Which global injustices gain your sympathy, attention, and money? Rarely the most deserving. For every Tibetan monk or Central American indigenous activist you see on the evening news, countless other worthy causes languish in obscurity.
I have to admit that before I was against the 'whataboutism' over Cecil-the-Lion's assassination, I was mentally engaging in it myself. Of course I was horrified by the killing, and I couldn't fathom what sick bastard would want to murder an animal for sport and then pose with its corpse. I thought of Jon Stewart's 2004 graduation speech, in which he told the graduating class that, "If you end up getting your picture taken next to a naked guy pile of enemy prisoners and don’t give the thumbs up you’ve outdid us."
Not that I'm equating people and animals. In fact, my internal whataboutism was confined to the animal kingdom: why the outrage over Cecil and not the everyday poaching? Why Cecil and not the factory farming system? It didn't cross my mind to compare Cecil-outrage with (the supposed lack of) Syria outrage, as Max Fisher did. Which prompted me to wish that Mr. Fisher would stick to making simplistic maps and leave attempts at journalism to people with critical thinking skills, but nobody asked me. Then I saw a counter-intuitive racial divide in my Twitter feed: black people were expressing horror over Cecil and white people were complaining that white people were more outraged over a lion than over the epidemic of police violence against black people. Eventually, everyone was tweeting a bit of both.
I'd like to think that people are not actually less outraged about humanitarian crises and police violence; that the Cecil outrage is merely more vocal, as suggested in the first link, because it's clear-cut gratuitous and achievable: it's easy to channel outrage at a very wealthy man who went out of his way to brutally murder an animal who was minding his own business. Then I read Pia Glenn's piece about a friend of hers who hadn't heard of Sandra Bland, and understood where the 'whatabouters' were coming from.
I'm generally wary of whataboutism and outrage olympics because we can't afford to shut down attention to one issue, because there's something more pressing. There's always something more pressing. It's a slippery slope to, for example, "shut up, women in America; women in Afghanistan have it worse." But it would behoove us to look beyond brand-name causes and perfect victims, not for out outrage but for our activism and daily choices and voting behavior. By all means, sign petitions to extradite the lion-murderer, but let's also agitate for police reform. As for Syria, I've got nothing. I care, but I just don't know. That's why they're called complex humanitarian emergencies.
But let's move on (at least to the next stage of the lion saga), as we wait for CNN to "apologize for labeling Thailand as Zimbabwe," and talk about another issue that's been gnawing at me. I'm going to borrow Larry Wilmore's term, which he coined in reference to police violence, and talk about women in film: it's a very low bar.
I didn't mind "Trainwreck," but FSM help me if I have to read one more think piece or tweet about how it's a feminist revolution. First of all, it's not a great movie. Amy Schumer--this isn't fair, because it's not like she set out to be--is no Nora Ephron. Nora Ephron could write movies about women that were good--believable, witty, smart. "Trainwreck" is more like "Bridesmaids": farcical, crass, and feminist only in the very-low-bar sense. I don't mind crass, when it serves a purpose, but I don't need crass when it's there in the Ariel Levy sense: women needn't be crass to demonstrate that we can out-crass the guys.
Similarly, women's empowerment doesn't lie in being as emotionally stunted and dickish as men are stereotypically thought to be. I get that there's virtue in subverting stereotypes--in fact, the movie is great for showcasing men against stereotype. Hell, the best parts were those with LeBron James. But if the big feminist draw is that Amy is sex-positive and uninterested in commitment, why not showcase an emotionally healthy woman who is sex-positive and independent? Rather than a woman whose sex-positivity is tied to her commitment-phobia, which is in turn based on her immaturity and fear of failure at relationships? Which, in turn, is something to be cured as she meets the right man? Women (and men) can engage in casual sex without treating their sexual partners like shit; why do we celebrate Amy's dickish treatment of the guys she hooks up with? Women can be independent and complete as human beings--we can be happy without commitment--without being afraid of commitment. We can contradict stereotypical expectations without falling over ourselves to conform to stereotypes of men.
"Trainwreck" was a mediocre, watchable, mildly entertaining movie. We can do better.
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