Reviews tagging 'Death'

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

7 reviews

monalyisha's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.75

I absolutely loved this. Dederer set out to write an ambitious book & she achieved her goal. Not only that, but she came off as being the kind of “cool” that I’ll only ever aspire to be. Her musical references range from Joni Mitchell to PWR BTTM with all the (plumbed) levels of complexity that implies. Ironically & infuriatingly, the effect is that I now want to watch/read/listen to all of the media she questions the morality of consuming.

I want to (re)watch Annie Hall. Remembering how much I loved Rosemary’s Baby, I want to dive into Polanski’s catalog. Of course, these creators are men who have committed terrible deeds (e.g. anal rape of a 13-year-old). Do we just forget that? 

Dederer says no. She also doesn’t tell her readers NOT to watch/read/listen. Like any good thinker, she gives us more questions than answers. This isn’t a guidebook. Dederer won’t solve your ethical dilemma. She will ask you to lay bare your own reasoning and emotions, your insecurities, your doubts, your loves, your biases. She’ll do it by modeling this behavior on the page. She doesn’t let herself squirm away; she questions whether she is, herself, a monster. She unflinchingly tells you why she sometimes worries she might be.

Ultimately, she’ll tell you not to discount beauty or community. She’ll advise you not to place an undue emphasis on individual consumption. She’ll focus on systemic evils. She’ll tell you that “the way you consume art doesn't make you a bad person, or a good one. You'll have to find some other way to accomplish that.” She’ll encourage you not to forget about these other ways.

I do have a single criticism, which comes in the form of two words: “The Stain.” This is a concept Dederer introduces early on in the book and it’s something that she returns to repeatedly: how an artist’s biography can “stain” their work (spreading backwards and forwards through time), like wine spilled on linen. Unfortunately, this metaphor spills out of her in the chapter about Michael Jackson. 

She writes, “The image of the stain immediately took hold of my brain (an especially poignant image in the context of Michael Jackson and the bleached anti-stain of his skin).” YIKES. Following this logic, blackness becomes “the stain.” I don’t for one second believe that Dederer intended to equate the two. But I wish she’d introduced the metaphor in the chapter about Picasso, when talking about his paints. For me, this single line about “the stain” became a stain on my total & unabashed enjoyment of her book. But I’m trying to convince myself that it was more a quick & clumsy fumble with a cup of coffee than a shattering of a full glass of Cabernet. It might come out in the wash.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Racism, Rape, Suicide, Transphobia, Antisemitism, Murder, and Abandonment

jayisreading's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

2.0

I wish this essay collection worked for me, given my interest in the topic. but I found it rather disappointing. I think the questions that Dederer wanted to address are crucial ones for all of us to contend with. Can you actually separate art from the artist? Is it ethical to consume media by problematic (or “stained,” as she describes it) people, some of whom are labeled geniuses? How should we be engaging with problematic media, if at all?

I will say that I think it’s a little unfair to expect concrete answers from her, considering that it’s a bit more complicated than giving a simple “yes” or “no” response. However, a reader only has so much patience for any amount of waffling; by the third or fourth chapter, I was tired of it. I think it’s fine if an author wants to take a moment to think about a particular topic on-page, but they need to give the reader a reason to stick around for it. In other words, what’s at stake? Why should we care? Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a point to any of these essays that gave me any indication as to why what Dederer wrote mattered. She had numerous missed opportunities to do in-depth analyses with the issues she raised. Instead, she provided a lot of surface-level observations that gave the reader very little to work with, other than to quizzically wonder, “Why should I care about your feelings over your favorite artist being problematic?” Relatedly, I saw a few reviewers comment that this book reads more like a memoir, which I’m inclined to agree with, especially when one takes into account the handful of personal anecdotes that Dederer hardly connected (if at all) to the topic at hand. In addition, I felt that she often failed to give enough context when she called a number of individuals “monsters.” Sure, readers could do separate research on some of the mentioned figures in the book to learn more about their wrongdoings, but part of an essayist’s responsibility is to provide even some of that context and nuance.

Again, the questions posed in this book are important ones. However, I think Dederer could have afforded to spend more time with these essays to better establish the points she wants to make, as well as to reorganize her ideas so that they are more closely connected.

Note: Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a finished paperback copy. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexism, and Antisemitism

Moderate: Alcoholism

Minor: Death, Suicide, and Transphobia

larajgriff1's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

Unfortunately my expectations and hopes for this book were vastly different than what I experienced.  I wanted a more broad view of how "monstrous" artists affect their fandom and what the group as a whole or individually moves forward.  This book is much more personal to the writer and more of a memoir of her life and how she relates to different artists than the effect of their actions on the world.  

However, I cannot fault the author for the book not being what I hoped.  It is written very well and does make some good points about how these moments and artists affect us.  Though in the middle of the book she seems to be "existential crisis-ing" in circles and it doesn't feel like there is momentum again until the last few chapters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

this is a book about people who do terrible things. It is hard to avoid anything, but I did skip a full chapter because I was so uncomfortable with the crimes of an artist.

aqtbenz's review against another edition

Not what I thought this was going to be

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Sexual harassment

ktdakotareads's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

bi_n_large's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, and Abandonment

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Racism, Antisemitism, and Murder

brunonadamas's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense

4.0

An excellent book, very well written. I can’t agree with the concept that it doesn’t make a difference if I still support an artist that has done terrible things. It makes a difference in my life. 

The fact is that there are so many great artist that have made the choice to not do things as a result of their torment. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Grief, Abortion, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol