The myth that suffering induces creativity endures, and it’s back with a vengeance for 2017.
On Donald Trump and the pop politics of suffering
Tag: stereotypes
The myth of Trump support among the working classes
The popular myth that Trump is supported by working class voters perpetuates stereotypes about the working class as conservative, short-sighted, and uneducated.
Child actors of colour deserve better
I didn’t watch the 2016 Oscars, for a number of reasons, not least of which is that I feel increasingly disconnected from what the mainstream Hollywood establishment wants to celebrate and what I enjoy viewing. The event has been criticised heavily from a number of angles, but I’m especially fed up with seeing limited diversity […]
I’m over the ‘bumbling single dad’ stereotype
I was raised by a single father in a household with a shoestring budget — and sometimes the shoestring was perilously close to snapping altogether. He was a bartender and later an English professor, picking up an adjunct position at the junior college that paid not much better than his job at the bar, though […]
Depression Doesn’t Make You Sad All the Time
One of the most popular, enduring, and irritating myths about depression is that it means depressed people are sad all the time — and that by extension, people who are happy can’t be experiencing depression, even if they say they are. It’s a skewed and horrible version of depression, and it’s one that further stigmatises […]
‘I’ll show you how valuable Elle Woods can be!’
My copy of Legally Blonde is so heavily viewed that I keep expecting the DVD to develop a scratch, something which would send me into paroxysms of grief, because, let me tell you, I love this movie. It’s funny, it’s sharp, and it’s also a fantastic commentary on gender, presentation, social attitudes, and society in […]
Disability Tragedy Porn, Defined
It occurred to me the other day that I frequently reference the concept of disability tragedy porn (which I often shorten to just tragedy porn or disability porn), but I haven’t actually taken the time to sit down and define it, to discuss what, precisely, it is, and why it’s a problem. I sort of […]
‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’
Pop culture has a number of fascinating and enduring stereotypes about pain and the experience of pain. A lot of those stereotypes perpetuate dangerous attitudes which have real-life implications for people out in the world, and these often go unexamined, including by people who struggle with both acute and chronic pain. What we accept, culturally, […]
Notes From the Urban/Rural Divide: The Hayseed
I often encounter the attitude that people living in rural areas have nothing to contribute to the rest of the world. They are hayseeds, rednecks, country bumpkins. This thinking comes from the idea that the only work ‘of worth’ in this society is creative work, that a novelist is more important than a farmer, a […]
Mental Illness Rhetoric in Skepticism, and the Problems Thereof
Most days, I consider myself a skeptic. I view a lot of the beliefs held by some people around me as holding dubious merit. I do not think, for example, that the United States personally brought down the Twin Towers as an excuse to start the war on terror. I don’t think that PGE is […]