such as a distinct lack of minority representation in mainstream media, though that falls back on the reasoning that a) media, television in particular, is a business that caters to their largest customer base for maximum profit, and b) the largest customer base is usually the majority population in a country, which in North America is white people. It may not be right or fair, but it makes economic sense.



Others are taken sorely out of context and aggravated to the point where they are no longer recognizeable. There seems to be this underlying concept that all media must pass certain imagined ‘criteria’ and obscure standards in order to be considered ‘acceptable.’ Personally I’m of the opinion this is just an excuse for some people to consider themselves ‘better’ than others because they think they ‘recognize’ the problems in their shows.



The thing is, as long as you’ve been raised with an ingrained concept of right and wrong, most people already inherently ‘acknowledge’ these so-called ‘problems.’ A child being abused should not have to be pointed out as ‘wrong,’ because you, as the viewer, should already look at it and think, “God, that’s f***ked up.” We know it’s wrong. Is the writer then wrong for writing this abuse, even if it appears, initially, to be portrayed in a positive light? And should they then not be allowed to write about abuse, or murder, or anything deemed ‘problematic’ unless it’s portrayed in a certain way? (If you answered yes, and you don’t see the problem with that, let me explain to you why you’re dead wrong.)



Writers don’t just write to evoke positive emotions, to arouse, to make the reader feel pleasant. We do occasionally do that, but writers most often want to evoke the most powerful emotions they can. We want our work to sting, to horrify, to hurt. If you’re in tears after reading a tragedy, the writer has done their job. If your heart breaks for that poor child who was abused by their parent, the writer has done their job. If the brutal maiming of a victim makes you sick inside, if the fact that the serial killer again evaded justice makes you angry, the writer has done their job.



Writers aren’t here to pacify you. It isn’t our job, and never has been, to ensure that what we create doesn’t make you uncomfortable. That’s literally why it exists. Yes, we often write pleasant love stories, inspirational works designed to leave you with warm, pleasant, happy feelings. But a truly talented writer is able to make the reader feel the full range of whatever emotion drove them to write in the first place, even if that means ripping your heart into pieces.



We want to shock and horrify. The reason this brings me back to ‘problematic’ media, is because you simply cannot take a concept or idea from a piece of work out of context and deem it ‘problematic’ by nature, in and of itself. The writer expects it to be seen that way. That’s the point.



There’s an argument that “if it’s shown in a positive light, then it’s wrong.” The problem with this is that a good writer is an expert at toeing this line. Take the serial killer Dexter. Dexter Morgan was a main protagonist and a killer, always got away with his crimes, and was portrayed in an extremely light-hearted, positive, and almost satirical context, yet the reader never once forgets that Dexter Morgan is a murderer and a monster. The reader loves him, feels emotion for him and his family, and they connect with him as a protagonist, but we also know, inherently, that killing is wrong.



Obviously, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Some people will see a killer like Dexter Morgan as a role model, and at least one person did. But if it could be argued that Jeff Lindsay is responsible for the crimes committed by his fans, then it would logically go to follow that every fan of Dexter became a serial killer. As we in the scientific community often say, correlation =/= causation.

Another example would be the controversy surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey and it’s controversial main character, Christian Grey. I’ll be honest, I think that both this book and movie are a load of bunk. They showcase and market an abusive relationship as a romance, and I do have a problem with that. But the same principle applies. Fifty Shades of Grey and it’s writer, E. A. James, are not responsible for what people take from their work because if they were, then every fan of the book series would automatically become abusive. That’s how causation works.



Finally, we have the issue of fanfiction and the nature of ‘shipping.’ When people write stories for their ‘ships,’ outside observers will assume they’re simply ‘wanking’ to their fanfiction. It’s a very oversimplified view. Any genre of fiction, and fanfiction, contains hundreds and even thousands of collective works. In Supernatural, one of the major fandom ‘ships’ involves the brothers, Sam and Dean. To say that every shipper ‘gets off’ to ‘incest porn’ is grossly innaccurate to 90% of the fandom’s collective works. Writers will try to showcase certain aspects of the relationship and they will, for the most part, address themes and tropes related to the incest taboo. Similarly, it’s also a common concept to ‘age down’ characters in just about any fandom - and because wincest shippers do this as well, they have been accused of ‘getting off to incest child porn.’ You can see how taking the original concept of two demon-hunting, masculine brothers, both over thirty years of age, and calling it getting off to incest child pornography is a ridiculous accusation in and of itself. Yet the conflation of these three variables (two brothers + aged-down fiction + occasionally written in a romantic context) is the basis for accusations that every single work of fiction within the fandom, by nature, contains all of these elements at once. The fact is, that a single writer rarely puts all of these elements and others together, and when they do, there’s no indication that writer expects their reader not to recognize the problems in the content itself. A good writer, as I said, can create a beautiful piece of fiction in which two people clearly struggle with the incest taboo (or a similar one), without implying that the writer themselves believes the taboo itself should be normalized. That’s up to the reader’s interpretation.



How you view ‘problematic’ media is up to you, because the writer cannot read your mind and they cannot be expected to know what you take from their work. Our one and only intent is to express what’s within us, and to communicate it in a way that you can understand. But that’s not always how it works, because people often take things away from fiction that the writer never intended. But they should never be barred from writing about certain elements or themes. Ever. It’s incredibly restrictive, and imposing rigid rules on fictional writing sets a dangerous precident, because it cripples the writer’s powerful ability to evoke strong emotion - often anger or fear - over the injustices of the world, by showing them to you through context. If you take that away from us, we lose half of our ability to communicate our own emotions.

Whenever you begin looking for misogyny, queerphobia, potential ‘apologism,’ imbalances in representation, and overall ‘problematic’ content in the media you consume, you start to see it everywhere. Most media isn’t meant to make a grandiose statement about society in general, it’s simply meant to entertain. You can watch a show harmlessly, even one that contains potentially ‘problematic’ elements, and enjoy it as passive entertainment. You may overlook or ignore minor problems, such as an offhanded comment that could be taken offensively or the number of characters that represent a particular minority population. That doesn’t make you an apologist. It just means you’re more focused on the plot itself, and aren’t thinking about those things.



But when these things are pointed out to you and you start to notice them, you really do see them everywhere. The ‘problematic’ elements you think you find in television shows are no different, really, from feminists who note that a women’s razor in one store is 30 cents cheaper than a men’s razor and cries “Patriarchy!” (even when the same razor can be found cheaper online).

‘Problematic’ fiction, fandom, and shipping does not support or condone abuse any more than ‘rape culture’ and 'patriarchy’ are responsible for a minor disparity in pricing on certain gendered products. It infuriates me to no one that people are so bitter, disenfranchised, and frustrated with fandom and shipping that they feel the need to constantly project their misery on others. But when you look for misogyny, when you look for ‘abusive’ elements’ in the fiction you consume - you start to see those things everywhere you look. The fact that they may seem obvious to you is more a reflection on the focus of your own point of view, and less a statement about the content of the media itself. That’s the brilliant thing about media - it’s seen differently by everyone, and the writer’s intent may not necessarily align with the elements you think you see as a consumer.