Hot Take: We Don't NEED to Talk About It, You Just Want To

This is going to be tricky to do, so forgive me if I kind of veer off course a bit, but I'll try to stay on-target.

I'm not sure exactly when it started, but as of late, it seems like every other headline starts with the phrase "We Need to Talk About..." And while some of the issues that "need" talking about are somewhat valid, I find that the vast majority of articles that express this level of urgency in their headline end up being about something superficial at best. All this, while it sometimes feels like the world is burning down around us, and I just find it annoying and disingenuine, not to mention irresponsible on the part of journalists. Let me explain.

I think my overall frustration with this has more to do with the extra trivial stuff that isn't going to change any systems of oppression in this world. Here are some examples of this frivolity (some are spoilers for Game of Thrones or Avengers: Endgame, so be warned):

We Need to Talk About Martha Stewart's Instagram

We Need to Talk About the Night King's Perfectly Shaped Nails

We Need to Talk About Rami Malek and Real Life Angel Lucy Boynton at Met Gala 2019

We need to talk about Jaime Lannister's 'f*ckboy' move at the end of this week's 'Game of Thrones.'

We Need To Talk About Nick Jonas And Priyanka Chopra At The 2019 Met Gala

We Need To Talk About The Celebrities Who Didn't Stick To The Met Gala Theme

We Need To Talk About Gwendoline Christie's Fashion Game Because DAMN

You get my drift. No, we don't need to talk about Lady GaGa's (or anybody else's, for that matter) Met gala outfits. The short version is, 

Especially when in the greater context of things we really do need to talk about- and I'll get to that later.
One from that above list, the one about Jamie, could actually have been much better-written/have had more meaningful content, and it's a good transition move for me, here. If you aren't caught up on Game of Thrones, skip ahead to the gif of the puppy, since up until then, 

I had a lot of issues with the latest episode (S8E4), and one of them was that moment when Jamie rode off into the night, leaving Brienne a crying, sobbing mess. I can understand why it was actually REALLY great, development-wise for him, because, as Awesome Boyfriend pointed out to me, it was the first time he actually, undeniably owned up to his sins and his faults. Any other time, he had been dodgy, at best, so good on him!!! Except... it came at Brienne's expense. And thus, it kind of cheapened their entire relationship, made him knighting her two episodes ago and even so far back as when he got his hand cut off for her (which, come to think of it...), makes her nothing but a plot device for his character growth. She showed him how to open up and look, now he can face his sister (my theory is he's going to be the one to kill her, but y'know, whatevs). I mean, it reduced her to his manic-pixie-Big-Girl-with-a-Sword (or manic-pixie-dream-knight? I dunno, but, doubtless, you understand my point). So in the greater context of the show and how shittily it handles its ladies, it just was beyond frustrating and eye-roll-ee (and especially when considering how bad that specific episode was for those ladies, too, ugh).

So yeah, this is something worth talking about. But the above article, for one, doesn't really address these problems and turns it into more of a joke, and anyway, saying we "need" to is still a stretch for me.

Another bit from that episode, and this time, the article at least approaches it from a more analytical lense, as opposed to just comical. 

We Need To Talk About What Sansa Stark Said About Her Trauma On "Game Of Thrones"

As a survivor, especially, this was a really... emotional... bit to watch. I think, like one of the Twitter posts showed in that article, what happened was this:

The writers meant to convey something like, "Yeah, my trauma was pretty shitty, and I certainly wish it had never happened, and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemies. But I've grown past it, used it, and by getting through it, I realized how strong I've been all along. It will always hurt, but at least I can say I lived through it and came out swinging." 

But it came across as, "If I hadn't been raped, I would have stayed an immature prat, so thank goodness for Ramsey!"

Basically, the implication because of the word choice was that, had it not been for her trauma, she never would have matured at all. Which is garbage. But as a survivor, I know for a fact that saying trauma like that contributed to who we are today is a common thing for us- I would never say I was grateful for it, or that I wouldn't have matured or evolved as a person without it. It's a PART of me, but it doesn't DEFINE me. And even if I hadn't experienced that trauma, I still would have evoloved as a human fucking being.

So yeah, I get what they were trying to do, but just, dude, so, so much no. Sorry, D&D, but it has never been more obvious that women don't write your scripts than this episode. And yeah, it thus means that again, they're using that super-tired trope of sexual assault as character development for women. 

Le sigh.

Swing and a miss, bros. 

IT IS NOW SAFE TO CONTINUE

Those GoT things are some of them- here are examples of other articles that are at least about issues worth discussing (more spoilers in these articles, no doubt):

We Need to Talk About How Game of Thrones Treats the Dothraki

We Need to Talk About the Sexist Garbage in 'Octopath Traveler'

We Need to Talk About the Game of Thrones Race Problem

[SPOILER WARNING] We need to talk about the Avengers: Endgame finale

‘Avengers: Endgame’ – We Need to Talk About This Black Widow Situation

What I'm saying is, these are perfectly reasonable things to want to discuss. I think we should, given the range and reach of those two main franchises in those articles. And I have to wonder how I would feel about the "We Need to" part of the headline (at least for Sansa) if I hadn't been inundated with declarations of needing to talk about fucking dresses and hairstyles and music videos, etc. 

Call me a cranky old crone, fine, but don't you dare accuse me of not caring about "isms" in pop culture. This is my blog, so I'll bitch if I want to, and said blog is ripe with critiques of pop culture through various lenses, usually those of feminism, race, and/or disability. Like, so much of it that I'm not going to even bother linking to any of my past articles. Seriously. just scroll back for a while, or read a few of the posts featured as "most popular" on the side (it's kind of obvious from their titles which ones count). So yeah, I'll be the first to call out something as problematic, as sexist, as racist, as ableist, as classist- as whateverist.

But I never claim that my critiques need to be viewed by anybody. I would never presume to title one of those posts in a way that makes the situation sound life-or-death the way this "We Need to Talk About..." stuff goes.

I guess what I'm saying is that since "We Need to Talk About..." gets used in such UNimportant matters, instances where I actually do care about pop culture seem less deserving of the phrase itself. And discussing pop culture or allegories isn't quite as impactful as real events. It can be a platform for starting a discussion about the real world, but that's not quite the same thing.

Even titles like Let’s Talk About Avengers: Endgame’s Big Moment of Pandering/Female Empowerment, Depending on Your View  or LET’S TALK ABOUT AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR’S RACE PROBLEM are too close to the "We Need to Talk About..." type nowadays for me to not get a little grumpy. Probably because yeah, I'm just so inundated with useless crap about clothes and gossip that I've been tainted. 

It gets less frustrating for articles like these:

It’s time to talk about being white in America

Amanda Zhang: We need to talk about sexism in tennis

On Steve, Julius and the Christchurch murders: Why we need to talk about hate speech

We need to talk about death: I was not prepared for how lonely grief would be

We have to talk more about suicide. Even if it means I have to run a 5K.

Because the racism being discussed in these articles is in the real world, is actually happening, and leads to hate speech, as referenced, and yes, hate crimes. The sexism in the tennis community is tangible, is negatively affecting women in tennis every day. Grief is a real thing most of us have to encounter at some point in our lives, and no, we really don't talk about it enough. Suicide is real. It happens. 

But some things about which I would definitively say, "Yes, we need to talk about this," are:

Flint, Michigan

The vast numbers of indigenous women and girls that have gone missing in North America

The Homelessness Crisis

How over 20% of the children in the US live below the poverty line

Climate change, bruh

So, overall: I'm sick of seeing, "We Need to Talk About..." in article titles. This doesn't mean I think none of the stuff these articles are about is of value- social critique, be it of society itself or the consumable pieces of it that get spewed out, is really the only way society as a whole will progress. Citing and critiquing hegemonic discourses in pop culture can make people more atuned to their existence IRL- this is something I fundamentally believe and is fucking why I rant so much about how stuff is "problematic" and why I can't have nice things.

But unless I see that it's about clean water or saving the planet, I'm most likely not going to read an article with, "We Need to Talk About..." in its headline nowadays. And I really wish that phrasing would stop being so overused. I said above that it comes across as irresponsible on the part of journalists. I said this because it creates a numbing, false sense of urgency about some inconsequential piece of, essentially, gossip, while people are starving, the planet is dying, and Flint still doesn't have clean water. And so fucking what if they're entertainment blogs? It doesn't matter. They're still acting like the most important article you'll read that day is the one about Bae's lipstick. And that just makes me do this