lately they are not doing a great job, if you look at certain massive failures. All of them marked by a common ground.
Yeah, laziness and corporate greed. Those works being "woke" isn't what makes them a failure. Being of shitty quality is what makes them a failure. Equating the two is problematic, to say the very, very least. Representation does not make entertainment shitty. The lack of any kind of actual effort outside of this empty gesture does. By defining the argument around "wokeness is killing hollywood" it puts the blame on the representation. Surely you can see how that's problematic.
Yep, as many people say "customers don't have problems with inclusive stories. Customers have problems with bad stories". In the last years we had too many bad stories pushed forward under the ubrella of inclusiveness, just to blame "white men that have problems with strong women" as an excuse to cover their own failures. Wokeness, in that regard, means when you push a certain kind of narrative and don’t care about the story. And when you present a movie and the first thing you exalt is how much is inclusive... well, that means that the story is not going to be good.
Sure, but whats the real problem here? Is it inclusiveness? Or is it the corporate greed driving the latest way to make a quick buck? IMO by aiming the argument at "wokeness" it implies that the problem is somehow with the inclusiveness. And I say that by pointing to any of the examples of people hating on stuff BEFORE THE STORY EVEN WAS RELEASED. You can't possibly have a problem with the story if its not even out... so your problem must be with the fact son of superman is bi or whatever other minor aspect of inclusivity people have decided to have an issue with. "make new characters!" okay, we'll take this ancillary character in the DC universe with almost no backstory and nothing about his love life and expand on that. When that was announced, people despised it. Any instance of inclusiveness is labeled as "pushing a narrative." There's no winning here because the problem was never with shitty story telling... it was with the literal inclusiveness. And if that's not actually the case, then the argument needs to be framed a whole lot better.
Not the best as far as personal attacks go. Surely you can do a little bit better (thereby justifying my eventual retort). Simply because your accusation of: "Lol this is pretty rich coming from the daily fucking wire. The snowiest of snowflakes" It isn't true. Those are the guys that are willing to hear out and debate the other side. Whether you agree with their viewpoint or not (which sometimes I do and sometimes I don't), your characterization (on top of being an unoriginal equivalent to the playground taunt of "I'm rubber, you're glue...") is a complete and utter fabrication. Since Shapiro is the most well known of the group I singled him out to demonstrate that of the two of you, he wouldn't be the snowflake. At least on that point we agree. Nobody likes a one-sided ass kicking when it is the other person who is holding the hammer. Still a pretty weak personal attack... I'm sure you'll get better at it. It's not a hard concept. If two people engage in a competitive endeavor (such as the proposed debate), barring a rare draw, one comes out the victor and one comes out the loser. The fact that I have to explain this is a sad example of the sorry little participation ribbon society we live in. Oh... I have a pretty good idea. Then how do you explain them throwing good money after bad? No matter how much backlash and lost revenue the political messaging gets them, they keep doubling down and losing more money. There is of course a breaking point, but they are very stubborn in their ways. That's not true. Sure the guys at the very top are using this political leftist nonsense to amass more power and wealth, but the messaging is there. There are countless examples, I'll just start with a simple one... Mark Ruffalo First, I'd say he can be, at the very least, considered to be fairly rich Next, left leaning message: Hmmmm... who is this JoJo?
Woof dude. I made my original statement cause they silence people all the time. I thought that was pretty universal knowledge, both sides do it. I reacted poorly cause... honestly I thought it was weird you said Ben Shapiro was gonna beat me in a debate haha. But yeah, sorry dude. Cheers.
see, the fact is that of course we often judge a book by its cover. That's why to present a product in a good way is so important. we are interested in stories, possibly good ones. The new Dr Strange trailers show: an evil version of Strange; Strange held prisoner in front of what seems to be a tribunal with Xavier; an undead universe. They are presenting a story. Superman's son is bi. Really? you are not showing me a possible story, you are showing me a sexual orientation, that is your main selling point. not the story. Compare it to Red Son' premise: it's superman, except he landed in USSR and was raised as communist. THat alone is HUGE, as it will have an enormous impact to how the story will develope. i will always be more interested in a Red Son, rather than Supes' son bi. One offers me a story, the other one don't. That's why we currently associate these "woke" signals with a red flag... because the product won't be good. People tend to think there are prejudices against inclusiveness or sexual orientation or strong women. It's not true: the problem is that those aspects are currently used as main point instead of the story. The world classic literature is filled by stories with inclusiveness, weird sexual orientations and strong women, and there were ever no problems with it.
Totally understand. I think I just look at those things differently when they are offered up. It's not presented as the main selling point. It's the media presenting what they think will drive the most revenue for whatever YouTube channel or shitty website they are part of. There's obviously going to BE a story. I just think it's probably overly difficult in this current climate for the interest of the media to be focused on the story when there's this far more divisive and conflict inducing nugget they can present instead. What's going to drive clicks for them? The story presented in the "son of superman is bi" is there. There are articles that talk about it. It's not talked about first for all the reasons I've mentioned. The media's desire to shove outrage culture down our throats is something I also despise but I roll my eyes and look past it... because I know there's more there. I know that this is a greed driven problem exacerbated by a media that literally exists to create this kind of conflict. It's good business. I just wish people focused on the right problem. I wish the focus was on "stop presenting us the information that way media companies" instead of "stop making our heroes bi" which is often the way the argument is presented. I think thats not happening as evidenced by the reposting of all these talking heads saying more or less the same thing. Those very videos being watched are reinforcing that narrative. Is it really being presented as the main selling point or is the media (the general you) consume telling you it is? Why don't you find different media? If you don't like bisexuality being the main selling point then don't watch a video of an old white dude ranting and raving for 15 minutes about how "superman's son being bi" is the main selling point. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. I just think it's a pretty delicate situation that deserves a more careful argument. I find the current rhetoric around it to be too all encompassing and judgemental towards the wrong people. I think the current arguments come with a lot of baggage and the people making those arguments (some of the time) aren't doing their due diligence in how its being presented. Its also conflated by the existence of very real violence directed towards these groups of people. So when you have a position that could be easily misconstrued as hate if you're not careful in how it's presented, a group of people that regular experiences very real hate... I think it's easy to see how problems and assumptions happen. Last thing, you mention how these things have always existed and no one has had a problem with them until now... but that's not exactly true. There's always been problems with this type of representation by people who actually have a problem with this kind of representation. That actually does exist. It was a smaller, more isolated problem easily waved away as just bigots being bigots, but again it just adds to the baggage of this current "woke culture" argument. Just my two cents. Appreciate the discussion, can definitely sympathize with what you're saying. Hope what I said didn't come across as an attack or presumption. Think I'll stick with aos chat in the future
i thik this is a sensible position. I want to elaborate some concepts but i will not able to do it this evening. I will develope my reasoning tomorrow, so stay tuned.
OK, i would like to elaborate on this. Yes, during the various periods of the history of mankind, we had fluctuating levels of acceptance of “diversity”, due to religions, political extremisms and other factors. What I’m trying to say is that we all come from very similar roots, and those roots were very inclusive. I’m talking about the period of myths, legends and ancient poems, with the birth of some of the most basic tropes of literature, as the Hero’s journey I’m talking about ancient Greece and Homer, here. The most iconic hero of the greek classic literature was Achilles, and his relationship with Patroclus was more than just a “manly friendship”, as shown when Achilles goes MAD after the death of Patroclus (which, BTW, it’s a great example of “show, don’t tell”). Staying on Greece, we have also Sappho, one of the greatest female poets of all times, which was lesbian. The term “sapphic love” comes from her. And her poems about her lover are studied and appreciated also today. If we go to North Europe, we can pick the northern mythology. The Gods were basically a representation of the human nature, with our same vices. It’s not a case that there were so many treasons and sex outside marriage between the Gods. And one of the most iconic god is Loki… a guy that was a shapechanger, who was used to have sex with men, women and even beasts (look at the story of Sleipnir’s birth…). Talks a lot about sexual identity. But it’s really a thing that you can see all across the world’s cultures, and is not related only to the sexual sphere. In the native north American mythology, there are stories where there is a male god which is powerful but guillible, and the positive protagonist of the myth is a smart mortal woman that fools the god. A similar approach can be found in african myths (alongside with positive male figures... actions were important, not the gender) The same can be said for Inuit culture. I'm not an expert, but in the only legend i know the positive figure was a woman and the negative one was a male god (which, if i recall correctly, was basically a stalker). And of course China, with Mulan. My convinction is that yes, there are minorities of people that are against inclusiveness because they are fundamentally racists, but all in all we came from that ancient cultural base. We accept diversity in stories as long as you stay true to the classical tropes. The original Mulan is appreciated because there is a Hero's journey... that is the thing, and it happens the protagonist is a girl. The recent live action remake was rejected not because "OMG, strong woman!"... it was rejected because it failed miserably in presenting a good story and a satisfying journey. THe same goes for the new SW trilogy, or Capitan Marvel. Give us good "woke" stories, and the bigots will be minority again.
Definitely wasn't thinking that when you first mentioned it, so appreciate the clarification! I largely agree, although I think like most things there's some nuances that need to be appropriately considered. I completely agree! I feel like i've tried to be pretty consistent with that, but maybe it didn't come across as clearly as I intended. I'll go back to what i said earlier, I think it's a delicate situation that deserves a more careful, thoughtful argument (as yours has been). I dont have a problem inherently with the criticism, I just think the criticism sometimes takes a more aggressive, biased stance then maybe it intends. I'll firmly always be in the camp that good storytelling can overcome a lot. As i posted over in the actual "woke" thread (sorry for kind of co-opting this one!) the original LOTR trilogy definitely faced a lot of similar criticism as the current show. The end result however was masterfully done and allowed people to "look past" the very criticisms they had levied before. The storytelling (and directing and acting) created such a smart, passionate, and entertaining end product that various modernizations and inconsistencies with the casting or what have you were overlooked or eventually drowned out by the groundswell of positivity. It's why I think the argument should always be directed at, and focused around, the poor storytelling (or the corporate greed that tries to replace quality story telling/directing/acting with cheap, inexpensive pandering) because i think it does a much better job of articulating the actual problem.
To me, it comes down to this exact point: Storytellers (in whatever guise: movie script writers, TV show script writers, authors, you name it) need to WORK. This means they need to come up with THEIR OWN IDEAS that are GOOD STORIES. A good example of this is Patrick Rothfuss with the Kingkiller Chronicles. The story is excellent and he weaves into it many things, including gays and lesbians. It's a brand new story and it works. Fantastically in my opinion. We just need more things like this. My main upset with "woke" culture is just that: Rehashing. I don't have a thing about gay/lesbian. I don't have a thing about oriental/black. Etc. etc. But when someone comes along and changes something that I know well (Batman / Batwoman was I think the biggest reality-shake of them all) I don't like it. Alot. Just come up with NEW STORIES. Unfortunately, it seems like the current trend is lazy story writing, meaning take something that is already popular and come up with a reboot. Which, in my opinion as I know nothing about box office sales/TV ratings, etc., is just a load of crap.
Don't say it!!!! You'll jinx it!!!! But seriously, YES. I've read the first two books about 12 times each. Absolutely awesome.
My main grip with these woke creators boils down to this question: Are you an artist/writer/creator first and an activist second (or at all) or are you an activist first and an artist/writer/creator second (or at all)? Next, I can't stand race/gender/sexuality swaps... in any direction! I don't want Latina Snow White or homosexual black Santa Claus. By the same token, I don't want Wonderman or white Black Panther or a white Fresh Prince of Bel Air. It's not creative, its political.