The business of patriarchy and “being a fan of the problematic.”
As you may or may not know, I began this blog with an admission of my own struggle with patriarchy. It took multiple viewings of the 2013 BET Awards and a very insightful and timely interview published by the Village Voice to remind me of my complacency, particularly as it relates to R. Kelly and his music.
The question is now that I’ve come to acknowledge the flagrant patriarchy in R. Kelly’s music, his brand AND personal life, what do I do now? Do I stop listening to his music all together? Should others stop supporting him? Is that taking it too far? Where do we go from here?
These questions reminded me of an article I read for a class about fandom and fan communities. This article’s author argued that problematic content in television shows, films, and other media did not mean you had to write them off for good. Instead, this author suggests that we acknowledge and call attention to the racism, homophobia, classism, etc., dialogue about it with others, and keep it moving.
I had a hard time with this proposed solution for dealing with harmful ideologies because being a “fan” suggested a certain level of commitment that a simple acknowledgment or dialogue didn’t seem to disrupt. It said to me that, for example, racist ideologies could continue to persist within a text without much of a difference. It’s one thing to acknowledge a construction of power, it’s another to continue to engage in challenging it, particularly when it persists within the text.
What does it mean to acknowledge a persistently problematic text and to continue to “enjoy/consume” it? A word comes to mind…contradiction. I think this is where the business of patriarchy continues to strive. Our contradictions and acceptance of masculine oppression is exactly what keeps it the booming business that it is.
As the article suggests, everything around us is flawed, made by flawed people, including our music and other media. But I continue to think that we have the agency to make choices everyday in this so-called democratic nation of ours. We negotiate daily what level of oppression or hatred we’ll consume and what we won’t.
And here in America, we don’t have the excuse that we lack options. For every artist that spews male domination and feminine submission, there are several other artists who don’t.
Do I continue to find R. Kelly’s music entertaining? Yes. But I simply can no longer stomach the content of his music knowing of his past crimes and his current parade of self-endorsed pathology. And I’m fine with that being a personal decision, if not a universal one, so long as I can blog about it here.
PATRIARCHY is a bitch 