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