Complaining is Easy, Especially When You Don't Know What You're Talking About

The VP. Is she being Asian enough?

I received the following news alert from Politico on my phone this afternoon: “After four months in office, Kamala Harris faces a criticism that she is more focused on being the first black VP than the first Asian American one.”

And so we have my early nominee for the stupidest sentence of the year.

Here’s a thought, maybe Ms. Harris’ primary focus is on being the VP. Period. Full stop. And maybe, by being VP while Black AND Asian American she is being a Black and Asian American VP. 

I did not click on the story but I have to wonder if there was any criticism for her not focusing enough on being the first female VP. 

What mind would level such a criticism? Who looks at her and says, “yeah she’s being a Black VP, but I’m not getting much of an Asian-American VP vibe from her.”

This makes me wonder if Pete Buttigieg is being a gay enough Secretary of Transportation.

I am here reminded of a film I called Making Love (1982) Hiller. It was noteworthy for it’s story line: a married man comes to term with his homosexuality and leaves his wife for another man. For it’s time it was groundbreaking. Today it would seem rather tame and probably dismissed for not fully exploring its themes. However at the time I found one criticism of it to be baffling. A gay critic complained that the two gay men were both successful professionals and that’s what made them palatable to straight audiences. He said that was a cop out and he’d have preferred if at least one of the man was not so respectable. Does anyone else recognize the fact that if one or both of the men had been poor, unsuccessful or troubled, there would have been complaints about the way gay men were depicted?

I similarly remember complaints about the film Fatal Attraction (1987) Lyne in which Glenn Close played a spurned lover of a married character portrayed by Michael Douglass. Not to put to fine a point on it, but she went nuts. The movie was a critical and financial success. But. Some feminists objected to the depiction of a strong career woman as being a psychopath. Note to filmmakers: all strong, career women in movies must be morally upright people. I know that imposes certain limitations on you but we can’t have people thinking that strong career woman are by nature nutcases.

I recently read a criticism of Dances With Wolves (1990) Costner, the Oscar winner for best picture in 1990. It was a well-reviewed and popular film that, for reasons I’m not entirely clear on (other than it beat out Goodfellas (1990) Scorsese for best picture) has faced a backlash in the past twenty years. Anyway, someone on Twitter recently complained (and this contention drew support) that the movie is another example of a white hero (Kevin Costner) coming to the rescue of Native Americans. Good god. Do people ever bother to watch a movie before complaining about it? There are no heroics by Costner’s character that benefit the Sioux tribe he joins. He merely becomes a de facto member of the tribe as he comes to learn about, appreciate and adopt their way of life. They are the heroes. Not him. Indeed he makes life worse for them because the U.S. army is determined to capture and punish him for desertion. Dances has a depressed ending in which Costner and his wife leave the tribe to live in the Canadian wilderness, while the tribe itself must escape the oncoming white soldiers and settlers. But yeah, have it your way, he's another "white savior."

Criticizing politicians and movies is a perfectly respectable pastime and profession. But knowing what the hell you’re talking about should be a prerequisite. 

I liken this to the attacks on the song Baby It’s Cold Outside which, though there’s not a word about Yuletide in it, has been a Christmas season staple for years. It has become très chic in recent years to lambaste the song for being about being about date rape. A couple of years ago I debunked that claim by taking the radical step of looking at the lyrics. There's no rape in the song. 

I’m now reminded of an acquaintance who, like me, was not a tall man, complaining about Randy Newman’s song Short People for, supposedly, making fun of those of us who are vertically challenged. Here are some of the lyrics from that song: “Short people are just the same?As you and I/(A fool such as I)/All men are brothers/Until the day they die/(It’s a wonderful world).” The idiot hadn’t bothered listening to the song before bitching about it. The song is about prejudice, not an attack on short people.

But complaining is fun and easy and who has time to know what the hell they’re talking about?