To Welbith and any others who have looked to culture and taken offense to actions without any discrimination intended, I say ‘relax’!
If someone did not mean to offend you, then you are being much too sensitive by taking offense and demanding anything at all from them – even if it is just an apology. It is starting to seem as though people have begun to look for racism, sexism, and whatever other label of offense they can find. Can you no longer enjoy a film for what it is, instead of only seeing (or seeking out) the underlying, and often unintentional, discriminatory messages?
The problem is this that when we try not to offend, we have to walk on politically correct eggshells and tiptoe around important issues with extreme caution. It’s annoying. Worse than that, it stands in the way of communication, and it vilifies even those who do not intend to cause any harm. In fact, it even vilifies people who work to right those wrongs of discrimination when they accidentally cause an unseen slight to someone without malice or intent.
Too many academic voices have become overly wrapped up in pinning laundry lists of faults to every aspect of culture today. Not every film or book or other medium can have every minority represented – it would simply cheapen or even destroy the narrative and realism.
I did not see the new Harry Potter movie, but I shall still do my level best to respond to the criticisms, in principle at least. First of all, how is it actually possible for this movie to be sexist – is the author, who has some oversight of the movie, not female herself? Does she hate her own gender, or did even she not see the unintentional faults?
With regards to race: Harry Potter it is NOT racist. Quite the opposite, they have included interracial couples, but Welbith still objects that the dysfunctional nature of these relationships is offensive. I wonder, isn’t it better for the relationship to be dysfunctional, as many relationships are. Does this not provide realism? Plus, does every member of a minority have to be portrayed as a paragon of virtue, devoid of flaws? Isn’t it better for them not to be so, for them to be portrayed as human? When authors and directors do include members of the minority, still you are not satisfied? It is beginning to seem that nothing can be un-offensive, especially not anything in our cultural mediums.
Let’s go back to the unintentional question, though. If everyone takes offense to actions that were only unintentionally offensive, then where will our society be? We shall never make any progress only playing the blame game, pointing out how unfair life is to whichever minority you most closely identify with – is this some form of broad narcissism? The film has no gay people in it, and heterosexuals are portrayed as the norm – but that is how society functions, so why should the film be any different? Is it even possible to make a movie that doesn’t offend anyone at all that is politically correct in every way? Perhaps it is time that we started focusing on things like wage-discrimination or affirmative action, things that actually affect people, rather than how you feel when you walk out of a movie and feel slighted from how minorities were portrayed. We cannot live in a world of equality, because it is impossible to not see differences.
