Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

24 reviews

chelseadoherty's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide, Antisemitism, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Abortion, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

rustproofbottom's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective fast-paced

4.75

wow. so much to unpack in this book. I will absolutely be returning to this one again and again. it's that important and rich in thought and reflection. 

at the top is a helluva swing at examining what we should do about the relationship between art we love (in all form and genre) & artist & our consumption of it in context of artists (overwhelmingly mostly men) that end up doing horrible things are could righteously be called gigantic pieces of sh+t... they are, monsters. 

This is a topic that I've talked with friends about and never landing anywhere near anything that resembled a satisfying answer.

I feel like this could be 10,000 page book easily. Because this book is so much more than a take down of these people or a simple guide to rationalization. It's an open invitation to consider how your consumption of art can be a mirror into who you are. Not as a "we" or "us" that resents a broader group, culture, or society. But as individuals. 

you are taken through a series of analyses and reflections that invite you to reflect on the intersection of the art that is being consumed, the artist's biography AND your own biography, not the idealic, sanitized version, the real, raw, warts and all version. The whole story - stains and all. 

you're also invited to think broadly about the role of societal norms & expectations, pressures of late-stage capitalistic systems, and morals and virtues that are constantly evolving. How do they contribute to your own definition of self? How does art help inform that definition? How are your own beliefs & behaviors influenced by, caused by, supported by, identified with all of those? 

Part philosophy. Part critical analysis. Part history lesson.

I love it because I was left with a ton of things to think about within myself. There's also not a prescriptive answer. There's not an empirical rubric to give a pass/fail too.

It is not a purity test. It's not transactional. It's not simple. It's relational, subjective, and evolving. 

It's messy and complicated and terrible and beautiful.

Just like the human experience.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and Rape

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, and Sexual harassment

This book examines dark, horrible behavior by people who caused a lot of harm to others sometimes with extreme violence. It is not presented in a way that is gratuitous or dramatized or dwell on them. It states supported facts plainly - which can be difficult to hear / read but is critical to the understanding the plain context of the intent of the book.

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.

katymaryreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

A personal and interesting discussion of how we deal with the problem of "bad people" who create things we love. How do we reconcile and separate the two? Is is okay to like and continue to engage with artworks, writing, films etc. made by people whose actions we deplore? Of course, there are no easy answers, but this is a thought-provoking book that helps the reader look at their own motivations and make their own decisions. I appreciated the acknowledgement that this is HARD. It's tough to be invested in something and hold that in tension with the knowledge that the person who created it has done bad things. The creation remains unchanged, but we cannot help but think of it in relation to its creator.
A fascinating read that I will re-visit in the not too distant future.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Misogyny, and Transphobia

kchamp's review against another edition

5.0

Brilliant. Once I got into it I couldn’t help but devour this book. It is uncomfortable and honest and thought-provoking and so, so intelligent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Antisemitism, and Abandonment

jainabee's review against another edition

challenging dark funny informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I am so glad this book exists because I NEEDED it. It needed to exist in the world. The question of how to balance fandom of my favorite works of creativity with the toxic and destructive behaviors of the creators is an issue that torments me. Dederer directly addresses some of my own pet monsters; Woody Allen, David Bowie, JK Rowling, Miles Davis. This book makes me think a LOT. This book is very uncomfortable in a vitally important way. This book challenges me in ways I needed. The chapter comparing and contrasting Valerie Solanas and Sylvia Plath (!!!!!) flipped my wig with the brilliance of unexpected insights about how women respond to the violence of misogyny. The chapter about Lolita is a sparkling gem of brilliant insight and analysis that might be the best review of it I've ever read (spoiler alert: Nabokov is not a monster, though he is a genius). This book is FULL of triggering content, as it describes the crimes of the creators. No way around that. The point of the book seems to be to face the monsters directly and feel the extremely uncomfortable dilemma between loving something, even the monster, "even after everything." I got a lot to think about here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Antisemitism, Medical content, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, Xenophobia, Grief, Murder, War, and Classism

Minor: Drug use, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Dysphoria

I need to read this book again. And probably again.

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

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

 In Monsters:A Fan’s Dilemma the author attempts to interrogate how fans should/could/might react to art produced by monstrous men. I have very mixed feelings about this book. The topic is certainly a timely one and the fact that the author didn’t reach a firm conclusion did not bother me at all. I’d much rather read information and the musings of others and reach my own conclusion than be told that there is only one correct response and that I must follow it. One of the main problems for me came in the second half of the book when the author shifted her focus from monstrous men (not a term I’m personally fond of; men who have done monstrous things is more nuanced and accurate, certainly less inflammatory) and starts looking at women. The crimes of the male artists included paedophilia; the crimes of the women she considered involved prioritising their art over motherhood and she explored her own feelings of mother guilt. Mothers who do not devote the entirety of their lives (or even their children’s childhoods) to their children are not monsters, although those who expect them to do so and judge them if they dare do something for themself might possibly be. I wish I’d DNF’d at this point. Things went meandering and issues got more than a little muddied in the second half, although the book did finish on a strong note. Overall the author raised some good points to consider, but for my money the worthwhile content (and my interest) ran to an essay or two rather than an entire book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, and Violence

popsicleplease's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Misogyny, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Addiction and Alcoholism

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