26 - Context

I'm going to start this piece with a simple statement; context is everything. 

Specifically here I'm going to talk about context in respect of art - and I'm using the word in its broadest definition - and how evolving attitudes mean that over the years what is acceptable shifts and things that were once deemed okay are now deemed not to be when viewed with modern eyes.

A recent example of this is a 1970s Doctor Who story called The Talons of Weng-Chiang. The official Doctor Who Magazine has a feature called The Time Team where a group of young fans sit around and watch a few old episodes - many of whom are seeing these episodes for the first time - and discuss them. In the current issue, one of the episodes they watch is the first part of Talons...

Now, the thing about Talons is that one of the mmain supporting characters is a Chinese character called Li H'sen Chang; but he's not played by a Chinese actor, he's played by a white actor made up to look Chinese. Furthermore, there are many racial stereotypes in the story. 

Understandably, the Team take umbrage with this, and express their dislike for these elements of the story. One of the team - who has seen the story before - gives a bit more context to the background of the production of the story, and helps the rest of them get to grips with it a bit more. They eventuallly come to the conclusion that it's not wrong to enjoy the story, but to understand that elements of it would not be considered appropriate today.

The editor of the magazine then gave further context to why certain production decisions were made in his editorial, which expanded on the context of how things were done in those days, and made reasonable points. 

In fact, the whole thing in the maazine itself was quite reasonable indeed. And then an obscure academic took umbrage at the article and the editorial and called for the editor to be fired, as apparently it was wrong to show this story to the Time Team, and giving more context in an edirorial was selling them out. 

It all then exploded when a former DWM editor took umbrage at these words, and replied to them; which was apparently bad Twitter etiquette by quoting her words when he has 5 times as many followers as her. Which seems odd, as if you reply to a tweet it shouldn't matter if a person has 10, 100, 10,000, a million folowers if you're engaging in debate. It then got even messier with the academic essentially sugesting that every DWM editor was a "fuckhead". 

I could quote acres of the tweets that were said, but I think it's getting too far from the point of context. The thing is, looking at Talons from a 2018 perspective it is undoubdtedly racist. If you were viewing it in 1977 you would almost certainly not have thought it racist. Times change. Opinions change. What was acceptable then is not acceptable now. This all has to be borne in mind when looking at any art, be it painting, sculpture, books, movies, TV, whatever.

[As an interlude, whilst writing this I was watching an old episode of EastEnders and that had a scene where an old white lady said to a young black boy that "you all look the same" and that she can't help her upbringing any more than "you can't help being black". It was actually a really well written, and well acted, scene and served to make a point about the character of the old lady. You'd not see similar in a 2018 episode. But; is it racist to show such a scene. I would say no.]

This is shifting all the time. We all think that right about now were are more enlightened than at any point in history. Yet, I gurantee that there are some things happening right now that will be looked back upon in 10, 20 years or so and thought to be terrible. We all thouht it was great in the 90s. But look at some of the things that happened then - the rise of lad culture, and an increased objectification of the female body by the likes of Nuts and Zoo etc - and you realise that things hadn't changed much. 

I guess the key thing is that different people's tolerance to the things that were done "wrong" in the past varies. What some will overlook will be the thing that will make others reach for the off switch. Who is right? Both. Clearly. 

There are many other examples I could cite - some may even have isues with Mr Tojamura in my beloved Twin Peaks - but then this piece would go on for much longer, and I think I've waffled enough as it is. I guess I should just end this article by repeating the point I made right at the top;

Context is everything!