Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

Reviews tagging 'Pedophilia'

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

33 reviews

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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badmom's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

Dederer tackles a seemingly impossible question - How do we separate art from artist? - with layers of other questions that made me think deeper than I ever have on this topic. She explores all of the ways she (and most of us) has tried to make sense of loving art created by monstrous people; she shares her own experiences along with research of how scholars and laypeople alike have approached this dilemma. The result is this compilation of painful truths & personal revelations kindly blended with psychology and brief portions of politics & economics.
Despite its rich breadth & depth, this study flows beautifully and offers valuable insights in its trek to answers.

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ktdakotareads's review

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informative slow-paced

3.5

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mmccombs's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

This is a book made up of feelings and no answers and a whole lot of questions. It’s a book where I didn’t necessarily agree or resonate with everything the author brought up, but one that has made me think in new ways about consuming art, celebrity, biography, personal ethics, capitalism, and how all of those things intersect in a messy cacophony of emotion. How, ultimately, the question of what we do with monstrous celebrities/artists/public figures boils down to the question of how we can still love someone when they’re a bad person (and if it’s possible to love ourselves when we are also imperfect).

I do think the conclusion, which more or less boils down to “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” is kind of a weak way out. Some people might come out of this saying “phew, I can watch X movie and not feel bad about it” and I’m just unsure if that’s exactly the most productive outcome of a book like this. Sure, we can’t consume/not consume our way out of a huge systemic issue of abuse in the art industry, but what other method, as individuals, can we leverage in an attempt to show the industry (and our peers) that we do not condone behavior like this? I would have liked to see her push beyond her “well, what can you do?” ending to do something more constructive, it was not super satisfying and felt like a cop out.

I think I’ll be reflecting on this one for a while, I’m already excited to come back to it!

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lifeinpoetry's review against another edition

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challenging reflective medium-paced

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smfaehnle's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

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cpalmerpatel's review against another edition

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This would've been a great book if they had included just a little bit of critical research. Their "lit review" consisted of emailing an old professor to ask him what's written on the topic and upon being told there wasn't anything, set out to fill the gap with their own personal opinions.
I'm not entirely sure who's the intended audience for this book. Other film critics? Or maybe her usual audience? ie the people that turn to film critics as the authority on whether a film is good or bad. She drops in names of people without explaining 1) why they're famous and 2) what they've done that was monstrous, assuming you already know and it leaves you turning to google to fill in the gaps. When she discusses a film, she talks about characters and setting in a way that assumes that everyone has seen it and appreciates it's "genius". I'm not convinced that any work of art can be described as "genius" and it left me with the feeling that the author wrote the entire book in order to justify why she continues to love her favourite movies even though the men creating them were rapists.
She also focused more on men and when the discussion turned to women it centred on the classic dillemma of the working mother trying to balance mum mode with work mode, except exasperated here because art ("real art"?) isn't "work" but a madness or passion.

It was okay, and sparked some ideas but not as stimulating as I thought it was going to be.

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