Written Response #1.docx - Submitted By: Zainab Adenwala...

Submitted By: Zainab Adenwala
Critical Analysis #1
This critical analysis will use Adrienne L. Massanari and Shira Chess’ article, Attack of
the 50-foot social justice warrior: the discursive construction of SJW memes as the monstrous
feminine, to analyze how climate change activist, and a contender for a Nobel Prize, Greta
Thunberg is viewed by the alt-right media. This paper will discuss how Thunberg is criticized for
her endeavours and is a classic example of someone who is being viewed as a social justice
warrior (SJW) in the media today. I will also discuss some of the memes being generated through
social media that at the surface show support for Thunberg, but also take away from the
seriousness of her call to action.
Massanari and Chess begin their article by describing the history of the social justice
warrior. This phrase was first used positively about twenty years ago, however more recently the
SJW is considered to be “a humorless shrill who takes pleasure in demonstrating their superiority
by policing the behaviour of others” (p. 526). Furthermore, they are described as someone who is
unreasonably angry and hides behind their computer (Massanari & Chess, 527), however it is
important to note that in the case of Thunberg, she is not just someone who is fighting for climate
action sitting behind her computer, but is taking concrete steps to act upon what she is fighting
for. This is proven by the fact that her journey for climate action started when she held a school
strike outside the Swedish Parliament building in August 2018 and has continued since (Watts).
On September 23, 2019 Thunberg spoke at the UN Summit, where she urged officials to do
something about the climate crisis (Wright). However, for some reason, this triggered the older
white men on the right (Wright) and the notion of the social justice warrior, and those officials
viewing Thunberg as one, is one of the main deep-rooted causes of this.
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There are three main things that trigger the politicians and officials who are
mainly white men – the fact that Thunberg is much younger than them, her having Asperger’s
and the fact that she is a girl. These factors play a key role in the things that are being said about
her. For example, Conservative pundit Michael Knowles in speaking about Thunberg on Fox
News said “… the climate hysteria movement is not about science. If it were about science it
would be led by scientists rather than by politicians and a mentally ill Swedish child who is
being exploited by her parents and by the international left," (Flynn). Firstly by calling her a
child, there is an underlying purpose of discrediting Thunberg’s claims and furthermore, by
calling her mentally ill, this pundit has confused a disorder of Asperger’s with a mental illness.