Why Was Memoirs Of A Geisha Controversial?

The soundtrack to this movie is beautiful, as always. I’ve been staring at the wall trying to come up with things to write about and this haunting guitar theme from Gustavo Santaolalla keeps popping up. It’s a beautiful and lonely tune and I wonder if it evokes as much sadness as the rest of the film in order to touch bases with the audience that the dialogue doesn’t. You can’t really argue with feelings and maybe that’s why some people are having such a hard time finding the ‘agenda’ of this film because instead of presenting them with a politicized argument the film presents them with a heartbreak and they don’t know how to stay angry with two fictional people and their failed relationship.

It would be interesting to know whether any of the individuals she wrote about in Bali or India had written about her in return, publicly or otherwise.

The controversy surrounding 'The 57 Bus' stems from its raw portrayal of a real-life hate crime involving a genderqueer teen and the complex questions it raises about justice, identity, and forgiveness. The book follows the true story of Sasha, who was set on fire by another teenager, Richard, on a public bus. What makes it so divisive is how it humanizes both victim and perpetrator, forcing readers to confront uncomfortable truths about systemic inequality, racial bias in juvenile sentencing, and whether restorative justice can truly work in violent cases. Some critics argue the narrative leans too hard into Richard's backstory, almost excusing his actions by highlighting his troubled upbringing and Oakland's gang culture. Others praise it for refusing to simplify the situation into clear heroes and villains. The book also sparks debate about how we discuss gender identity in literature. Some LGBTQ+ advocates feel it handles Sasha's nonbinary identity with sensitivity, while others claim it focuses too much on the violence they suffered rather than their humanity. The age of the characters adds another layer—Richard was tried as an adult despite being a minor, which the book scrutinizes heavily. It doesn't shy away from showing how media coverage sensationalized the case, often misgendering Sasha and framing Richard as a 'monster' instead of a product of his environment. This refusal to pick a side is what makes 'The 57 Bus' both groundbreaking and polarizing—it forces readers to sit with ambiguity in a way true crime rarely does.

The controversy around 'Death of the Author' stems from its radical shift in literary criticism. Roland Barthes argued that the author's intentions shouldn't dictate a text's meaning—readers and cultural context shape it instead. Traditionalists hate this; they believe the author's voice is sacred, a direct line to truth. But Barthes’ idea empowers readers, making interpretation democratic. Critics say it’s chaotic—without the author’s guidance, anything goes. Yet supporters love how it embraces ambiguity, letting works evolve beyond their creators. It’s a battle between control and freedom, and neither side is backing down.

The switch to multiple POV characters in each book is somewhat of a point of contention with readers. Although the original books are written in first person from Celaena’s perspective, the third person POV is expanded to include multiple viewpoint characters. As the series progresses, the number of viewpoint characters continues to grow and eventually includes the perspectives of Aelin, Rowan, Chaol, Dorian, Aedion, Lysandra, Manon, Elide, and Lorcan, among others. Readers either love the ‘ensemble cast’ and the way in which it allows Sarah J. Maas to build out her huge world, or they are frustrated by the constant switching between characters. It often takes them out of the storyline of the characters that they are most interested in, and can mean that instead of having a tense and action packed scene, there is instead a lot of description and you are pulled out of the scene in order to learn about the back story of supporting characters. The multiple POV characters make for a very different reading experience than the first books and not all readers are happy with the change. In fact, it has been one of the biggest points of contention for many readers of the series, and has caused many of them to feel as though the series has gone from being a personal and focused journey with a heroine, to a large, intricate tapestry that not all readers were signed up to read.

Ableism was also a huge issue in this book. Cyra has a ‘currentgift’ that forces her to hurt people, but she is also wracked with constant pain. Many readers with disabilities or chronic illnesses were frustrated that her pain was largely used as a plot device to make her out to be this tragic figure, rather than actually exploring what it would be like to live with that kind of constant pain. It even used the ‘supercrip’ trope in reverse, portraying Cyra’s disability as a secret superpower. For a community that is desperately starving for accurate representation of people with disabilities, it was disappointing to see pain handled in such a fantastical, metaphoric way and then dismissed from being real for people with chronic illnesses.

‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is a book of such profoundness that it gets pulled into the culture wars of today every so often. On one hand, there are the vehement critics who assert that the novel perpetuates racist stereotypes of black people; on the other hand, there are the ardent defenders of Twain’s masterpiece who are convinced that he wrote an anti-slavery novel. As with most things in life, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. For although Huck Finn’s curious journey to escape down the Mississippi River is aimed at critiquing the so-called civilized society and its gross hypocrisy, the humor often resamples from the same pool of Humanization by Dehumanization, thus reducing the other to a caricature in order to underscore a point. As the case is with Jim, for example: as Huck sees him, he is most certainly human; yet, as he is represented to the reader via his dialect and his comic relief, he is reduced to less than that. Perhaps the greatest value of the book is the many arguments it inspires regarding art and history and who has the right to be offended.

A somewhat philosophical take on choice and freedom in Velaris: on the surface, Rhysand’s Velaris is all about choices, about freedom. But at the same time, he keeps making huge choices for Feyre and then deciding to hide important truths from her for her own good (like the bargain with the tattoo in Book 1, and the fact that having sex with her could get her pregnant later on). All of these choices are framed as necessary, and Feyre comes to accept them, but they undermine the novel’s stated premise about choices and freedom in order to present a realistic exploration of the problems of power and protection in a relationship. Or they could just be yet another aspect of Rhysand’s toxic behavior that Feyre somehow manages to forgive, and that the novel failed to notice or problematize, and that therefore could be explored by the reader.

Much of the controversy surrounding The Merchant of Venice centers on the play’s portrayal of the Jewish money lender Shylock and the issue of anti-Semitic bigotry. These are difficult issues for teachers to tackle as they probe the line between historically-based bigotry and literary merit. A similar exploration of complexity with the richly-drawn characters in modern fiction can be found in stories such as ‘The Teacher’s Obsession’ where a professor develops an uneasy obsession with one of his students. Although the circumstances are far removed from those in The Merchant of Venice, the story has a similar edge and is the kind of work that raises interesting questions about the morality of human actions and allows the reader to come to their own conclusions.

Many of these controversies have an additional twist: often, despite its problematic elements, a book actually has some good qualities. The plot might be excellent, the characters well developed, the writing beautiful. Of course, one can praise a book’s craftsmanship while denouncing its content, but this is a thin line and, in many cases, soon becomes impossible to maintain. The artistic qualities of a book serve a perspective, and if this perspective is flawed, then the artwork as a whole is flawed as well. Critical discourse in these cases can become very nuanced when it steps beyond good/bad and enters the space of complicity. That beautifully written racism is worse than poor writing of the same stereotypes because it is more effective and memorable. Thus, the critic must acknowledge aspects of a work that function well while in the same breath identifying defects and arguing that they outweigh the positive aspects of a work. It is a delicate yet required skill for the modern critic.