I’m not sure why I’m dignifying your pedantic blathering with a response, but I am feeling frisky so let’s go :) First and foremost, your alleged agreement around the “anti-queer” rhetoric espoused by Hollywood (and a tacit acknowledgment that that is probably not good) is undermined right out of the gate when you condescendingly referred to me as “Ms. Mosner” even though it says right there in my bio that I’m non-binary and you have no idea whether I’m married anyway. “waah waah identity politics” yes I know it’s very hard for you to keep up with. Do try to keep up though, dear!
Second, the mocking tone with which you also say “Nazis, which are very bad!” makes it impossible to take any of the rest of your pseudo-intellectual screed seriously. Nazis are bad; you don’t need to make jokes as if you’re tired of hearing people condemn them – unless you’re actually a neo-Nazi troll yourself? You don’t have a robust profile, and haven’t published any writing yourself so you could be literally anyone.
It's hilarious that you feel so emboldened to come here (reading through all the comments like a triggered bored child looking to start fights rather than engage in real dialogue without being rude) and have the audacity to suggest that I owed Tony (or you or anyone else being condescending or insulting) a kind response. You wouldn’t know this, troll, but it’s vulnerable to put writing or any other personal creations into the void.
Although you are presenting as a Black person in your photo (which you may or may not be, troll), when you write “Jewish” or any other identity people don’t like in your bio—and of course simply when you publish sentiments people disagree with, people will come after you with exceptionally rude and sometimes outright bigoted and cruel remarks. I am a human being (are you, troll?), and even if many of my beliefs and goals for humanity stem from social justice and a general sense of desiring compassion, I am not trying to be Gandhi (who was a rapist anyway, btw) and I sincerely couldn’t care less about being beyond “ad hom” as you repulsively truncated it. Please never write that again.
I don’t owe anyone being rude a polite response; I love engaging in productive discourse and even the sad response you wrote here could’ve had seeds for meaningful discussion if you didn’t have such a perverted need to put a femme writing about social justice in their place. Bet that sentence caused your shoulders to hunch up– take a deep breath and relax, “Luke.”
Your reactionary response to an OPINION piece is reflected in your highly reductive and even flatly incorrect points. First of all, in regards to me “[framing] Hsu’s Oscar snub as another shameful occasion where class privilege trumped talent” – that one I’ll assume was a typo or just projection. This isn’t about class, this is about race.
When you wrote that the piece “[didn’t] even mention the actual acting at all,” that is incorrect. I specifically said Jamie Lee Curtis did a great job, she just wasn’t the most memorable, and she didn’t carry the story the way that Hsu’s character/performance did. The range and depth of her characters wasn’t nearly as expansive or riveting as that of Stephanie Hsu.
I didn’t feel compelled to get deeper into that because it is extremely subjective, and sometimes less is more. Why don’t you write an article with a piece of genuine media criticism and I’ll inform you of exactly where and when you should’ve added an additional five paragraphs of unnecessary detail in order to pacify the insatiable appetites of trolls looking for literally any imaginary gaps in your “thinkpiece” of SUBJECTIVE media criticism.
If you read when this was posted, you’ll notice that it was literally less than a day after the Oscars actually happened. What’s comical to me is that in the high academic standards you hold Medium writers to (lmao have you spent any time on here? It’s largely a dumpster fire), you seem to think that I should’ve had the integrity to… interview Academy members to inquire as to whether or not the votes they cast were deliberately racist? 😂 How about you Venmo me an appropriate amount of money for a piece of investigative journalism and then I’ll hold myself to the editorial standards of the New York Times.
Unfortunately, people like you cannot be consoled or convinced when any topic that you can easily dismiss and deride as involving “identity politics” is in question. Your own preconceptions that identity politics=bad (as opposed to just the simple fact that we live in a society historically and continuously stratified on the basis of many intersections of identity, which presents many inequities and nuances and complexities) renders any real conversation impossible. And makes me wonder why I’m wasting my time responding to you, though I think you and I both like exchanging a few feisty words now and then, amiright?
Regardless, an important take that multiple Black women (including highly talented writers on this platform) have illustrated is the fact that Angela Bassett would have been equally worthy of a lifetime career-based achievement award, but Jamie Lee Curtis won the category. At a certain point, there is absolutely no amount of evidence that could convince those who would sacrifice their lives (perhaps in an actual Civil War/prepper way at a point maybe not far in the future) to protect the idea that nothing is EVER a result of white supremacy or institutionalized violence.
People like you generally don’t pay attention to long, fact-based and highly rational (and nuanced) critiques of systemic oppression aka “identity politics” even when they are meticulously researched and written (like Michelle Alexander’s book “The New Jim Crow”) and are certainly not going to be impressed by the amount of additional sources I could’ve linked to to reinforce an extremely obvious fact that Hollywood began as a white supremacist institution and still carries that legacy.
Would you have felt better if I talked about minstrel shows so my ten-year-old readers who might not know about them believe that there was a factual underpinning for my claim about institutionalized oppression in Hollywood? Would it have been more honest of me to then pat Hollywod on the back for its progress because those aren’t widely acceptable anymore?
I didn’t write a nuanced response to Tony because I was preoccupied with the fact that he was being rude and thus didn’t deserve any more energy than to be viscerally reminded about why it doesn’t feel very good when strangers are mean to you on the internet (but alas, here we are). Anything beyond showing him how his behavior comes across was extreme generosity, though far from the well of research and knowledge that I have and could invoke on the topic.
Then again, much of this is, as we can both agree, subjective. Hence being an OPINION piece. And the fascinating thing about media criticism, troll, is that even if it does have some hyperbole to its tone, and even if it does sometimes come across as sweeping or indignant, the fact that it would trigger you this much to respond in the way you did – you could’ve actually written something original in that amount of time!—is absolutely why it’s important for there to be freedom of expression and a multiplicity of voices and opinions in the realm of public discourse.
Your *preferences* may be in more palliative or neutral tones, but that’s why you’re welcome to seek out and read content that reinforces that need to be coddled. Or, better yet, since you saw that I responded directly to another comment (one that you referenced), why don’t you gather the courage to address me directly and express your actual points for an actual conversation (if that is indeed what you seek), rather than try to parade your stuffy, boring “intellect” in this big “ME H8S WOKENESS” temper tantrum you wrote, masquerading as a sEaRiNg critique!
Pot kettle here, but lemme tell you it’s actually not hard to NOT be condescending to someone if you genuinely want to have a dialogue. I’m telling you that for future purposes, since I’m closed for business after your pathetically rude “ad hom” attacks (isn’t that gross? Can you hear it? Makes all the fur stand up on my spine!!).
What I’d love for you to discuss with your therapist more than anything, troll, is why you are so fragile that seeing an opinion about institutional racism on a UGC blogging platform makes you feel so compelled to shart out all of your rage about social justice. I think you’ll feel lighter if you talk about it. Maybe you yourself are queer. Maybe you are just sad and need to feel better than someone else. Whatever it is, I’m muting this, so I hope you get the help you need and wish you a nice life.
