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| Should critics of Moonlight be hounded for having an opinion? | Should critics of Moonlight be hounded for having an opinion? |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The widely acclaimed movie Moonlight is in the running for eight awards at this weekend’s Oscars. But not everyone is a fan. The Sunday Times critic Camilla Long thought Barry Jenkins’ drama about a black, gay drug dealer growing up in Miami was made for a “non-black, non-gay, non-working class, chin-stroking, self-regarding, turbo smug audience”. She confessed that as a white, middle-class, straight woman whose job didn’t involve trading crack, she found it hard to relate. | |
| Twitter turned on Long. Her review of Moonlight wasn’t just wrong – it was racist. Not to mention snide, snooty and a teeny bit sociopathic. Righteousness rained down, a hailstorm of horror on a tide of piety. | Twitter turned on Long. Her review of Moonlight wasn’t just wrong – it was racist. Not to mention snide, snooty and a teeny bit sociopathic. Righteousness rained down, a hailstorm of horror on a tide of piety. |
| But I’m almost inclined to offer Long a brolly. Critics’ opinions are subjective, and are supposed to be. They must say what they honestly made of a movie rather than parrot the party line. The results might not be edifying, but they are employed to share them. And someone needs to help explain why Bafta voters failed to award Moonlight a single prize, as well as largely snubbing Fences, Denzel Washington’s movie about a refuse collector in 1950s Pittsburgh. | But I’m almost inclined to offer Long a brolly. Critics’ opinions are subjective, and are supposed to be. They must say what they honestly made of a movie rather than parrot the party line. The results might not be edifying, but they are employed to share them. And someone needs to help explain why Bafta voters failed to award Moonlight a single prize, as well as largely snubbing Fences, Denzel Washington’s movie about a refuse collector in 1950s Pittsburgh. |
| Still, the idea that you struggle to feel for those who aren’t like you is dismaying. And it’s cheering that so many people were spurred to call out such a scary sentiment and took a stand. But in doing so, in such numbers and with such invective, they risk being just as guilty of a lack of compassion as those they’re accusing. Hounding dissenters doesn’t help – it’s just yelling at your friends in a hall of mirrors. Common enemies need to be asked for answers, not simply united against. | Still, the idea that you struggle to feel for those who aren’t like you is dismaying. And it’s cheering that so many people were spurred to call out such a scary sentiment and took a stand. But in doing so, in such numbers and with such invective, they risk being just as guilty of a lack of compassion as those they’re accusing. Hounding dissenters doesn’t help – it’s just yelling at your friends in a hall of mirrors. Common enemies need to be asked for answers, not simply united against. |
| The cow chorus | The cow chorus |
| One downside of increased mass political activism is all the loudspeakers. There are few noises more grating than an elderly megaphone hectoring out some battle cry, chanted back by croaky crowds. On repeat, for hours, it can get a bit wearying. | |
| Here’s where musicians ought to come in. The protests of the past were often soundtracked by song. Not just any old tunes, but brilliantly inventive ballads and broadsides, like some of those I heard last Friday at a folk history of land rights called Three Acres and a Cow. This included ditties such as Ewan MacColl’s The Manchester Rambler, dreamed up in 1932 to commemorate the Derbyshire mass trespass – and so fantastically catchy I’d somehow retained it from when I traipsed up Kinder Scout on a 60th anniversary walk in 1992. | Here’s where musicians ought to come in. The protests of the past were often soundtracked by song. Not just any old tunes, but brilliantly inventive ballads and broadsides, like some of those I heard last Friday at a folk history of land rights called Three Acres and a Cow. This included ditties such as Ewan MacColl’s The Manchester Rambler, dreamed up in 1932 to commemorate the Derbyshire mass trespass – and so fantastically catchy I’d somehow retained it from when I traipsed up Kinder Scout on a 60th anniversary walk in 1992. |
| Best of all, though, was an 1880s song the show takes its name from, whose chorus runs: “Don’t you wish you had it now, three acres and a cow / Oh you can make good cheese and butter when you get the cow”. To be so excited at the prospect of dairy products that you’re willing to forgo a rhyme is truly inspirational stuff. | |
| Life-saving laughs | Life-saving laughs |
| Here’s something I learned after a woman fainted on the train next to me this morning: railway station staff aren’t required to have any first aid training. A shame. It could come in quite handy, especially as carriages get packed to the point that, even on non-air-conditioned rolling stock in February, people are expiring with heat and stress. | |
| It is also a shame because actually picking up these basic skills can be surprisingly enjoyable. I finally did so last Saturday at a Red Cross centre, and haven’t laughed so much in ages. Our instructors, Jeff and Donna, were wildly entertaining as well as informative: he a calm, charming former Air Force pilot from Kentucky; she stadium standup-level funny and bitchily witty about the standard of acting on the instructional videos. It was quite a show. And, unlike art, it also happened to be useful. |