Consumption of problematic content in media

There used to be another thread on this, but it couldn't really facilitate discussion as it was a poll, so I made this.

What are your thoughts on consumption of problematic (i.e. racist/sexist/homophobic/trans*phobic) content in media?

I'm not talking about the content itself, but about consumption of it.

On the one hand:
- Acceptance of the medium doesn't equate to acceptance of the message
- It is possible to enjoy something except for certain parts, and those parts could always be the problematic content
- Sometimes, problematic content can be used to drive forth an important social message (for example, a character of a racial minority having racial slurs flung at sper [my gender-neutral pronoun; don't worry about it] to illustrate how terrible it is to be discriminated against)

On the other hand:
- If we talk about equal rights/social justice/political correctness/whatever you wanna call it and all that stuff, then turn around and consume such media, it may make us look like hypocrites who "talk the talk" but don't "walk the walk"
- It may desensitize us to the real-world equivalents of such problematic content
- If we purchase such media, the people behind it will receive money for the problematic content that they created, and so will be encouraged to make more

So, yeah. Discuss.

Ether's Bane said:

- If we talk about equal rights/social justice/political correctness/whatever you wanna call it and all that stuff, then turn around and consume such media, it may make us look like hypocrites who "talk the talk" but don't "walk the walk"

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"problematic" is way too broad a statement. By your argument, since Pokémon Emerald contains sexist text if you play as the female character, it's problematic media, and it's arguable that the fact that Pokémon Emerald is my favorite Pokémon game makes me a hypocrite.

Really it's impossible to avoid problematic media, so I'm. not entirely sure what you're getting at with this whole discussion.

Altissimo said:

"problematic" is way too broad a statement. By your argument, since Pokémon Emerald contains sexist text if you play as the female character, it's problematic media, and it's arguable that the fact that Pokémon Emerald is my favorite Pokémon game makes me a hypocrite.

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No, I wasn't calling you a hypocrite - in fact, I agree with you. The OP was only put there to illustrate potential pros and cons that some may bring up.

To be honest, I care more about fiction than social justice. That's not to say it's objectively more important - it's not - but it does mean that if what I consider to be a good piece of fiction is problematic, I sigh and wish it weren't but wouldn't boycott it any more than you'd suddenly refuse to visit your favorite grandpa ever again if you found out he's a bit racist. (That's provided by "problematic" we mean perpetuating common harmful attitudes, not actively and consciously advocating for abhorrent ideas. If you found out your favorite grandpa used to murder people for being black, it's fairly likely he's going to stop being your favorite grandpa.)

However, I also disagree vehemently with the idea that something like the Pokémon Emerald example is meaningfully problematic at all. Just because a character in a work of fiction has harmful attitudes, it doesn't mean the story approves of those attitudes - not even if it doesn't explicitly disapprove of them. It's bad if it's being perpetuated by a supposedly unbiased narrator, or if the narrative validates them, or if the character is glorified, but stories are allowed to be about bad people and flawed people and racist and sexist and so on people. There is nothing whatsoever inherently wrong with writing about fictional sexist (etc.) characters, and people who think there is make me sad.

Butterfree said:

However, I also disagree vehemently with the idea that something like the Pokémon Emerald example is meaningfully problematic at all. Just because a character in a work of fiction has harmful attitudes, it doesn't mean the story approves of those attitudes - not even if it doesn't explicitly disapprove of them. It's bad if it's being perpetuated by a supposedly unbiased narrator, or if the narrative validates them, or if the character is glorified, but stories are allowed to be about bad people and flawed people and racist and sexist and so on people. There is nothing whatsoever inherently wrong with writing about fictional sexist (etc.) characters, and people who think there is make me sad.

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That's kind of the point I was trying to make with my example - the mere fact that Pokémon Emerald contains a character who expresses sexist attitudes does not make Pokémon Emerald (or Game Freak, or Nintendo, or Pokémon Emerald's translators, etc) an inherently sexist work. The way that the original post was worded made it sound like "problematic media" was media that contains any sort of problematic idea whatsoever, and since Pokémon Emerald contains a character expressing sexist ideas, then Pokémon Emerald is problematic media, and I was using that example as a way to argue that enjoying something containing problematic ideas does not make one a hypocrite or anything else. The fact that I enjoy playing Pokémon Emerald does not make me a sexist person, despite the fact that I always play as the girl character and thus am always forced to see those sexist statements, because the fact that the game contains a sexist character has no bearing on anything else about the work. (Especially since that's like two lines at the beginning of the game that are never really brought up later on in the game.)

What about when content is problematic, but the consumer doesn't find out about it until after they have it?

Like BW2, for example. There's a lot in that game that bothers me that I wasn't aware would be in it when I got it.
I would rather consume a product and know when and where it's problematic, rather than condemn it on the testimony of others. It's the reason I read the Twilight series. I wanted to understand for myself what was wrong with it, not because I enjoy reading vampire fiction. Often, when something comes up as controversial, it makes me want to go and experience it so I can better understand all the fuss.

Now if somebody claimed to be in support of social justice for all minority groups, and then denied that there was problematic content in things they enjoyed without good defense of their claims, that would be hypocritical.