Thread by @Informatter

Yes, I’m still talking about #BadArtFriend. I’m not sorry about it.

To further understand the resonance of the case of Dorland v. Larson, we need to place it in the context of larger conversations in our cultural moment — namely, the misogynistic treatment of women in media. 1/

2021 was the year #FreeBritney went mainstream.

Meghan Markle’s explosive interview revealed how callously a tabloid-fed public can treat a human when they’ve been shrunk to a caricature.

With @MonicaLewinsky's new TV show, we’re reminded of just how shittily we treated her. 2/

@MonicaLewinsky Much of the criticism against Dawn Dorland’s behaviors — that she was too narcissistic, too hysterical, too earnest, too obsessed, too stalkerish — are coded in misogyny. Never mind the fact that many of these critiques have since been debunked. 3/

@MonicaLewinsky (An aside, but as a lowly pleb I'm intrigued that so many writers who have built a career breathlessly promoting themselves are roundly accusing someone of being narcissistic. Anyways.) 4/

@MonicaLewinsky And to be a bit meta, the inclination to reduce #BadArtFriend to a dramatic catfight is also, frankly, a bit sexist. There are interesting, important and searingly insightful discussions happening around this that shouldn’t be dismissed because most of the actors are women. 5/

@MonicaLewinsky @stevealmondjoy *almost* got there with his piece in WBUR, but let his lazy biases and poorly disguised superiority complex get in the way. 6/

wbur.org/cognoscenti/20…

@MonicaLewinsky @stevealmondjoy @bobkolker does a good job of cluing us into another, different context: appropriation in fiction. There’s a lot to think around how and what artists can borrow for their art. But his piece doesn’t consider the possibly problematic shading of Dorland’s feelings and actions. 7/

@MonicaLewinsky @stevealmondjoy @bobkolker Our focus on one potential injustice — that of racism — exposed our blind spots to other injustices. To be clear, racism as it operates in art/media is *absolutely* real and potent. But in decrying racism, we shouldn’t resort to sexism (or any other prejudice!). 8/

@MonicaLewinsky @stevealmondjoy @bobkolker It seems that in spite of mainstream discourse around our (mis)treatment of women in the eye of media, we continually fail to recognize these impulses *when it’s happening in real time*. I am not excusing myself from this, either. I think someone should do a study on this. 9/

@MonicaLewinsky @stevealmondjoy @bobkolker And with that, I think it’s equally important to acknowledge Sonya Larson’s humanity in all this. In recognizing Dawn Dorland’s mistreatment, I hope we don’t let the pendulum swing back so far that we completely reduce Larson to a one-dimensional #BadArtFriend. 10/10