New book and other things

1) I'm currently reading We Are All Multiculturalists Now by Nathan Glazer.  It's about multiculturalism in education from the perspective of the 1990's.  On some level it doesn't feel like it's telling me anything really new, not drawing on things I haven't already read about and thought about and griped about.  But I also feel like parts of it are groping toward explicitly stating something that I've struggled to state.  I won't state it in the midst of a quick post, but I'm thinking about it.  It ties in with an essay I'm working on.

2) I'm reading this 2017 piece on how identity and representation get explored more and more in art criticism.  I don't have time to pick apart the whole piece, and I always try to be skeptical about claims that something only started recently.  At the same time, this excerpt ties into something I've been thinking about for a while:

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment it became evident we’re in a new era of criticism, but a good candidate for that tipping point might be the 2012 controversy over the all-white principal cast of HBO's Girls. 

Some critics had been pointing out for years that TV and movies offered an unrealistically white portrayal of New York City; there was even a song about the inconsequential parts for black characters on Friends. But the idea that there was something wrong with this never got much traction in the wider media; when Friends finally introduced Aisha Tyler as a recurring character near the end of its run in 2003, she said: "I don't think anyone is trying to redress issues of diversity here." 

But by 2012, when Girls creator Lena Dunham was criticized for her monochromatic vision of Brooklyn, she felt a need to make it clear that she respected those criticisms by addressing them on the show.

2012 is an important year because it was the year after Occupy Wall Street.  OWS had a message of "We are the 99%."  There's a lot that's wrong with that (the upper part of the 99% differs from the bottom 90%), and a lot of silliness came out of Zuccotti Park, but at the same time they had a message that resonated, that brought people together rather than dividing them, and that pushed back on some genuinely bad stuff (e.g. bailouts for the rich and austerity for the rest).

Shortly after that attempt at unity, cultural criticism did seem to escalate in its divisiveness.  One needn't be a conspiracy theorist to note that a brief moment of unity was followed by chattering and writing elites--and the companies that market their work--emphasizing difference over solidarity.  It's a bit like how some people feel the need to scold working-class Trump voters about their privilege rather than empathize with their economic anxiety.  Yes, there's a lot that's wrong with Trump, and there are plenty of reasons to disagree with their supporters, but surely that disagreement can be framed in some way other than "You know, you have it pretty good!"  There used to be a word for people who told blue collar workers that they have nothing to complain about:  Republicans.

So, yeah, it is interesting that division overtook solidarity in elite commentary shortly after 2011.

3) As long as we're talking about commentary on art and entertainment, I highly recommend this piece by Lauren Oyler.