Speaker 1: It is really easy to shut down a conversation by
Speaker 1: saying what you just said is problematic, like end of story,
Speaker 1: move on. There is no need to explain why something
Speaker 1: is problematic and actually grapple with it.
Speaker 2: I'm Jessica Bennett and.
Speaker 3: I'm Susie Bennacharam.
Speaker 1: This is in retrospect, where we delve into cultural moments
Speaker 1: that shaped.
Speaker 3: Us and that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 1: Most of the time we'll be talking about the past,
Speaker 1: but sometimes we just want to talk about what's happening
Speaker 1: in the present.
Speaker 4: Okay, So, jess can we talk about the word problematic,
Speaker 4: which I know is a pet peeve of yours.
Speaker 1: I do hate the word problematic, okay, Keller, why Okay?
Speaker 2: So here's the thing.
Speaker 1: When we started this podcast, we're looking at all of
Speaker 1: these things in the past, and it is so easy
Speaker 1: to just write them all off as quote unquote problematic, yes,
Speaker 1: and then kind of scold each other and move on.
Speaker 1: And so I actually wanted to create like a buzzer
Speaker 1: for this podcast where we couldn't use the word problematic,
Speaker 1: like we actually had to find a descriptive word to use,
Speaker 1: though I also recognize that I have used it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like, actually my favorite part because when you
Speaker 4: said that, when you were like, we're gonna have a buzzer,
Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god, I'm going to be
Speaker 4: the one who messes this up all the time. But actually,
Speaker 4: I just want to say for the record that you're
Speaker 4: the one who has said problematic multiple way talent.
Speaker 2: You're actually telling well, just because now every time.
Speaker 4: You say it, I'm like, oh my god, she said problematic,
Speaker 4: but I.
Speaker 1: Didn't say, Okay, well then we ask our producers to
Speaker 1: cut it. But anyway, but my point is it has
Speaker 1: become very in vogue in the culture of late to
Speaker 1: dismiss things that are i don't know, not politically correct, racist, sexist,
Speaker 1: sometimes just make you uncomfortable as wait, I.
Speaker 4: Mean it's pausewibus Okay, I think it's different than what
Speaker 4: you're I'm going to correct you about your own opinion
Speaker 4: like a man would. I think it's I mean, obviously
Speaker 4: we agree that racist and sexist things are bad.
Speaker 3: That's not what you're objecting to.
Speaker 4: Really, what you're concerned about is that it just sort
Speaker 4: of like blends everything together, so something legitimately racist and
Speaker 4: something yes, kind of like mildly offensive become the same thing.
Speaker 4: It kind of like flattens the discussion exactly.
Speaker 1: And it is really easy to shut down a conversation
Speaker 1: by saying what you just said is problematic, like end
Speaker 1: of story, move on. There is no need to explain
Speaker 1: why something is problematic and actually grapple with it, and
Speaker 1: there's no learning, Like there's no way to say, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what about that was problematic, let's correct it,
Speaker 1: let's move on.
Speaker 2: Or was that really problematic though?
Speaker 3: Like was it really?
Speaker 2: Did it really make you uncomfortable?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 1: So? It just immediately shuts down conversation in a time
Speaker 1: when I feel like people are unable to talk to
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 4: Well, to me, it's like if something offends me, I'm
Speaker 4: going to tell you it's offensive, it's not. I don't
Speaker 4: actually use the word that often because it's not a
Speaker 4: peppeeve of mine, but because it feels like a nothing word.
Speaker 1: It is nothing word that I mean, it's nothing that
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 2: Is the problem. That's the way it's problematic is that
Speaker 2: it is nothing.
Speaker 1: Where it tells you nothing, it just shuts down whatever
Speaker 1: you were about to say, and it makes the person
Speaker 1: who you're accusing of being problematic uncomfortable or the piece
Speaker 1: of I don't know art or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: And this is in the news right now as we're
Speaker 1: recording this, because there's this big exhibit at the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Museum about Pablo Picasso. It's curated Pablo Battery exactly. It's
Speaker 1: curated by Hannah Gadsby. It's the fiftieth anniversary of his death,
Speaker 1: and it's all about the ways that Picasa was problematic,
Speaker 1: YadA a YadA, his treatment of women, and it's supposed
Speaker 1: to elevate these women artists in the process, but it's
Speaker 1: basically being panned by critics who are saying, you know,
Speaker 1: it's almost doing the opposite of what it's said up well.
Speaker 4: I think also because it's facial like, the criticism has
Speaker 4: been that it's not grappling with the real issues. It's
Speaker 4: just poking fun at it in a way that's actually
Speaker 4: like diminishing the woman's art that is also part of
Speaker 4: the exhibit. But I feel like we should take a
Speaker 4: step back for those who don't know where the word
Speaker 4: comes from or the context, like what does problematic actually
Speaker 4: mean to you or do you think means in the zeitgeist?
Speaker 1: Well, so it's a word that comes from the French actually,
Speaker 1: and it means something that has a problem, like most
Speaker 1: basic format. But I think what it has come to
Speaker 1: mean in recent years is and this is not Merriam Webster,
Speaker 1: this is not Oxford, this is urban dictionary that I'm
Speaker 1: about to quote you because.
Speaker 2: Actually they go.
Speaker 3: Ridiculary.
Speaker 1: But it's become this catch all for something you don't
Speaker 1: like but can't really describe or don't really want to
Speaker 1: be pressed to describe why. Or here are some of
Speaker 1: the other definitions. A code word for anything considered to
Speaker 1: be politically incorrect.
Speaker 2: I think that's pretty true.
Speaker 1: Also this one, lol, a catch all insult used to
Speaker 1: negatively describe something you don't like but can't describe why.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does feel really muddy.
Speaker 4: Although, by the way, I just want to say that
Speaker 4: I think politically incorrect is a problematic thing to say.
Speaker 2: It's also a vague thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's vague.
Speaker 4: And also I feel like it's the it's become the
Speaker 4: same thing as woke. It's like lost all meaning, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just a way that you signal if you are
Speaker 4: conservative in some way that something is to be dismissed outright. Yes,
Speaker 4: And so that's why I don't like to use that either.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think using some of these terms has
Speaker 1: become a way of signaling who you align with, who
Speaker 1: you may be, who you don't want to align with,
Speaker 1: and it almost has become more performance than proactive, you know,
Speaker 1: like we are labeling things problematic and thus shutting down
Speaker 1: any opportunity to engage with why they might be and
Speaker 1: what can be done.
Speaker 4: This kind of reminds me actually, something you said, which is,
Speaker 4: we were talking about how they change the lyrics in
Speaker 4: Little Mermaid, which I mean honestly felt silly to me
Speaker 4: because the original lyrics were not to me or problematic.
Speaker 4: But you said something interesting which I really thought about,
Speaker 4: which is, it allows Disney to do this sort of,
Speaker 4: for lack of a better term, whitewashing of things, but
Speaker 4: it doesn't solve any real problems in this area at Disney,
Speaker 4: Like what's happening on Disney's board. Let's focus on that,
Speaker 4: not on whether or not, like the appropriate amount of
Speaker 4: consent is built into the word kiss the girl, right, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean?
Speaker 1: That's the thing too. It's like a lot of this
Speaker 1: language policing often fails to deal with the actual issue
Speaker 1: at hand. And is more about these little linguistic ways
Speaker 1: that we can show that we are woke or whatever.
Speaker 4: This kind of reminds me actually of what's been going
Speaker 4: on with Elizabeth Gilbert.
Speaker 3: Have you been following, oh a little bit?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah.
Speaker 4: So she's the author of E Prey Love. That's what
Speaker 4: she's sort of most famous for. Although little known fact
Speaker 4: about her, she was also the person who wrote the
Speaker 4: article that became Coyote Ugly.
Speaker 2: Okay, just in case I didn't want know that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a fun little detail about her. I did
Speaker 4: an interview with her when I was at ABC years
Speaker 4: and years ago. She was actually genuinely loved, which I
Speaker 4: would not say about a lot of celebrities.
Speaker 2: Just okay.
Speaker 3: And she recently.
Speaker 4: Polds her latest book because it's set in Russia, and
Speaker 4: a bunch of people responded by saying it was insensitive
Speaker 4: to the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Did they use that word or did they say it
Speaker 2: was problematic.
Speaker 4: I don't know if they said problematic, I don't know
Speaker 4: what language they use, but there was this kind of
Speaker 4: like outpouring concern, which is kind of weird because the
Speaker 4: book is set in Russia, but it's about a bunch
Speaker 4: of people who remove themselves from Russian it's not celebrating
Speaker 4: like Russia today, which is so but you know, she's
Speaker 4: actually a pretty sensitive person, so she just indefinitely withdrew
Speaker 4: the book. But I feel like that's happening with a
Speaker 4: lot of books, Like there are examples of this thing
Speaker 4: that happens where before a book is even released, people
Speaker 4: review vombit on Goodreads. That's been like an ongoing problem,
Speaker 4: and there's a lot of concern about pre judging art.
Speaker 4: But I feel like the thing I worry about is,
Speaker 4: and especially because of what we're thinking about on this podcast,
Speaker 4: is changing historical art to like sanitize it, because the
Speaker 4: whole point of looking back on art is that it
Speaker 4: reflects the time it was in and those times were
Speaker 4: often sexist and racist, right, I don't think removing those
Speaker 4: things actually helps people get a real understanding of where
Speaker 4: we were in society at that time.
Speaker 2: I mean it's complicated.
Speaker 1: Is that all of these things are complicated, which is
Speaker 1: why a word like problematic just dismisses the conversation. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, statues are being removed, and in some
Speaker 1: cases we are having discussions about why and what occurred
Speaker 1: at these places and who this character.
Speaker 3: Is, And to me, that actually feels like a real thing.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't want to go to a school
Speaker 4: named after like a terrible person or live in a
Speaker 4: town that has this person.
Speaker 2: Right, this slave owner.
Speaker 4: Yes, but I think the different thing is removing language
Speaker 4: from a book. You know, this has actually happened a
Speaker 4: long time ago. In twenty eleven, they removed any of
Speaker 4: the racial slurs in Twain's books. And on the one hand,
Speaker 4: I really understand that because kids read those books and
Speaker 4: so it's complicated.
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, I remember as.
Speaker 4: A child reading those books and it was like one
Speaker 4: of the first times I think I encountered the N
Speaker 4: word and just realizing how prevalent racism must have been
Speaker 4: in society. Like for me, that was a real learning
Speaker 4: moment about American history. And so I really worry about
Speaker 4: that because I think it's better to grapple with it
Speaker 4: than to pretend like that's not what was going on.
Speaker 3: And in a weird way, it feels.
Speaker 4: Like an inverse of what's going on in like Florida
Speaker 4: and Texas, where they're removing all these books about racism
Speaker 4: and sexism and transphobia and homophobia, and they don't want
Speaker 4: kids to know how bad things were in this country,
Speaker 4: like civil they're removing books about civil rights, right, yes,
Speaker 4: and so in a weird way, it's a circle that's
Speaker 4: ending up in the same place.
Speaker 1: Well, and sometimes the you know, performance or indication or.
Speaker 2: What was the word you used earlier?
Speaker 1: Signaling signaling or I was like what word did I
Speaker 1: is what's fascinating And in some cases, you know, the
Speaker 1: performance or the signaling almost feels so benign, Like do
Speaker 1: you remember what happened recently with the rolled doll books?
Speaker 1: There were basically various passages considered to be quote un
Speaker 1: problematic and sensitive, and so they brought in a consulting firm,
Speaker 1: I believe, to change a bunch of the language.
Speaker 3: And what did they do?
Speaker 1: They changed language, such as one of the characters is
Speaker 1: no longer called fat. Instead he is described as enormous, enormous,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Be less insulting.
Speaker 1: Instead of being called small men umpa lumbas are now
Speaker 1: small people. Okay, I guess they're not. They don't know
Speaker 1: their gender identity, but like, do you is this really helpful?
Speaker 1: Other things? Okay, remember the book The Witches? And of
Speaker 1: course the movie, and there was a more recent movie
Speaker 1: that came out, and as you might remember, the witches
Speaker 1: don't have hair. They're bald underneath their wigs, and they
Speaker 1: wear these wigs to pretend that they are not witches.
Speaker 1: But they added this line saying, there are plenty of
Speaker 1: other reasons why women might wear wigs, and there's certainly
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2: Like, it just feels like there.
Speaker 1: Are real problems and inequalities in the world, and is
Speaker 1: going back and changing this minutia in the.
Speaker 2: Work of Roald Dahal really helping anyone?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think also the thing to me that's
Speaker 4: interesting about this is that it's less instructive. I think, like,
Speaker 4: if you're teaching kids and there is something in the
Speaker 4: book that needs to be discussed, you should discuss it
Speaker 4: and like actually deal with it, which is which.
Speaker 1: Is to be fair, like not every school district is doing, but.
Speaker 4: They are like doing this with some movies. Like a
Speaker 4: good example of this is like with Gone with the Wind,
Speaker 4: which obviously is there's a lot of slavery depicted in
Speaker 4: Gone with the Wind.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a very problematic movie.
Speaker 2: But you said why yeah, which I appreciate. I said why.
Speaker 4: But I think also the way they handled it, instead
Speaker 4: of actually changing the movie, they've just added, you know,
Speaker 4: a slate at the beginning that explains to you why
Speaker 4: it reflects the time might be. And our producer Lauren
Speaker 4: was saying that she watches Disney movies with her kids,
Speaker 4: and that that is also something they're doing in front
Speaker 4: of some of the Disney movies.
Speaker 3: To me, that feels like.
Speaker 4: Giving people a warning or prompt to have a discussion
Speaker 4: with their children or with each other about what they're watching.
Speaker 4: That feels to me like a better solution than just
Speaker 4: taking things away and pretending that we don't live in
Speaker 4: the society we live in, which still is raped in racism, sexism,
Speaker 4: transphot like it's still steeped in.
Speaker 3: All these issues. Right.
Speaker 1: Wasn't there in The Little Mermaid something funny that they
Speaker 1: added about her voice? I mean, the whole premise of
Speaker 1: a Little Mermaid, of course, is that she is giving
Speaker 1: up her voice to find Prince Charming. So arguably that
Speaker 1: in of itself is quote unquote problematic.
Speaker 4: Well, the thing is, it's like, the whole point is
Speaker 4: it's supposed to be empowering, like she's finding her voice, right,
Speaker 4: So it's.
Speaker 3: Like a metaphor.
Speaker 4: But in the movie, I guess in Poor Unfortunate Souls,
Speaker 4: which is to be clear, the songung by a villain,
Speaker 4: by Risilla, who's a villain, she says some things about
Speaker 4: how girl, you know, people prefer for girls to be quiet,
Speaker 4: and I think they change the lyrics because they were like,
Speaker 4: we don't want to make girls feel like they shouldn't talk.
Speaker 1: And it's like, I mean, so, well, one she's a villain,
Speaker 1: and two that is actually that is what we expect.
Speaker 4: Of girls, yes, And I mean we shouldn't expect that
Speaker 4: of girls and girls should be like hey mo, Like
Speaker 4: I feel like the ideal scenario is that you're watching
Speaker 4: that with your kid and your kid says to you
Speaker 4: like is that true, and you correct it, or you're
Speaker 4: watching with your kids and you say to your kid,
Speaker 4: listen that is you know, that is bullshit?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: So but I feel like this kind of this idea
Speaker 4: of like these warnings kind of makes me think of
Speaker 4: how you feel about trigger warning.
Speaker 3: So I feel like we should talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean problematic is kind of like cousin to
Speaker 1: call out culture and maybe sibling to trigger warnings in
Speaker 1: a way and we've discussed in putting together this podcast
Speaker 1: and figuring out how it's going to play, do we
Speaker 1: want to have trigger warnings at the top. You know, journalistically,
Speaker 1: I don't really believe in trigger warnings. We don't use
Speaker 1: them at The New York Times. The world is an
Speaker 1: extremely triggering player, and you're not going to get a
Speaker 1: trigger warning when you're out in the world, and you're
Speaker 1: probably going to be hard pressed to find a safe
Speaker 1: space too.
Speaker 4: I think this is like an interesting point because journalistically
Speaker 4: I totally understand it. Like I think as journalists we're
Speaker 4: often talking about really difficult things, and I don't really
Speaker 4: know where to draw the line.
Speaker 3: Do we put in a trigger warning here? But not here?
Speaker 4: Like most of what we're talking about involves some kind
Speaker 4: of thing that you probably don't want to encounter.
Speaker 5: I mean, the news is hard to watch, yeah today.
Speaker 5: I mean it's about bad things, right, It's about like
Speaker 5: war and famine and whatever it's about. But I feel
Speaker 5: a little more conflicted about the trigger warning thing, only
Speaker 5: because I feel like, especially on this podcast, we're going
Speaker 5: to talk about some you know, tough things like sexual
Speaker 5: assault and things that can feel really overwhelming if you're
Speaker 5: not expecting it, and I think you go to the
Speaker 5: Times expecting, you know, a certain kind of but here,
Speaker 5: like when you're throwing on a podcast, that's where do
Speaker 5: you throw it on my record?
Speaker 4: PLA, Yeah, I think you know, it's a little different, right.
Speaker 4: You want to kind of give people a sense of
Speaker 4: what they're about to get themselves into. So we've aired
Speaker 4: on the side of doing that here, but it's definitely
Speaker 4: been something we've had to discuss because we do want
Speaker 4: this to feel journalistic, and that is not common in
Speaker 4: places where.
Speaker 3: They take journalism very seriously.
Speaker 4: Well, I guess we don't take ourselves out seriously, so
Speaker 4: that works out in our favor.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we want people to feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: of course, but it is an interesting point, like where
Speaker 1: do you how do you decide what is triggering and
Speaker 1: what is not? Like this language, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: you know, I am a word person. I am a
Speaker 1: student of words, and I teach words, and so I
Speaker 1: am highly conscious and cognizant of the way we use language.
Speaker 1: And so terms like trigger or problematic, or even the
Speaker 1: way we talk about trauma these days, or toxic. It's
Speaker 1: like every relationship is toxic. Now if you go on
Speaker 1: the internet. That is the impression you'll get everything's a
Speaker 1: red flag or a gray flag or whatever.
Speaker 3: You did a great piece on this in the Times.
Speaker 4: There's like this really complicated thing with trauma, which is
Speaker 4: like if everything is trauma, then you're sort of again.
Speaker 4: There's like a flattening of there's real there. It feels
Speaker 4: like there needs to be a different words.
Speaker 1: Linguistic creep, which is this idea that you know, the
Speaker 1: meanings of words often change. But I think what can
Speaker 1: also happen is, like you said, this flattening where it
Speaker 1: comes to mean everything small things, big things like problematic
Speaker 1: can span the scale of like something that made you
Speaker 1: feel mildly uncomfortable personally but may have not made someone
Speaker 1: else feel that way, to something really egregious. And so
Speaker 1: are there more specific words we can use to stay
Speaker 1: And I guess that's really my thing here. It's like
Speaker 1: can we be specific? Well?
Speaker 4: And I think that's is what we're trying to do here, right,
Speaker 4: Like to bring it back to the podcast, I feel
Speaker 4: like what we're really trying to do here is engage
Speaker 4: with things that might be considered problematic and to explore
Speaker 4: them and to sort of look at them in the
Speaker 4: context of when they were created, not in a scolding way,
Speaker 4: but to sort of ask ourselves why it was the
Speaker 4: way it was then and sort of how we.
Speaker 2: Look about it now, learn from it. I mean, what
Speaker 2: has changed? What can we learn from it?
Speaker 1: But what we're not doing is telling you not to
Speaker 1: engage or not to consume a thing like I don't.
Speaker 2: I just don't feel like that.
Speaker 3: Feel like we're telling you to consume things.
Speaker 2: Well, But it's a whole like art versus artist thing.
Speaker 1: Like can you if you believe that Pablo Picasso is
Speaker 1: a misogynist, are you not allowed to consume his art?
Speaker 1: And that you know that's a complicated question.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's a whole other conversation because I really
Speaker 4: struggle with that in some cases.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna punt and say do what you want.
Speaker 1: We're not here to criticize. We're just here to talk
Speaker 1: through the issues.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 4: Yes, that makes sense to me. Whether or not it
Speaker 4: makes sense to the audience, I guess we'll find out.
Speaker 2: Do you think we're gonna get canceled for this episode?
Speaker 3: I just live in fear of that, So we'll see
Speaker 3: what happens.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a right of passage, Right right.
Speaker 4: Right, This is in Retrospect.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4: Is there a cultural moment you can't stop thinking about
Speaker 4: and want us to explore in a future episode. Email
Speaker 4: us at Inretropod at gmail dot com or find us
Speaker 4: on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 1: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
Speaker 1: on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
Speaker 1: hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
Speaker 1: which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 4: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
Speaker 4: and at Susi b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books
Speaker 4: Feminist Fight Club and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 1: In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Media.
Speaker 1: Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
Speaker 1: engineer and sound designer. Sharan Attia is our researcher and
Speaker 1: associate producer.
Speaker 4: Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
Speaker 4: executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stemp and Katrina Norville.
Speaker 3: Our artwork is from Pentagram.
Speaker 4: Additional editing help from Mary and Mike Cosparelli, sound correction
Speaker 4: and mastering. By Amanda Rose Smith. We are your hosts,
Speaker 4: Susie Banecarum.
Speaker 2: And Jessica Bennett. We're also executive producers.
Speaker 1: For even more check out in retropod dot com. See
Speaker 1: you next week.