A (Very) Basic Guide to Critical Watching

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Bad news: Like most skills, you have to practice actively engaging with and analyzing cinema and television to get better at it. “Getting better at it” in this case means being able to pick out offensive portrayals (spoiler alert: they're mostly going to be of minorities!), recognizing denigrating stereotypes, and understanding what makes a strong character.

Good news #1: That means you get to watch lots of movies and TV shows! You can practice this skill literally any time you engage with media. If you stop to watch three minutes of commercials on your way out the door, you can analyze it. If you see a newscast or read a newspaper, you can analyze it. Anything created by a human is considered media, and anything media, you can (and should!) analyze it. This extends to things you might not even consider analyzing, like cereal box packaging and porn mags (I've read fascinating theory on both!).

Good news #2: Being able to do this well will make you better in multiple ways. First of all, you'll be a better person. Awareness REALLY IS the most effective tool in fighting prejudice. Once you understand the prejudices that are keeping our society- and possibly yourself- from treating people equally, you can start getting rid of those prejudices.

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Furthermore, when you understand stereotypes, you can avoid reusing them. If you plan on creating any kind of media in the future, this skill is invaluable. Obviously, it will help you avoid offending people through ignorance. Less obviously, you'll be surprised at how perfectly predictable a lot of stories suddenly become because they rely so heavily on stupid stereotypes. If you hope to create something New, Thoughtful, and Interesting, you better understand what's Old, Exhausted, and Boring.

Example: the people who created Portal had an excellent understanding of feminist theory, so much so that it oozes from every pore of the design. No other game comes close to how unique it is because the creators understood theory and used it to their advantage. It wasn't another First Person Shooter where you murder in a line to freedom (a masculine concept), nor is it a nonviolent puzzle game where you push around boxes to escape imprisonment (a feminine concept). It's a perfect combination of the two, and thus they doubled their potential audience by drawing in both genders (AND made bank, AND inspired other games, AND changed our culture for the better).

Having thus justified my future career, let's jump into it!

1.) All media was created by someone

This is a big one. So big I'm going to repeat it. All media was created by someone. You know this in a common-sensible way, because obviously somebody wrote that book and drew that comic and filmed that movie.

What I really mean is that a human being wrote that book, so whatever ideas and prejudices and desires and world-views that human holds has influenced their writing. It will inevitably be subjective according to their experience. They're influenced by the systems they interact with.

When I use the word “system” I mean the various groups of people that we interact with. Examples of systems you might belong to include your family, church, workplace, and social circles, each with their own distinct morality and cultural-acceptable norms. The word usage hearkens back to a heavy-duty theorist named Louis Althusser, who was crazy, and it's... a tricky concept, that I'll get into more another time.

So it's impossible to create objectively- and that's okay! If it were possible, I'd be out of a job, and I'd probably be way bored. Most of what is you're actually going to analyze is the subjective information the creator has added, unaware of their own bias.

A tame example is the author Carl Hiaasen; if you read one book by Hiaasen that has strong environmentalist overtones, maybe that was just a theme for that particular book. But if you read 5 or 6 Hiaasen books, you see they ALL have environmentalist overtones, because the dude wants to save the environment. Noble!

A more sinister example is Frank Miller. He sure loves writing women as prostitutes! (Relevant webcomic.) What the hell does that imply about his thoughts on women? I can tell you, it's not good.

Important note: All theory was written by a human being. So if you read theory, you still have to apply a critical eye to what they're saying, because THEY aren't objective either. Years ago I read a Marxist paper from the 1950s that was overall underwhelming (which is why I can't remember the title or author, though I can dig it up if any body's interested). The only “insight” from it I remember was that the gentleman who wrote it insisted women who protested still had to do their hair and make-up and dress nicely because they owed it to society to look beautiful. My reaction was phffff because it's obvious now how flippin' stupid that is. But that's earnestly what he- and society- thought at the time. Probably a lot of men and women reading that thought “Golly, this fella sure knows a lot about politics, he probably know about dames too!”

Important note that keeps me up at night: The idea that theorists can't be objective because they're part of a cultural system, and therefore don't know their own biases, was created by a human and is therefore subject to bias. Does this mean it's actually possible that somebody, someday could write without bias, but nobody will ever try because we're held back by the idea that no human can ever be objective? And then my HEAD EXPLODES.

I'm going to use this as an opportunity to clarify something about my theoretical background: I've always focused my studies on gender theory, which includes feminism and queer theory and lots of other stuff about men and women and those in-between. Though I have also studied Marxism, post-colonial theory,  African American criticism (that's about racism!), and others, I haven't focused on it as much. They're weaker points in my abilities and I'm working on becoming more fluent, but it's something to be aware of.

Also: if you disagree with something I say, it is important that you say so. Discussion is a big part in improving critical thinking skills because it allows us access to different points of view, and can help expose our own subjective blindnesses. The more you communicate and discuss ideas, the better your ideas become. That's true for ALL your ideas, not just theory.

2.) Why study popular culture? Media and the Zeitgeist

 Zeitgeist is a German loanword which means time-ghost. I just want to get that out of the way because I think it's awesome.

Okay, what zeitgeist actually means is the general spirit characteristic of a certain era, amongst a certain nation or group. For example, it can be said that part of the zeitgeist of the 1950's is paranoia and fear. It's easy to understand why; it was the time of the Cold War, where your neighbors were Russian commie spies, and every day you weren't bombed into oblivion was a good day.

But how do we know what the atmosphere in the 1950s- or whenever- was like? By looking at the media that was produced and popularized! The movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers gets made and becomes popular in the 1950s where people are terrified that anyone they know could be a traitor. Most likely, it would never have been made in the 1940's, and even if it did, it wouldn't have been as popular because it wouldn't have tapped into the subconscious fears or energies of the time. In the 1950s, though, people are drawn to it. A few people see it, but it connects to them. It feels very real, because it reflects what's happening to them. They tell their friends about it, and soon everybody's seen it. So many people saw IotBS that it become part of our pop culture- even if you haven't seen the movie, you probably have an idea what it's about. This movie is part of the United States National Film Registry because it's “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” - aka, it's part of the zeitgeist.

In general, the zeitgeist I'm studying is American culture in contemporary/near-modern times. Partially because that's what I think is interesting, and partially because that's the best time to study in order to change things in the future. Knowing the 1950s sucked isn't going to help us today. Knowing that we still live in a society that thinks all African Americans are criminals can help us today if we actively work to counter those views.

3.) We live in a binary society

Good/Bad. Male/Female. White/Black. Straight/Gay. Rich/Poor. Notice anything analogous in these pairings? The ones on the left of the / are things our society values, the ones on the right of the / are things our society devalues, or even hates. The good news is if you're a rich, straight, white male, you're probably doing alright!

However, I'm going to guess that at least one of those words doesn't describe you. Sucks, huh? Well, it doesn't have to suck! Because the idea of a binary society is completely fucking stupid, and once you're aware of it, it really starts to unravel.

Okay, so, there are LOTS of issues with this sort of thinking, but I'm going to focus on two.

Issue 1: It's completely fucking stupid. No, okay, seriously, it's completely arbitrary, and it changes so often that it's an almost useless tool when engaging with actual human beings.

Issue 2: If you're paying attention, you'll notice that those binary lists leave out a lot of people – trans-gendered people, asexual people, Asians, Latinos, Native Americans, biracial people, multiracial people, bisexuals, people whose morality isn't absurdly simplified... I could go on. The second biggest problem with the binary system is it's oversimplified. Nobody's all good or all bad. Honestly.

But the fact is, for most media (and for a hell of a lot of our society), these people simply don't exist. Even when TV shows have strong, well-rounded African-American characters, you're probably SOL on any other People of Color. Unless you have an episode where you go to China Town! Also, there are people who honestly don't think somebody can be bisexual, and that blows my mind.

4.) You're probably racist and sexist and classist and more, and why that's okay.

We can't help but be influenced by the zeitgeist we were raised in. I try to remember this whenever my father flirts with waitresses and my grandfather tells me to get back in the kitchen with my grandma. I can't get angry at them, because that's how they were raised. I can get angry at them for being unwilling to change, which they are.

And that's what this all boils down to:

It's okay to be prejudice, it's not okay to stay prejudice.

Joss Whedon is my favorite example of this. Towards the last season of Buffy, people started realizing that... there really haven't been that many black people in the show (I can name one from the first 6 seasons, Forrest Gates, who is not a great guy). As important as realizing it, people calling Whedon out on it.

Next we get Firefly, which has two amazing, well-rounded black characters. Good job, Whedon! You learned from your mistake, and the nerd canon is way richer for it.

Only... for a universe that's supposed to be half Chinese, Firefly sure doesn't have any Asians. It's suggested that the Tams are supposed to be Asians (Tam being a form of 'Tan', a common Chinese surname, and also they're a Doctor and a Martial Arts Master), but they're played by a couple of white people, so no points awarded. Interestingly, in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Commentary! The Musical, Maurissa Tancharoen's song (my favorite, surprise) is titled “Nobody's Asian in the Movies” and is very relevant.

By the time we get to Dollhouse, Whedon has developed a pretty rich cast! Not only are there multiple People of Color main characters, but a lot of the one-shot and background characters are PoC as well. Good work, Joss Whedon! People pointed out his deficiencies, he heard them and made changes accordingly. That's a big part of why I love him.

If you're reading this, it means you understand that it's possible that maybe there's a thing or two in your view point that could be tweaked to make you a better person. That's amazing. That's fantastic! If everybody in the world were like you, we could eradicate prejudice within a decade.

And if it were as easy as admitting that you have prejudice, then we could get it done in a year, two years tops. But it's not. You have to work at it, watch critically, and actively engage with cultures and people who are different from you, even when it's awkward or uncomfortable or you feel like an ass.

You will be a better person for it, I guarantee.