Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussions of rape, sexual assault, pedophilia, suicide and suicidal ideation, antisemitism and racism, anti-trans bias, genocide, domestic violence, and alcohol use disorder.

“I wanted to be a virtuous consumer, a demonstrably good feminist, but at the same time I also wanted to be a citizen of the world of art, a person who was the opposite of a philistine. The question, the puzzle, for me was how I might behave correctly, confronted with these twin and seemingly contradictory imperatives. I felt pretty sure the problem was solvable. I just needed to think harder.”

Dederer’s motivations for writing Monsters illustrate its titular “dilemma”; she cannot reconcile her love for art and her feminism. This impasse points to the fundamentally Misogynistic Structures in the Art World, which she interrogates over the course of the book.

“A friend who was gang-raped in high school says that any and all work by artists who’ve exploited and abused women should be destroyed. A gay friend whose adolescence was redeemed by art says that art and artist must be separated entirely. It’s possible that both these people are right.”

As Dederer grapples with Objectivity Versus Subjectivity in Art Consumption—the central tension of her book—she ambiguates her friends by using the article “a” instead of “my,” transforming them into universal figures, recognizable to her readers. The emphasis on ordinary community members, and their feelings about art, forms a thread that she weaves through her analysis.

“To accept the idea that Woody was not Soon-Yi’s parent does violence to the very idea of my relationship with Larry, one of the most cherished of my life. And perhaps that was the key to my response, when the news of Woody and Soon-Yi came out: I was even more disgusted by the whole mess than I might’ve been otherwise, because I myself had a mother’s boyfriend in my life—in my case, someone I adore and respect to this day. The story of Woody and Soon-Yi—at least the way it came to me—perverted this delicate relationship.”

Dederer finds her own biography colliding with Woody Allen’s as her personal experiences with stepfather Larry lead her to reject and denounce Allen’s treatment of Soon-Yi Previn. This anecdote illustrates a point she pursues further in Chapter 4 (see quote 10), that art consumption is a process of biographical encounter between artist and consumer.