Do not feed the trolls: What are the traps of political correctness
Dmitry Kurkin
After a month after Scarlett Johansson, due to active protests, abandoned the role of a transgender man, a flash mob was launched in social networks demanding that actress Ruby Rose be removed from the draft of the Batwatch series. Critics, among other things, point the CW channel to the fact that Rose, who had previously identified herself as a person with a floating gender, should not play a lesbian (and uniquely cisgender) heroine, and that the current version of Batvumen is Jewish, and Rose - not. And if the first one at least draws on the argument for discussion (although it causes confusion between the concepts of sexuality and gender identity, which it still stands to divide), the second one already clearly gives away trolling.
Formally, the logic is the same as in the case of Johansson. Or in cases where the producers of Disney's adaptation of "Aladdin" ignored the actors of Middle Eastern origin and thus brought upon themselves accusations of "bleaching." The Jewish heroine is played by a non-Jewish - is there not a whitewashing?
"Double standards!", "Why can not one and others can?", "Stop otmazyvat their own!". The arsenal of network trolls' arguments looking for visible inconsistencies and holes in the logic of social justice fighters has not been fundamentally changed since the concept of “political correctness” came into use. It is hard to imagine that those who uphold the principles of equality and mutual respect should at least once not be accused of hypocrisy, and the institution of reputation at least once was not tested for stupidity.
Clever provocation, strictly speaking, is even useful. It allows once again to remind you why social justice wars are being conducted in principle, and to stop the substitution of concepts before it is too late. And the substitution, obviously, occurs where drawing attention to the real problem is replaced by formalism and contrived literaryism. Transphobia in Hollywood, as a result of which transgender actors cannot even play themselves, is a reality, and Rose’s “insufficient Jewishness” is still a nagging, Hollywood is difficult to blame for anti-Semitism, there’s not even a problem of “visibility” that can theoretically emerge from stars playing homosexuality.
The ethnic background is one thing, the acting talent is another, the first can support the second, but these are still different scales. In the ideal world that advocates political correctness advocate, the conversation is merely about the absence of a sign prohibiting specific groups of people from entering casting or into the industry. But there can be no talk of a ban on acting as such, allowing one to play another, to step back from himself in the name of the character.
However, the development of social networks, which shortened the reaction time of the outraged public to a couple of hours, gave the trolls a weapon of hitherto unseen power. In this sense, the story of the dismissal of director James Gunn from the set of the third part of "Guardians of the Galaxy" is indicative. And it is not even a question of whether it is fair to punish a person for the sins of the past. Disney has the full right to make decisions based on their own understanding of whether they want, as a family-oriented company, to hire a director who, ten years ago, recklessly tweaked on Twitter about rape and sex with minors. In the end, this is their project, their money and their reputational risks. It is indicative that a small provocation was enough for a large corporation to take a lightning-fast and, apparently, an irreversible decision.
Clever provocation allows once again to remind you why social justice wars are conducted in principle, and to stop the substitution of concepts before it is too late
And, of course, this would not have happened if there were no similar high-profile stories with serious consequences, initiated by those who oppose infringement of the rights of social minorities, incitement of hostility and hate propaganda. So is political correctness to blame?
If it is to blame, then only in one thing: an explanation of what social justice wars are for does not fit into one hundred forty characters of a standard tweet. In a good way, every campaign against discrimination and hatred would have to be accompanied by at least a short educational program. Why every time a cisgender actor is taken on the role of a transgender character is bad news not only for the acting community, but also for the appearance and adoption of transgender people as such - and why does the struggle for appearances not contradict the idea of acting reincarnation? How do inappropriate jokes support national and racial stereotypes? Why does the frivolous attitude towards hate speech turn into hate crimes, while benevolent sexism stands in the same harness as the "culture of rape"?
This is a tedious job that requires patience, which is not enough for everyone - especially when the trolls come across especially persistent. New York Times editor Sarah Jong did not have enough patience at one time, and she decided to pay back the trolls with their own coin, trying to parody the speech of her haaters - for which she paid with accusations of "racism against white people." On her good fortune, the editors of the publication turned out to be far-sighted enough to look beyond the ready-made patterns of political correctness and not pull the old Jong tweets out of context. Because without context, any war for social justice turns out to be absurd - and this is what the troll armies use.
As for the trolls, a healthy immune response against them has been found for a long time. They just do not need to feed.
Cover: Nike