Tag: identity politics

Trevor Noah, James Gunn, and the problem with outrage culture

The outrage cycle has struck again this week — this time targeting two big stars in Hollywood and the late night circuit. In Hollywood, the Director James Gunn was fired from the Guardians of the Galaxy series after a number of vulgar tweets he authored about ten years ago surfaced online. On the other side of the US, in the late night circuit, the host the Daily Show, Trevor Noah, came under fire after a video of a racist routine targeting Aboriginal women also appeared online. The video, which is four years old, has to some calling for Noah’s upcoming tour in Australia to be boycotted.

There are some big commonalities between these two events.

First, both were incidents that happened a number of years ago, but only surfaced in the last week. Both were instances of people trying to make jokes, even if vulgar, crude and racist. More important both have expressed remorse for their jokes, with Noah saying he dropped his joke after he realised it was offensive (but stopping short of apologising), and James Gunn showing immense regret for his comments. Both are also now facing serious consequenses for their words, with the action against Gunn (being immediately fired) in particular being quite severe.

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The troubles with challenging identity

Last week I shared a very controversial article from Rebecca Reilly Cooper about gender identity. To summarise the article Reilly Cooper argues that making gender a ‘spectrum’ (with all the new identities that come with it) ends up just creating more restrictive gendered boxes, when what we need to be doing is tear down the idea of gender itself.

It’s not an understatement to say that the article was controversial and there was a particularly heated, but I think in many ways fruitful, conversation about it on the Queers Facebook page where we also shared it. There were plenty of critiques of the article, which is great, but I thought I wanted to focus on one. Many, I think rightfully, argued that Reilly Cooper took an extremely dismissive/snarky/aggressive tone toward trans and non-binary people, at times outright mocking them for their chosen identity and the politics that underpinned those identities.

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Three Billboards, I, Tonya, and the value of a complex narrative

In the past few weeks I saw two of the best movies I’ve probably seen in many years. Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, and I, Tonya (both movies with commas in their names) are both frontrunners for a number of Oscars and have been big hits this summer. 

Both have also been controversial! Three Billboards has been critiqued as being racist and portraying short statured people in a reductive way, while I, Tonya has been criticised for valourising a criminal at the expense of the real victim, Nancy Kerrigan.

In doing so I actually think these two films also have a lot in common. Dealing with issues of sexism, class and racism, the critiques of both films highlight some of the weaknesses of a purist form of identity politics, and in turn highlight the value of complex narratives when it comes to issues of identity and oppression.  

Before we go ahead beware that there are spoilers for both of these movies contained below, although for I, Tonya it is less relevant as I only write about historical facts that are already in the public domain. 

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