On Taking Offense

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Seth MacFarlane is that dipshit you find in every frat house. You know the one. When he makes a sexist joke and someone, usually a woman, cries foul, he says something like, "Hey, lighten up. Can't you take a joke?"

This familiar type of exchange played out on a massive scale last Sunday night, when MacFarlane turned the Academy Awards into a festival of misogyny. All over the Internet, people took issue with his reliance on ye olde slut-shaming tropes. But they were outnumbered by those suggesting that MacFarlane's detractors lacked a sense of humor, or took offense too easily, or needed to "lighten up."

More than a few feminist writers threw up their hands. "I AM TIRED OF TRYING TO EXPLAIN THIS SHIT TO PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT," ranted Lindy West on Jezebel. The New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum tweeted, "One of the annoying things about crap like MacF's Oscars is how it forces all of us female critics to pull on our Nurse Ratchet hats." Slate's Dana Stevens quickly seconded, "My white orthopedic shoes are killing me." I can only imagine.

It must be infuriating to have the same conversation over and over about sexism in popular culture; to be always on the defensive, always the Debbie Downer; to spell out in a million different ways a tricky idea that most people will ultimately reject: frivolous entertainment has a serious influence on social values.

It's not widely acknowledged that an Oscars telecast is capable of doing what literary scholar Jane Tompkins calls "cultural work." As Tompkins puts it in her classic Sensational Designs, popular culture should be understood as "providing society a means of thinking about itself, defining certain aspects of a social reality[,] dramatizing its conflicts, and recommending solutions."

So MacFarlane's "We've Seen Your Boobs" isn't just an inconsequential bit of mischief. It expresses and reinforces the harmful "social reality" that sex is a rigged competition in which "we" (the guys) win when "you" (the gals) shed clothing. MacFarlane doesn't ask us to question this dynamic, or to think about its structural similarity to rape. He just asks us to laugh at the spectacle of powerful women being shamed.

Yes, Charlize Theron and Naomi Watts were "in" on the joke. No, this doesn't let anyone off the hook.

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The above is, I believe, a reasoned critique of MacFarlane's performance. Were I to publish it on, say, Slate or newyorker.com (or some other website with an actual audience), readers might sum up my stance by saying, "He seems offended."

Possibly true. But totally beside the point. When we focus on whether I'm offended, we stop talking about the intersections of culture and politics, and we start talking about me. My indignation. My sensitivity. And if I were a woman, we would suddenly be speaking in code about my hysteria. Woops.

On Oscar night, you didn't have to look hard to find repetitions of this pattern. When Troy Patterson, a colleague of Dana Stevens's at Slate, posted an article entitled "This Was the Best Oscars Ever," Twitter user @mostlymartha retorted, "What [Patterson] calls 'MacFarlane's edge,' I call a dull misogyny shitshow. What a disappointment, Troy."

Patterson replied, "I'm sorry to disappoint and, moreso, to hear that this trifling movieland ritual upset you." It should be noted that @mostlymartha hadn't said anything about being upset. So not only did Patterson imply that it was uncool to be serious about a "trifling" event, but he gratuitously brought up @mostlymartha's emotional condition. As if her disagreement could only be a manifestation of distress.

It was a smarmy move, and she wasted no time putting Patterson on blast. Predictably, he panic-moonwalked away from his initial position. "The issues you are concerned about are serious, but the Oscars are trifling, totally, year after year." "I support your right to be upset." "Oscars = frivolous. Thinking rigorously about frivolity = serious business."

I agree, more or less, with the last sentiment. But why keep insisting that the Oscars are silly, if not to insinuate that soberly critiquing them is also silly? And why keep referring to @mostlymartha's feelings, if not to portray her views as irrational? Clever as he is, Patterson dug his own grave here. He could have had a debate about cultural politics; instead, he had one about private emotions.

So maybe I should put it this way: it doesn't matter whether I took offense to Seth MacFarlane's Academy Awards. But what might matter, in a small way, is the habit of thinking critically about the connections between entertainment and society. And I maintain (not feel) that MacFarlane's jokes, frivolous as they were, made our social world a little less hospitable, a little less wise, and a little less just.