Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as โproblematicโ in class and our professor was like, โThatโs cool, but โproblematicโ doesnโt really mean anything. It means that the thing youโre describing has a problem, and in and of itself thatโs not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else itโs not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like youโre trying to say that this is bad, but you donโt want to say โbad.โ Is that right?โ
So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the โbadโ thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, โIโm uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.โ
Once we stopped calling things โproblematicโ and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, โthatโs racistโ or โthatโs misogynisticโ or โew capitalism grossโ out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, โUhhh... Iโm not sure whatโs so bad?โ and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.
Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I canโt help but think of this professor being like, โGood starting point, now letโs get specific.โ I think when we have to commit to saying โthatโs ___โ it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever weโre claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes itโs art, and it should be full of problems, because thatโs what art is.
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