An excellent thread here about the purpose of criticism as an intellectual exercise. Bee touches on a larger problem I see in progressive and minority communities, where people use criticism to morally absolve themselves of their tastes.
"Is this feminist?" is one of the most boring questions I can ask of a work of art, as a critic. (Not least because any answer, much as one can approach it, is almost invariably "yes and no"). But what's really being asked, I discovered, is "am I okay for liking this?"
It's not my job, when writing artistic criticism, to pronounce on the state of your soul. Whatever you like, almost certainly, doesn't make you a "bad feminist" or a "bad socialist" or what-have-you. I'm not here to pronounce that upon you.
And I think there remains a nettlesome tendency towards wanting our tastes to be a perfect reflection of our politics, because we've interpreted "the personal is political" precisely the wrong way around, leading to perverse intra-community pressures.
As I critic, I explore things that interest me about a work, and sometimes that leads me to mine its latent political meanings; I think this is important as it can help us all better understand the media we engage with. But it shouldn't become a code in itself.
And it sure as the Nine Divines isn't about pronouncing judgement on you for liking or disliking a thing. But if you *want* a political analysis, the belief that your tastes have to reflect your soul is a product of consumerism. Free yourself of that.
