“What did you expect?” is one of those stock responses I get whenever I post anything more substantial than a picture of Green Lantern. There’s some variation in the wording (“Are you surprised?”, “LOTS of people do this”, “This has been done forever”, “This has been done worse before”), but the tone is pretty standard across the board. The tone is that something that is wrong is okay so long as it is wrong all the time.
The tone presents the critic as someone who is complaining because they picked up an issue of Hustler expecting to find pumpkin bread recipes but was blindsided by the dirty pictures. The tone implies that disgust and anger only arise from a sheltered life. The tone implies that anger and disgust don’t accumulate over time.
“What did you expect” has nothing to do with criticizing sexism in any part of the culture. Because whether I expected it or not has nothing to do with whether or not it’s harmful and whether or not it should be there. The criticism isn’t about expectations. It’s about seeing something you think is wrong, and saying something about it.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with me about what is wrong. It would be nice if everyone would, but it’s not going to happen and I accept that. I have a lot of ideas people disagree with. I think Countdown is worth reading. I think Taco Bell isn’t worth eating. I think Ron Marz writes a good Hal Jordan. I think the best Star Wars movie is Return of the Jedi. Personal judgments are up for debate (Please note: I am not going to debate these particular judgments in the comments of this post) and I can’t fault you for not finding something as offensive as I do.
But if your entire comment amounts to “What did you expect?” you aren’t telling me you just don’t find it as offensive as I do. You’re telling me that you agree with me, but that you don’t care because the problem has been around so long. And since a problem which is widespread and/or standard operating procedure is considerably worse than an isolated incident, you’re only giving me more reason to be bothered by what I was originally complaining about.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Am I missing something here?
January 25th, 2008 at 11:34 am
To be honest, I was expecting a picture of Green Lantern after the link.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
(Realizing this is tertiary to Lisa’s point, but …) That’s two votes for Countdown now, after Tom Bondurant’s suggestion that Countdown will probably work better as a trade than a weekly series; I’m all the more interested to read it now to see how it holds up.
To Lisa’s point, I think “What did you expect?” is the response of people not expecting enough, really. I don’t know to what situation Lisa’s specifically referring, but in terms of “That comic book was really poorly written,” “Well, what did you expect, it’s superhero comics,” I think you get what you expect. If we never expect good, character-driven writing and careful, nuanced art, then we don’t deserve it.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I think there is a little “what do you expect me to do about it” or “what are you going to do about it” in it when we say “What did you expect?”
Anyone can say “this is wrong” but you also have to have solid ideas on how to change it. To use a timely example… MLK didn’t just say racism is wrong. He organized boycotts, staged peaceful protests, worked with govt. officials, went jail etc etc etc and we all know what happened in the end.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Actually, I call shenanigans on the “anyone can say this is wrong” thing. Because when you’re talking about racism, sexism, social change of various similar forms, being able to SAY “this is wrong” is a huge step that I think people underestimate.
But there’s something else about the “you need solid ideas, otherwise what’s the point?” thing that I find problematic.
Because what’s lying underneath that is “Yeah, we know that’s wrong, but we don’t know what to do about it, so why are you talking about it?” It’s the idea that problems aren’t worth talking about until we have an answer for them. And, to me, in a lot of ways, that’s ass-backwards. It assumes that the only way to come up with answers is to sit in a little bubble and think really hard. Thinking is great, but particularly when you’re talking about social change, it only goes so far when there’s one of you.
I find some of the best ideas evolve out of conversation, because people have bits and fragments of ideas that make little sense on their own, but when put together are quite awesome. That comes out of talking about stuff even when you DON’T have solid ideas on how to change it.
The conversation can be useful, but it can also be important in itself. And “what did you expect” seems to be a bit of a deflect; a way to get out of that conversation because you’re uncomfortable about acknowledging a problem that you can’t immediately fix.
“What did you expect” is saying that the way to deal with a problem you can’t solve yet is to ignore it. As if ignoring a broken toaster will help you fix it. Ass. Backwards.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I would say that when the commenters have to explain the purpose of a column to each other, the column has failed.
But what is it with all the bloggers whining about how they are treated all the time? you can dish it out but not take it, eh?
January 26th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Now, my assumption is that Lisa is talking about the recent Wonder Woman cover on Playboy. Playboy’s own response can be summed up by the phrase, “What did you expect?” Their attitude is that they are Playboy, and they are supposed to have tasteless covers,and if you get upset, then there is something wrong with you. That is paraphrasing of course, but that was the impression that I received.
So, yes, I understand Lisa’s point of view.
January 26th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
The swill DC’s churned out these last few years is far, far more tasteless than any image that has ever graced the covers of Playboy.
January 27th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
“I think the best Star Wars movie is Return of the Jedi.”
Wow.
That’s just….wow.
Come back from the Dark Side, Lisa!!!!!
But seriously…..
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“I would say that when the commenters have to explain the purpose of a column to each other, the column has failed.”
Inasmuch as that means that there were multitude of commenters who did get the article and didn’t need anyone explain it to them, I don’t see how you are coming to that conclusion.
“But what is it with all the bloggers whining about how they are treated all the time? you can dish it out but not take it, eh?”
Color me surprised that you didn’t get the point of the post.
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“I think there is a little “what do you expect me to do about it” or “what are you going to do about it” in it when we say “What did you expect?””
I vote the former but not so much the latter. I don’t really get the impression that the people who tend to say “what did you expect?” would be terribly happy about boycotts, protests, marches, etc. I rather suspect the question comes more from embracing the status quo rather than skepticism as to what the person saying “the emperor has no clothes!” plans to do about the situation.
January 28th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
People actually LIKE the Star Wars franchise?
Yuck.