Shade
Hey all, long before I ever found my favorite tarot sites like Tarot Passages, Wicce's Tarot Collection, and the Aeclectic forum one of the sites I visited most often for reviews was the Astroamerica http://astroamerica.com/t-menu.html
I noticed after a while that the reviews on Astroamerica tended to be quite a bit harsher than other deck review sites. Even when Gina Pace of the Wicce tarot site didn't like a deck, she would at least frame her response by discussing what it was the author set out to do, who it would appeal to, and what her particular reaction was to it. The reviewer on Astroamerica tends to decide what he thinks a card is going for then concocts long drawn out often ridiculous rationalizations about what a card might mean if skewed one particular way, and then dismisses an entire deck based on that.
As an example of this he once pointed out that the hands of the magician in the Mythic tarot point in the opposite direction of the RWS version. He decides this means that this magician must be drawing upon the energy of the dead and sending that out into the world and that the card is really about Necromancy (?!?). Clearly - or at least I imagine clearly - it is much more likely that the artist is still going for an as above so below analogy but with different hands than the RWS.
Then this evening I read his review of the Gay tarot. Now, in my journey with this particular deck I have been critical of a few of its elements. There are things I may have done differently but ultimately I would agree that Lee Bursten has created a deck with familiar elements of gay culture and cosmology and woven them into a workable tarot structure. The Astroamerica review on the other hand manages to give a review that is patently offensive to all queer folks everywhere by stating that:
Being gay is a choice
Gay folks don't really raise children
The deck suggests gay folks play a role to deceive straight people
The Magician card (again with the magician) represents a magical gay inversion (a really offensive word if you know anything about the history of gay folks and psychology) and that the card alludes to the fact that straight culture was repulsed by gay folks in the age of Pisces because of our predominant role as black magicians(?!?)
I've disagreed with a lot of reviews in my time but this is the first time I've ever actually been offended by one. It would be one thing if the author had some sort of reality to base the review on but his points are largely the baseless reactions I associate most with Rush Limbaugh. It annoys me when he takes the Devil card (a card I batted around in my head a few times) as disdain towards heterosexual marriage. It's actually depicting the very real phenomenon of internalized homophobia. Oy
If you want to read the review for yourself, it's here: http://astroamerica.com/t-gay.html
I noticed after a while that the reviews on Astroamerica tended to be quite a bit harsher than other deck review sites. Even when Gina Pace of the Wicce tarot site didn't like a deck, she would at least frame her response by discussing what it was the author set out to do, who it would appeal to, and what her particular reaction was to it. The reviewer on Astroamerica tends to decide what he thinks a card is going for then concocts long drawn out often ridiculous rationalizations about what a card might mean if skewed one particular way, and then dismisses an entire deck based on that.
As an example of this he once pointed out that the hands of the magician in the Mythic tarot point in the opposite direction of the RWS version. He decides this means that this magician must be drawing upon the energy of the dead and sending that out into the world and that the card is really about Necromancy (?!?). Clearly - or at least I imagine clearly - it is much more likely that the artist is still going for an as above so below analogy but with different hands than the RWS.
Then this evening I read his review of the Gay tarot. Now, in my journey with this particular deck I have been critical of a few of its elements. There are things I may have done differently but ultimately I would agree that Lee Bursten has created a deck with familiar elements of gay culture and cosmology and woven them into a workable tarot structure. The Astroamerica review on the other hand manages to give a review that is patently offensive to all queer folks everywhere by stating that:
Being gay is a choice
Gay folks don't really raise children
The deck suggests gay folks play a role to deceive straight people
The Magician card (again with the magician) represents a magical gay inversion (a really offensive word if you know anything about the history of gay folks and psychology) and that the card alludes to the fact that straight culture was repulsed by gay folks in the age of Pisces because of our predominant role as black magicians(?!?)
I've disagreed with a lot of reviews in my time but this is the first time I've ever actually been offended by one. It would be one thing if the author had some sort of reality to base the review on but his points are largely the baseless reactions I associate most with Rush Limbaugh. It annoys me when he takes the Devil card (a card I batted around in my head a few times) as disdain towards heterosexual marriage. It's actually depicting the very real phenomenon of internalized homophobia. Oy
If you want to read the review for yourself, it's here: http://astroamerica.com/t-gay.html
As the old saying goes, "Opinions are like a**holes. Everybody has one." And he's quite entitled to his. I don't agree with it, but he has every right to express his opinion. And I have every right not to frequent his site or purchase from him. That was maybe the fourth time I've ever gone to that site and will probably be the last time I do so.