Wagner

So, OK, the operas are not explicitly antisemitic. Not explicitly. But, you know, it just might be the case that operas about Germanised versions of Norse gods are at least a little bit problematic for some people. And, just in case you weren't aware, that kind of mythology has been used by people who were extremely antisemitic to put it rather mildly, and that mythology is still still used by such people today (just do a few searches ... but do them in a private browser because you really don't want search engines to remember those searches, or so I devoutly hope). But, of course, they're not explicitly antisemitic and that makes them entirely OK. Of course it does: there's never a subtext, is there? Nothing has any depth and what is said on the surface is always all that is meant.

I mean, what is it with Wagner? The librettos are like the Lord of the Rings, except really badly written. And yet the people who go on and on endlessly about the ring cycle are also the people who sneer at people who read fantasy literature like TLOTR, because it's not 'high culture' while the appalling dross of the ring cycle somehow is. So we're meant to believe that 'high culture' is a combination of a crap version of any number of fantasy novels, a fucking huge added dose of dogwhistle antisemitism, and 15 hours of music. And don't give me any rubbish about how the librettos don't matter: if people just wanted to listen to the music they'd do that.

You know where you should start with Wagner? Start somewhere else.