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

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

13 reviews

jayisreading's review

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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inlibrisveritas's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

If you're going into this looking for an answer on how to deal with the monsters in our media, you won't find one. This is very much a personal look at how the author views and deals with it, and how as a collective it's not an easy answer to form.

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hduc's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This book deals with monstrous people. Of course there will be disturbing stories. But fear not, take one or two pages at a time. You would come out of this book a heart lighter.

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larajgriff1's review against another edition

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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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hanhantap's review against another edition

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challenging reflective sad medium-paced

2.5

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jainabee's review against another edition

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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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