I loathe the idea that “deconstruction and subversion are only valid if the dumbest and most pig-headed audiences can understand them without any ambiguity.”

Ignoring the fact that (at their worst) audiences can be very dumb and very pig-headed, ambiguity and nuance are great.

I think Poe’s Law is a truism.

For any parody, subversion or deconstruction of a thing to work, you have to be willing to accept that there’s a chance that certain audience members will confuse it for the thing it parodies, subverts or deconstructs.

There’s something exhausting in the infantilisation of pop culture, where you get a sense that people don’t want to art that speaks to them so much as it lectures at them.

Sparing them the work of actually untangling, unpacking and processing what it might actually be saying.

Then, this where we are now.

Who needs to actually *watch* a movie to decide if it’s morally abhorrent?

We live in a world where the internet gleefully tried to derail the career of a promising young director, Maïmouna Doucouré, over the voices of those who had seen her movie.

All of which is to say that I did not miss the “discourse” in the (roughly) six months between the release of “Birds of Prey” and “TENET.”

I will say, to be clear, that I think it’s important that there be room for dissenting and iconoclastic positions.

I enjoy reading critical takes with which I disagree, especially when they’re well-constructed, well-reasoned, and nuanced.

Life would be boring if we all agreed.

I think what bothers me about the “discourse” is the lack of room for constructive disagreement.

Because we *absolutely* need to have these conversations.

But it’s not “I’m uncomfortable with this”, it’s that “this is evil and any opinion that it is not evil is evil of itself.”

I’ve written over a million words on “Star Trek: Voyager.”

I’ve taken the show to task for what - what I see as - its very 1990s Californian racism, its sexism, its reactionary impulses.

I don’t expect everybody to agree with me. And it’s fine if they don’t.

If people enjoy “Voyager”, and find things of value in it, that’s fair. Life is short, there’s little enough joy in it as it is.

All one can do is make their argument, and try to do so persuasively. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.

But I don’t expect my arguments to be taken as fact.

I am just wary of any debate over art that relies on painting people who might disagree with you as inherently evil to shore your argument and which tends to disqualify research and persuasion as part of the critical process.

But such is life. Anyway, as I said, I am very tired.

Give me art that is difficult to unravel, which makes me uncomfortable in its uncertainties.

Give me criticism that offers insight, which challenges my assumptions and my perspectives.

Don’t give me strangers on the internet yelling about how everyone who doesn’t agree is evil.