You People, Get a Grip

So quick disclaimer: I have not seen "You People". It did not especially interest me to begin with, and the commentary I've read about it has not (to say the least) altered my initial instincts.

But reading the discourse about "You People", I've noticed a particular type of denunciation which seems to hold several presuppositions as gospel. They are:

1. "You People" is antisemitic;
2. Despite (or because of?) its antisemitism, "You People" is a critical darling; and
3. No other group but the Jews would encounter a situation where a media property that is so hateful is a media darling.

That this last claim is made unironically at the exact same time Dave Chappelle won a Grammy for "The Closer" is absolutely precious. But there's a bigger problem with the syllogism here, which is that "You People" is not at all a "critical darling". It has a flat lousy 42% rating on Rotten Tomato! It is widely seen as a mediocre disappointment!

The "nobody but the Jews is expected to suffer so" is an ever-flowering weed of antisemitism discourse, paradoxically living in largely harmonious coexistence with its opposite ("nobody would ever dare say that about the Jews"). Both positions are obviously wrong, which stops exactly nobody from asserting them with unimpeachable confidence. More interesting is the assumption that "You People" inevitably would be a critical hit; so much so that I saw people simply asserting that it was being lauded as an anti-racism classic in defiance of the actual critical consensus. What is going on here?

My suspicion is that there is a line of thinking amongst some that basically assumes that any film or media property which styles itself as "anti-racist" or "asking the hard questions about discrimination" will, in our supposedly hyper-woke era, automatically be viewed as a work of great significance and power -- and if punches at Jews, so much the better. They have bought in hard to the narrative that "woke" means a complete suspension of critical faculties in favor of blind support for anything that holds itself out as anti-racist; since "You People" fits the mold, of course it will be blindly and fervently supported via this inevitable collapse into groupthink. The complaint that critics will reflexively laud anything calling itself "anti-racist" -- ironically itself a reflex that has (as here) proven itself impervious to empirical refutation (perhaps because its very purpose is to enable the automatic and reflexive suspicion of any media property calling itself "anti-racist" -- it can't ever have earned its praise, if it is being lauded it's simply to fulfill the diktats of political correctness)  -- is paradoxically paired with the complaint that Jews and antisemitism are not included inside this paradigm of blind and uncritical support.

But again -- the whole thing is based on a misnomer. The critical reception of "You People" was not blindly supportive; it was not supportive at all. Whether because of its alleged antisemitism, or its clunkiness, or its heavy-handedness, "You People" was not a highly regarded movie notwithstanding its grand social ambitions. This should (but won't) falsify the notion that critics or commentators simply reflexively praise anything that styles itself as anti-racist -- which in turn should (but won't) make us more willing to consider seriously other "anti-racist" media properties which have gotten plaudits but also are hit with the reflexive dismissiveness that they are naught but contemporary PC pandering.