“Well…I gave up. I bought the audio for 30-some dollars and figured it might be a great listen. But I find myself dreading listening.
Part of it is the bleakness of the current landscape. That’s certainly not Roxane Gay’s fault. Every day is something new. Author Colleen McCullough dies, and in her obit someone basically feels the need to point out how unattractive the woman was, physically. Patricia Arquette makes a speech about how women should be paid the same to do the same work, and Fox News has to have an opinion about that. What the opinion is I don’t know. I’m still not entirely sure what the fuck Gamergate is, and frankly, I’ve been avoiding it because I like playing Castlevania. The main character in Castlevania wears a short skirt and has no face, so really that seems like the O.G. of gender ambiguity right there. I just want to play Castlevania. Two buttons, no faces.
I had a GIGANTIC review here, but I’ve decided to replace it with the other reasons that I didn’t want to continue and finish this book, and I decided to just put them out here.
If some of this was addressed later on, then please excuse my ignorance. I passed on about the last 1/3rd of the book.
1. The intersection of serious thought and pop culture didn’t really work for me here.
I’ll be the first to admit, a lot of the pop culture items discussed in this book aren’t ones I pay much attention to. That’s not in a holier-than-thou way. I just listened to a Now That’s What I Call Music album and will readily admit that the best song, easily, was a Katy Perry song. I’m not putting myself above pop culture. It’s just that the pop culture highway traveled by Roxane Gay and the one I travel are different.
Additionally, I think the idea of giving serious academic or emotional thought to an unserious topic, or a topic we don’t typically consider serious, is not something that lights a fire for me. The discussion about what is and isn’t high and low art, and the decision to give something more or less consideration because of that distinction, is really not an interesting conversation for me. Whether or not you think 50 Shades is a good book, it warrants some discussion because of its cultural impact. Which brings me to…
2. The criticisms of media didn’t get to the meat, or the meat I was interested in.
I’m not going to disagree that there’s something pretty racist about The Help. What I’m more interested in is why THAT book caught on. Why is a whitewashed (in the most literal and figurative sense of the word) version of black history one of the bestselling books of the last few years? I think I’m more interested in knowing why people like The Help rather than having it proven to me that it’s racist, and this is a critique I’d make of a few of the cultural essays. Rather than convincing me there’s something racist about Tarantino, I’m more interested in hearing why he’s such a darling. Rather than explaining to me that 50 Shades isn’t a great representation of a sub/dom relationship, I’d rather assume that stance with you and then hear about why that version is so attractive to people.
Now, I’m re-writing the book a little, and maybe what I wanted was never the intent. Which is cool, but it’s one of the reasons I didn’t continue on. I felt like the way this book dealt with pop culture didn’t go where I was hoping.
3. The language police discussions don’t do much for me.
In one essay, Gay says how a rape joke can never be funny. Then, in the next, there’s some discussion about how maybe a rape joke CAN be funny. There’s discussion about Tyler the Creator using the word “faggot”, and also some talk about how an audience received the word “nigger” in Django Unchained.
This is such a hard thing to change someone’s mind on. Which isn’t to say a person shouldn’t try. But frankly, I don’t have much cause to make rape jokes, I don’t use the word “faggot” and I don’t use the word “nigger.” Except when I’m putting the words in quotes in a review, an act for which I genuinely apologize if I’ve caused offense here. On the other hand, I’m not really into telling the general population what they can and can’t say, or what they can and can’t joke about. I’m not upset that Gay does it, I think it’s just a message which I’ve heard, made a decision on, and feel pretty good about. Which brings us to…
4. I think the sales pitch for this book was…well, a lie.
I feel pretty strongly that the audience for this, we picked up this book with the intent of loving it. Or loving it as best we could, considering the hard truth of the material.
I think the issue I had, this book was sold to me as being a bit more poppy than it was. The Amazon blurb says it’s funny. There were some jokes, there were some turns of phrase, but I’d be hard-pressed to call the book funny. Matter of taste, for sure, but I don’t know that the book’s purpose was to be funny.
While the book covers some very accessible topics, I didn’t find the book to be, overall, accessible.
Maybe that’s too far. I think what I’m saying here, it’s a book you have to reach out to. It’s not going to reach out to you. As a whole, anyway. The first essay, I thought that was excellent. Some of the more personal moments throughout were very well-written and fantastic. But as a whole…I guess, she made a lot of points, some of which I agreed with and some of which I disagreed with. And she made a lot of points that I just didn’t feel very curious about.
Now, of course, I’m a straight, white male. So maybe this book isn’t written for me. Maybe I missed the point entirely, and maybe the point is for people who are more like Gay, or who feel more like her, to read and feel less lonely, less alone. Maybe the point isn’t for me to see things from her perspective, and maybe the idea is that people who share her perspective see that they aren’t the only ones.
This might be another issue where I just wasn’t reading the right book for me. But I will warn you, if you’re looking for a good READ in addition to a book that makes a lot of great points, you might be let down a little. I think this is an important book, I think it has a lot of good things to say. But I felt more like I was reading an academic text than a book I would pick up on my own.
Again, it’s fine if that was the intent. Reading something like this in a college course would be pretty fitting. But I don’t feel like it was sold to me that way.
When you pick it up, read the first essay. That will give you an idea of what the best parts are like. Before you buy it, read one of the book reviews contained within. That will give you an idea of the parts that were, for me, a little tougher to enjoy.
5. “Men Want What Men Want.”
A quote, a chorus from one essay.
In this case, what men want is sexual conquest.
For a book that is very sensitive to race, orientation, body type, and a number of other things, this book tends to think of men as men. If you’re a man, you watch sports, you drink beer, you want sex, you think of women only in the context of sex, and probably the one I have the biggest problem with, you are very happy that things are the way they are.
Reading this book, I felt like being a man was treated as a tacit endorsement of the way society currently functions. Or doesn’t.
Like I said, I’m a straight white male. I recognize that provides things in life for me that other people do not get. I have access to things that other people do not have access to. There’s no argument, my life would be different if you changed any of those categorizations. I’ll own that.
What I won’t own is the idea that I’m happy about it, and that I like things the way they are. I will own the idea that I’m at the top of the demographic heap, but what I won’t own is that I’m fighting to keep it that way.
What I also refuse is to say nothing when men, the entire gender, are categorized as being, essentially, every dad from a sitcom. An uncaring, unfeeling idiot. A dolt. An oaf. Someone who can’t empathize and is emotionally underdeveloped and uncomplicated. A person who thinks only of sex, who puts the same value on consensual, loving sexual experiences as brutal, forced, criminal behavior.
Okay, that last one veered out of King of Queens territory. I don’t remember that episode.
“Men want what men want.”
Can we phrase this as a question? “What do men want?”
I want everyone to have the same opportunities. I want everyone’s basic needs to be taken care of, even if that means I pay a little more or have to work a little harder than my neighbor. I want kids to have the chance to succeed. I want people to feel safe. I want everyone to know and be confident that their basic needs will be met. I want the best person for the job to get that job, and I don’t want it to be a decision based on someone’s dumb, pre-conceived notion about what this or that type of person is good at. I want people to have sex with the people who want to have sex with them, and I don’t want to punish people for loving men or women or couples or transgender people or whoever. I want to be kind to people. I want to drink beer because I think it tastes good, but I don’t want to watch sports. I don’t even really want to talk about sports. I want my mother to feel loved. I want my sister and my brothers to feel that too. I want people to be nice to me because my feelings are pretty easy to hurt.I want to compete with men and women of all different types in all different fields, and I want to win when I do the best and I want to lose when someone else does better.
But hey. If it serves your thesis, go ahead and assume that my main purpose is the thoughtless moving of a blood-filled piece of flesh in and out any orifice with complete disregard of what that means to anyone or anything else. I’m not here to convince you otherwise. I’m not here to scream “not all men.” I’m just here to explain why I didn’t finish a book.
Let’s not assume that I’m finishing this review to go exercise and listen to podcasts because they make me laugh and because I like to laugh. Let’s not assume that afterwards, I’ll go home and cook chicken and vegetable stir fry for me and my partner. Let’s not assume that we’ll sit together in our pajamas and maybe I’ll make fun of her because she likes making spreadsheets and she’ll make fun of me because Katy Perry was my favorite part of Now That’s What I Call Music. Let’s not assume I’ll wake up tomorrow and go to my job, a job I’ve chosen in a female-dominated field. Let’s not assume I’ve found that experience fascinating and rewarding. Let’s not assume that one of the best parts of becoming an adult, for me, has been getting to know women as professionals and as friends who I really respect and care for and who respect and care for me as well.
It fits the narrative better, so let’s just assume I had to end this review now to swing out to a bar and pick up on some sweet poontang.”