It’s that time of year again. By that, I mean it’s the time when people either bemoan how few of their New Years resolutions they accomplished this past year and try to convince themselves they’ll do better next year. I’m not knocking the concept. I’m as guilty of that as the next person who dares to set goals at the end of every year.
I like to think I’ve accomplished a thing or two, but 2018 was rough for me. It’s not just that I was unable to find a new publisher for my outstanding manuscripts. When 2018 began, “Passion Relapse” and “Rescued Hearts” were my only published novels. I’d hoped to add at least one, but that didn’t pan out. I tried to make up for it by writing over two dozen sexy short stories, but I’m still determined to further publishing efforts.
Beyond my publishing endeavors, though, I underwent some pretty major upheavals. A very close family member of mine passed away, which was incredibly difficult. There were a few other major life events that I’d prefer not to share just yet. While 2018 had plenty of high points, the low points were especially painful.
Be that as it may, I’m more ready than most to close the book on 2018 and work on making 2019 much better. While I have my share of resolutions that I’d like to achieve, I would also like to contemplate resolutions that society, as a whole, can strive to achieve in 2019.
Let’s face it, we had some pretty bad moments in 2018. There’s a lot of room for improvement in 2019. I’m not saying humanity can fix all its problems in one year, but striving to do better is always worth doing. What follows are six New Years resolutions for humanity in 2019. Some are more ambitious than others, but I think these are minor steps we can take to making 2019 the best year it can be.
Resolution #1: Learn To Channel Selective Outrage For More Productive Purposes
This could’ve easily been a resolution for 2018, as well. It’ll likely be a resolution for years to come because, as I’ve noted before, getting exceedingly outraged over trivial matters has become a pastime, of sorts, for people these days. The internet and social media is just the platform. People are the ones who stoke the fires.
Whether it’s controversy over Jennifer Lawrence’s dress or getting all up in arms about old jokes from famous comedians, people seem to get outraged over exceedingly petty things. Now, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t get riled up, but there are some things that just aren’t worth the emotional energy.
Who hosts the Oscars or old tweets from a decade ago do not warrant this kind of attention in the marketplace of ideas. Scandals about big companies illegally harvesting user data or children being forcibly separated from their parents are more deserving of such outrage. There are things worth getting upset about and celebrity attire isn’t one of them.
For 2019, I think we’ll do everyone a favor by channeling our outrage into something that actually warrants it. It can’t just be about what celebrities do or whether certain video game characters are too sexy. There’s plenty of room to channel our outrage into something more productive.
Resolution #2: Stop Taking Certain Celebrities Seriously
This is closely tied to the first resolution, but I thought it deserved a resolution of its own. Let’s face it. Our culture is obsessed with celebrities. We have been since long before the rise of mass media. It’s not going to stop in 2019, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be more diligent with how we obsess over celebrities.
Specifically, we can go out of our way to ignore certain individuals whose rhetoric is barely discernible from typical trolls. I’m talking about the Lena Dunhams and Ted Nugents of the world. These are not serious people with serious ideas. They’re celebrities who pretend to know what they’re talking about and not very well.
There are plenty of respectable celebrities worth following and admiring. While the assholes may make the news, there are celebrities out there who do genuinely good things and they deserve true admiration. We can do both them and the world a favor by not giving so much attention to those who don’t deserve it.
When in doubt, just follow someone like Ryan Reynolds.
Resolution #3: Focus On Future Possibilities Rather Than Past Transgressions
There are a lot of factors that fuel outrage, controversy, and what not. One that often comes up involves past transgressions and for good reason. Historically, people have been committing horrific atrocities on one another due to differences in race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender. These actions are objectively awful. Nobody can deny that.
That said, focusing on them and bemoaning them constantly does nothing to honor the victims or reduce the potential for similar atrocities. We can’t change the past. We can only learn from it. The crimes, be they the horrific treatment of a particular race or the actions of a particular individual, cannot be undone. We can prosecute them and, if possible, we should.
However, there comes a point where focusing so much on past crimes becomes less about learning from them and more about whining. I see it a lot in debates surrounding race and gender. One race or gender bemoans how horrible they had been treated in the past and use that to justify their sentiments in the present. That’s not a productive use of history.
That’s because whining is never productive. It’s true. Things in the past weren’t very pleasant for a lot of people, especially if they were a minority. There’s no way to change that. Many of the victims and perpetrators are long dead and can never be held accountable. While that clashes with our innate sense of injustice, it’s not something we can change.
That’s why it’s important to focus on the future rather than whining about the past. We can’t change the past, but we can shape the future. We can do things that’ll make the world better for everybody, regardless of their minority status. Whining, however, is not one of those things.
Resolution #4: Celebrate Good More Than Emphasizing Bad
You don’t have to look far to see some pretty awful things happening in the world. Those awful things are usually the first thing to make the news. The whole “if it bleeds, it leads” mantra has a lot of distressing truth to it.
Even though 2018 had plenty of horrific news, there were genuine bright spots. Did you know that charitable giving reached record highs this past year? Did you know crime rates are tending downward in almost every major city? Did you know science developed a drought-resistant rice that could potentially feed millions? Did you know that Jean Grey finally came back from the dead in the X-men comics after a 15-year absence?
That last one was for me, as a life-long X-men fan. However, the point is still valid. There was a lot of good news that happened in 2018, in terms of society and civilization. Even in genuinely awful stories, you can find bits of hope here and there. You don’t even have to look too hard. The news is there, if you’re willing to find it.
That’s a resolution I think is worth pursuing, even if horrific news still gets our attention. The good will never shock us as much, but it will evoke all the right emotions. I strongly believe in having faith in humanity. I’ve explained why on a few occasions. I think we would do ourselves and our futures a favor by celebrating that good rather than agonizing over the bad.
Resolution #5: Laugh At Absurdities Instead Of Making Them Controversies
Beyond the good news and the bad news, 2018 had plenty of weird news as well. Granted, a lot of them came from Florida, but the principle is the same. Regardless of whether you think people are inherently good or bad, most can agree they do weird things. You can either lament for the future of our species or just laugh at it.
As it turns out, laughing is a lot healthier. It helps make difficult or strange situations easier to process. Let’s face it, we’re always going to have plenty of those, even if you don’t live in Florida. The best thing we can do is laugh, even if it’s not that funny. It’s something we should do plenty of in 2019 because 2018 showed a marked decline in peoples’ sense of humor.
There were controversies about jokes in the past and jokes that were in poor taste. Granted, not all of these jokes were funny, but making them into these big controversies about race, gender, and what not didn’t help. All it did was fuel contrived outrage over issues that didn’t need any extra fodder.
People are going to tell bad jokes. We can’t be as funny or as smart as George Carlin or Richard Pryor. People are going to get offended too, but that can’t be the sole basis for a controversy. Being offended is not a serious injury and offending someone is not a crime. If faced with the option of laughing it off or making a big deal out of something comes up in 2019, let’s just err on the side of laughter.
Resolution #6: Focus On What We Can Control Instead Of Agonizing Over What We Can’t Control
This is something that become a major talking point in 2018 and, at times, for the right reason. There was a lot of whining, especially in the world of outrage culture and politics. However, there was a bit more emphasis on what to actually do about it. Specifically, there was a huge push to urge people to vote in the mid-term elections. That effort, as frustrating as it was at times, paid off.
Voter turnout in the 2018 Midterm Elections was the highest it had been since the mid-1960s. The results paid off. People wanted change, there was a process for implementing that change, and they did it. That’s how we progress in a functioning society. It’s not always as extensive as we prefer, but it’s still progress.
This was in stark contrast to those who whine constantly about what one particular gender or race has done in the past. Like I said in the previous resolution, we can’t change the past. Whining about it won’t magically conjure a time machine or rewrite history. It’ll just incur pity, which is even less productive.
There are things we can do to help people. Do you want to help women who have been sexually abused? Contribute to legal funds that help them prosecute their abusers. Do you want to help save the environment? Consider donating to the World Wildlife Fund or invest in green energy. Do you want to help victims of atrocities? Consider donating or volunteering for the Red Cross or Amnesty International.
These actions constitute meaningful change in a world that still needs it. Your money and your time are tangible assets that can do real help. Whining doesn’t help and neither does contrived outrage. We live in a complicated world where a lot of things are out of our control. By focusing on what we can control, we can make 2019 the best year it can possibly be and I’m ready to do my part.
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Why The Outrage Over Brie Larson And “Captain Marvel” Is Misguided (And Counterproductive)
Celebrities sometimes say dumb things. I doubt most people would contest that. Sometimes, celebrities say things that aren’t dumb, but badly taken out of context. I imagine most people would agree with that too. However, in an era where outrage is a national pastime and social media makes it way too easy to blow things out of proportion, it’s easy for a celebrity to cause controversy for all the wrong reasons.
Brie Larson, whose star is set to rise considerably with the release of “Captain Marvel,” is learning this the hard way and a large consortium of angry people on the internet are intent on making it harder. What should’ve been a culmination of a young woman’s career and a female hero’s ascension to the superhero A-list is now mired in the ugliest kind of gender politics.
The origin of that controversy actually had nothing to do with Ms. Larson’s role on “Captain Marvel.” Back in June 2018, she made some overly political comments while accepting the Crystal Award for Excellence in Film. While celebrities making political statements is nothing new, Ms. Larson’s statement was hardly extreme.
It wasn’t some radical feminist tirade.
It wasn’t some angry rant about the outcome of 2016 Presidential Election.
It wasn’t even some act of elaborate virtue signaling by some smug celebrity.
All Ms. Larson did was advocate for greater diversity among film critics. She didn’t just make such a statement on a whim, either. She did so in response to a study published by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism that revealed a significant lack of representation in the industry of film criticism.
That’s not an unreasonable concern. The western world is becoming more diverse and the success of movies like “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” shows that there’s a market for such diverse tastes. Advocating for greater representation in the field of film criticism makes a lot of sense.
Unfortunately, that’s not the message that some people gleamed from Ms. Larson’s comments. All they heard was that she doesn’t want to hear from white men anymore. They somehow got the impression that Brie Larson resents white men and her movies, including “Captain Marvel,” aren’t made for them. They’re not even welcome in the conversation.
Who these people are and the politics they represent is difficult to discern. I don’t think it’s accurate to call them conservative, liberal, feminist, anti-feminist, leftist, or any other political label. Outrage culture rarely gets that specific, but given the heated politics surrounding movies like “Ghostbusters” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” it’s a frustratingly familiar narrative.
While I can understand some of the outrage surrounding “Ghostbusters” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” in this case I don’t think it’s justified. That’s not just because I’m a big fan of Marvel Comics, superhero movies, and all things Captain Marvel. It’s because the actual substance of Ms. Larson’s words don’t warrant the controversy she has generated.
For specific reference, here’s what she actually said during her speech in June 2018. Read it very slowly and try to understand the context of her statement.
Remember, she said these words after learning how little diversity there was among movie critics. Unlike most people, she was actually in a position to do something about it. Being an Oscar winning actress who was poised to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe, her words carry more weight than most.
Even so, those words were construed as racist and sexist, two exceedingly loaded terms that bring out the worst in people, especially on the internet. Never mind the fact that she made clear in her original speech that she did not hate white men. Never mind the fact that she has since clarified her words. She is still being attacked as some angry radical feminist who hates men, especially those who are white.
It would be one thing if she had said outright that white men should be banned from criticizing certain movies. Many celebrities, including a few still relevant today, have said far worse. However, that’s not what Ms. Larson said. She never, at any point, advocated disparaging white men. She didn’t even say that people who hate her movies are racist and sexist, something the “Star Wars” crowd is painfully familiar with.
Again, all Ms. Larson spoke out against was a lack of diversity among film critics. That part is worth emphasizing because it renders the outrage surrounding her statement as utterly absurd. It also makes the targeted attack on the fan reviews for “Captain Marvel” both asinine and misguided.
Even though the movie isn’t out yet, the movie is being targeted with negative comments on Rotten Tomatoes. Since it has only screened for a handful of audiences, it’s unlikely that any of these people actually saw the movie or were inclined to see it in the first place. Some are even claiming that this has already impacted the projected box office for the movie.
Whether that impact manifests remains to be seen, but it’s worth noting that when “Black Panther” was targeted with similar attacks, it failed miserably. At the moment, early reactions to “Captain Marvel” have been glowing so the chances of these attacks hurting the box office are probably minor at best. If the pre-ticket sales are any indication, the movie will likely turn a hefty profit for Marvel and their Disney overlords.
Even if there were an impact, it would be for all the wrong reasons. It would send the message that there’s a large contingent of people who are willing to work together to tank a movie because of comments a celebrity said that had nothing to do with that movie and weren’t the least bit controversial, when taken in context.
In this case, it was simply twisting someone’s comments to make them sseem like they said things that they never said or even implied. Then, those who bought into that narrative simply use that as an excuse to disparage a movie that they haven’t seen. That’s not just absurd, even by the skewed standards of outrage culture. It sends the worst possible message from those who think they’re protecting their favorite movie genre.
It tells the world that they don’t care what a celebrity actually says. They actively look for an excuse to hate someone who doesn’t completely buy into their preferred status quo. It would be one thing if that status quo was just and reasonable, but that’s not the case here.
All Ms. Larson did was advocate for more diversity among film critics. If that is somehow too extreme, then the problem isn’t with her or celebrities like her. It’s with those determined to hate her. There are a lot of issues in the world of celebrities and movies that warrant outrage, but advocating for more diversity in film criticism isn’t one of them.
I can already hear some people typing angry comments stating that if she had said those same words, but changed the demographic to something other than white men, then it would be an issue. However, the fact remains that this isn’t what she said.
It also doesn’t help that Brie Larson identifies as a feminist and that term has become incredibly loaded in recent years. However, she has never embraced the kind of radical rhetoric that other, less likable celebrities have espoused. Until she does, those determined to identify her and “Captain Marvel” as racist, sexist propaganda are only doing themselves and their politics a disservice.
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Filed under Celebrities and Celebrity Culture, extremism, gender issues, Marvel, media issues, men's issues, movies, outrage culture, political correctness, superhero movies
Tagged as anti-feminism, Brie Larson, Brie Larson comments, Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers, celebrities, celebrity controversy, celebrity culture, celebrity scandals, ComicsGate, female superheroes, feminism, gender, gender disparity, gender inequality, gender politics, internet outrage, internet trolls, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Comics, Men's Rights Activists, movie criticism, movie critics, movies, MRA, outrage, outrage culture, political correctness, politics, Racism, Rotten Tomatoes, Superheroes, trolls