Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Tina Fey not apologizing

That’s always solid advice. Whatever you write online, you’ll run into a deluge of comments telling you you’re either writing about the wrong thing, or ignoring the commenter’s pet cause. Any creator runs into this issue more or less all the time. But Fey had a specific example:
 “We did an Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt episode and the internet was in a whirlwind, calling it ‘racist’, but my new goal is not to explain jokes. I feel like we put so much effort into writing and crafting everything, they need to speak for themselves. There’s a real culture of demanding apologies, and I’m opting out of that.”
Of course now a handful of sites are now saying Fey is copping out rather than opting out. As unfashionable as it is in 2015, I still believe an artist in under no obligation to produce socially responsibe art. A big part of the problem is that the only acceptable criticism is how a piece fits into a narrative that places everything along axes of power.