The decline of shared myths [Political]

That is putting words in people's mouths and thoughts in their heads. Just because I have an apple does mean that you have to lose an orange.

That's why I became a supporter for gay marriage before it was a mainstream view because I realized that same sex marriage did not actually make it harder for me to have a hetero marriage.

I am amazed at how fast LGBT rights advanced compared to the 100+ years it took for the Black Civil Rights movement to pick up steam after the American Civil War.

I am against discrimination of the LGBT community. I make sure to not say anything insensitive and I be polite and friendly with LGBT just as I would anyone else. I also attended one rally for legalizing gay marriage in my state many years ago. I don't know what else to do. I do not know many LGBT people.

But what is "equality"? I honestly don't know. It means something different to every person I talk to.

You can pass a law making it illegal to discriminate someone for an employment opportunity on the basis of sexual orientation but you cannot pass a law declaring two groups of people equal because you cannot measure it.

Equality is vague and hard to measure and there many ways to be equal. Could you describe a world to me where every sexual orientation is equal? Describe a hypothetical world where victory can be declared.

Equality for straights and LGBT people could mean that half of all characters in all media are non-cis or it could mean that character in all the media proportionally represent what they have in real life so if 5% of the population is non-cis than 5% of fictional characters should be non-cis.

Equality could just mean that you pay CIS and straight actors the same, but no one worries about proportions or quotas.

There is proposed legislation in California that publicly traded companies need a minimum number of underrepresented groups included in their board of directors. Including a black person OR an LGBT person. Is it appropriate to view black people and LGBT as interchangeable? That seems to diminish both groups.

One issue with quota systems it casts shade on the disenfranchised groups. If a member of disenfranchised group is on the board with no special quota system, people assume they made it there on merit. If there is a quota system, even qualified minorities will be disrespected because there is often an unspoken assumption that that person is a token hire.

Is it equality that there are laws on the books that promote the interest of LGBT above cis gendered in certain circumstances? Is it equal that there are far more specific scholarships for LGBT students than straight students?

Is it equal that a same sex married couple automatically assumes 50/50 custody for children and child support as the baseline but hetero couples have a giant bias towards the mother getting custody?

On Monday, I am not equal to myself on Tuesday. If I cannot be equal to myself, I cannot be equal to another person.

Two people can be equal under the law. But if there are laws to make it easier for person A to be hired than person B, then these people are not equal under the law. Person A is legally superior to Person B.

Such things acts of discrimination illegal in the United States and rightfully so.

I am not sure what to do about gay people being beaten up in the streets of Russia or "disappeared" in China. I would like to stop these things. I don't see how symbolic actions in the United States will help non-cis people in autocratic nations with systemic oppression abroad though.

I wouldn't want to trade my life with anyone in Russia or China. Even members of the elites in these places have little personal freedom and have the proverbial Sword of Damocles hanging above their heads.

Likewise, I don't see how the abysmal way some women are treated in Third World countries means that women should have tax breaks in the United States.

I was once in a workplace where a hetero coworker got fired for asking out a female coworker but a LGBT routinely was able to (jokingly) proposition coworkers and get away it.

In media, LGBT people may not have the representation that straight people do in terms of numbers but it's almost always very flattering representation when they get it, at least as far as I can see. I haven't see anything like the infamous Gillette commercial directed against LGBT people. I hear about toxic masculinity all the time, but you put a famous guy on a magazine cover in a dress. Celebrated.

I seen some horrific footage and testimony for how violently LGBT activists were treated in the 1960s through the 1980s and beyond. I even went to a speech given by Mathew Shepherd's mother.

I understand that hetero men are not being treated with half as bad as LGBT were treated historically but there is discrimination against hetero men and men in general a lot. It is subtle and mild but everywhere.


Perhaps this is all off-topic, we were originally talking about entertainment media. I need food, I need water. I don't need to watch movies and TV shows. I don't mind media with representation, but I do want my media to have good stories. Most good stories have good lessons.

Not only is it a bad story, but it's a bad lesson when the representational character has no character arc, no weaknesses to overcome, no need for growth because showing the representational character as being a flawed human would reflect poorly on the group...somehow.

I want more hero's journeys. I don't really care what skin color they have or who they are sexually attracted to. I want to see 1990s Mulan succeed because of her grit, hard work, and determination. I don't want to see her succeed because she stopped hiding her true supernatural chi power because she finally decided to stop letting the patriarchy hold her down. (That's is also pretty much the same climax of Captain Marvel, the evil men put a control chip in her to limit her awesomeness.)

Also I don't want Moulan to have her movie produced by collaborators with human traffickers and genocidal murderers.

 

There are lot of examples, but given that the debate started from movies (and superheroes ones), i'd like to use this.
It's about sexual harassment and rape, which apparently is perfectly fine if it's specifically treated as joke on men, also in superheroes media.

Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs - Part 1 Male Perpetrators - YouTube

 

"You are wrong! You are evil! You are lecherous! Your sexuality is dangerous!



Now buy our razor!"



Most of the scenes of harassment are from old TV shows because they couldn't find real incidents. Also, there is a brief scene where a guy is about to approach an attractive woman on the street and the stranger is like "No man, that's not cool."

In the 1940s, that is how my grandparents met. My grandfather randomly approached my grandmother.


Most TV shows from the 1990s to now, the man in a marriage or LTR is a bumbling buffoon and his smart sassy wife is always pulling his butt out of the metaphorical fire and keeping him in line.


Then there is institutional misandry, which actually puts gay men and straight men in the same boat.

When men are committing acts of evil they are identified as men. When men are victims or heroes, they are identified with gender neutral lanaguage.

 

There is a whiff of Nondisclosure Agreements keeping anyone from telling why Ruby Rose really left the Batwoman.

But if you connect the dots, Ruby Rose found the show exhausting and couldn't handle the long hours, commutes to distant sets and the stuntwork.

I hung out with a lot of theater people in college and I always have been fascinating by their subculture. It is brutal and very competitive. For every actor or singer that makes it, there are many that don't. Aspiring stars have to eat metaphorical poop doing bit roles and getting rejected audition after audition and work part time jobs on the side to pay bills until they get their big break.

My understanding is that with TV and movies is even harder.

Hundreds, if not thousands of equally talented actresses would literally kill to be in Ruby Rose's position. She is the star of a television show with a major marketing apparatus behind it. She has free rein to spread her politics outside the set, and she seemed to be insulated from being fired. The CW has cancelled shows that have had higher ratings on a lower budget.

And she chose to walk away.

I have not seen this show beyond a few clips, but I have listened to some very detailed reviews that give complete synopses.

The wokeness bugged me, but more than that, I just got tired of the CW Arrowverse. I liked Flash and Arrow but each season was slightly less good than the last and they had a lot of seasons. Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 was a big let down from season 1. The CW shows in the Arrowverse are getting more similar and are starting to look too much alike.

Now that I think about it, I am hard pressed to think of anything that is not a comedy show that can maintain it's quality over 4+ seasons. I am both excited and anxious, that Young Justice, my favorite super hero show, is entering production for season 4.

The shows has a lot of flaws, but it's a not COMPLETE dumpster fire. Batwoman is not a Mary Sue that is automatically good at everything without trying and suffering. She and the other characters had some character arcs. It's a CW show, so you got to have some family drama, the main recurring villain is her sister.

With all that built around the character. If the CW intends to continue the show, I don't get why they didn't just recast her and pretend that nothing changed. TV shows do this all the time and very few people complain.

If you don't keep the original Batwoman with her web of relationships between friends, romantic interests, family, and fellow crime fighters, why bother keeping the show and the name?

 

Both. The only media franchises that I recall not losing their luster over repetitive iterations are comedies based on satire to some extent. I like Simpsons, South Park, Brooklyn 99, the Jon Stewart era Daily Show, Futurama, and Last Week Tonight year after year.

I cannot name a show that is not a satirical comedy that I liked four years running. I guess these sorts of comedies can avoid becoming stale because satirists have a constant source of new material to draw from. Human beings were ridiculous in the 90s, the 00s, the 10s, and I'm pretty sure humans will be ridiculous in the 20s and 30s.

James Bond and Dr. Who are very long running franchises that are arguably successful. I don't hate them. I've watched a few of these and was mildly entertained but they don't keep me coming back for more. I know I keep going back to the CCP, I have a one-track mind. When the Cold War was "over" in the late 1980s James Bond writers ran out of easy material. We still have a Cold War, but Hollywood won't make movies based on it because they want to sell their products to China. Skyfall was the last Bond movie I saw. I didn't think any of it at the time, but Skyfall (2012) portrayed the PLA in very flattering terms and made Bond's fighting partner/romantic partner a CCP agent played a popular Chinese actress. I didn't stop watching 007 because of politics. I just thought Bond was getting stale.

There hundreds of episodes of Dr. Who. Even hardcore Dr. Who fans admit they are not all good and that there good runs and bad runs of the series. I guess it's kind of like Star Trek that way. Deep Space 9 is the only one I've watched start to finish non-stop. I still like the latter series but I think the first three seasons are the best (though they had a few weak episodes). Just because Season 4+ is not as good (though they had a few gems), that doesn't mean it's bad.

Also both of these franchise are currently going woke and going broke. But I think it's correlational not causational in this case. The franchises were already dipping in popularity BEFORE the titular male characters were replaced by a strong empowered diverse character. I believe the woke was a Hail Mary play to make them relevant to the current year.

But that is not related to wokeness or politics. If a piece of art manages to catch lightning in a bottle it's unlikely that a franchise can keep the magic going over and over again.

I think this is why trilogies are very popular to make and why I had to use an internet search engine to find tetrology and pentology. 4-part and 5-part series are so uncommon the words for them are all but unknown.

Even going back to Ancient Greek playwrights there were a fair number of trilogies. Frustrating enough, we have more surviving critiques of ancient plays than we have surviving scripts of ancient plays. Some of the most famous ancient plays of all time got second or third place in annual play contests, it just that we only know the second or third place winners because those are the ones whose play's survived in written forth. Likewise I think we have a few "Part 2 of 3s" floating around.

Western mythos really likes three part acts. I am dipping my toe into the water of Eastern mythos, modern and ancient. I don't think they like the number 3 as much as the West does but a lot of translations of their works shove their stuff into a 3 part structure.

 

Oh I just realized you were asking me about Young Justice. I thought you were asking me if all shows get stale at the fourth sequel or season.

Young Justice is my favorite current superhero show. Batman the Animated Series and Gargoyles were and are great but I can only see them through nostalgia colored glasses.
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Actually, within the limited genre that is super hero television series, Young Justice is my all time favorite. Batman The Animated Series and Gargoyles are close on their heels, but it just so happens that the geniuses behind these two shows, Bruce Timm and Greg Weisman also are manning the helm at Young Justice. It's like my two favorite childhood shows had a baby and that baby is Young Justice.

They still have the same creative spark but they brought in new talent that respects what came before them. And Weisman and Timm have learned a little bit about office politics and are better at keeping executive meddling from sinking a show.

Bruce Timm says he never assumes there will be a next season not matter what the execs say. Therefore he now make sure to wrap up all the character driven subplots by the series finale. He'll throw an Easter egg for what the next villain or challenge will be, but no cliffhangers.

I thin animated superhero shows are better than live action ones. If I ranked them all in the same list no live action shows would crack the five and maybe only one or two would crack the top ten.

Movies are different. I generally prefer live action super hero, but if we are talking about non-politically charged super hero stuff we can talk about in the Batman thread.

 

Nonfiction shows, even infotainment shows like Mythbusters are in a class of their own.

I came up with a few counter examples myself, so I guess it's not an ironclad rule that series dip after three seasons. They don't always dip after three seasons.

There is also a difference between dipping and nose diving. I think Season 4, 5, and 6 dipped from GoT their previous season. 7 and 8 were nose dives.

In a lot of cases an excellent show that has dipped is better than a mediocre show at it's peak. Incredibles 2 is not as good as Incredibles, but I disagree with people who like to dump on Incredibles 2. Give that Incredibles 1 is mahrlect near perfect it's almost inevitable that #2 would be a step down.

 

One nice thing about Star Trek, in my opinion, is that there is something for diverse audience preferences.

I do not like the Q episodes (though I did like it when Sisko punched Q). Other people rank the Q episodes as among their very favorites.

Some people find the political stuff boring, I find it interesting.

I find the Bajorans very interesting. The Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, Kazon, Hirogen, and most of the other aliens of Trek all place one character trait above all others, sometimes to a cartoony level. Sometimes this was called the Planet of Hats. In other words everyone on a planet wears the same hat.

The Bajorans, to me at least, feel more real than the other Star Trek races. They wear many different hats.

Also Bajorans are the first race that was developed without Gene Rodenberry's insight. Rodenberry was great but he had his limits. The Ferengi became a lot more interested when he stopped giving direction on it. The producers had to nix some of his ideas ("no the Ferengi should not wear giant codpieces, this is a family show, Gene").

Roddenberry believed the future was agnostic. He viewed religion as an impediment to his utopian ideals. The Bajoran's deep spirituality was a breath of fresh air in the Star Trek universe and paved the way for religion to become more focus to many other character not just Bajorans.

I also like that while they were trying to help the Bajorans, they spent most of the early seasons fighting Bajoran extremists. In a lot of ways, Bajorans are more human than Star Trek humans. Much like in Futurama, the robots are more human than the human (though the latter is clearly played for laughs).

I like the Dominion War arc, but I really like how in the early seasons, yesterday's enemy is today's friend is tomorrow's enemy once again. It feels more real.

This is all stuff I said on the Star Wars/Star trek thread already but with so many hundreds of posts, good look sifting through the thread and finding it.

 

Everything is because Q allows it. That's why I'm not a huge fan of his show.

Q: "You hit me, Picard never hit me."
Sisko: "I am not Picard."
Q: "Indeed not. You are much easier to provoke. That is fortunate for me."

He went back to Picard to annoy him many times whereas he never went back to Sisko ever again.

Though I can imagine the Prophets summoning Q to have a little chat.

"The Sisko is our cosmic puppet, not yours. Why don't you go stalk the Janeway."

By the time Q showed up on Voyager, I expected him to break the fourth wall because he went out of his way to needle Picard, Sisko, and Janeway. There is no mention of Q or anyone in the Q continuum repeatedly bothering anyone else off camera.

Technically the only thing uniting these three is that they were the stars of their respective TV series.

 

I am only a casual Dr. Who fan at best. I used to watch an episode on TV if nothing better was on. I don't even own a TV anymore on rely on streaming to my computer.

I watched an episode of the latest version of Doctor Who while visiting my mom once. It lulled me into sleep.

I do find it entertaining to watch Youtube videos about people complaining about Dr. Who.

Long ago, I heard that there is a TV registration/tax in the United Kingdom and this pays for BBC. I didn't think much of it but apparently 2020 had a lot of people trying to figure out how to not pay for it.

And BBC viewership was falling while the costs were not falling. Statements from people involved in the BBC seemed completely uninterested in providing shows that the British people want to watch and just wanted to pursue their projects or pet agendas.

I don't mind things made for niche audiences or artistic shock value but art made with public funding should at least try to give the public what they wants or at least have obvious educational value.

But I guess I'm not in the UK, so I don't have a horse in this race.

The United States has PBS and various affiliates. I'm not opposed to PBS receiving public funding. As far as I know, PBS does not receive proportionally as much public funding as the BBC receives and PBS relies heavily on voluntary donations. UK Lizards cn correct me, but I'm pretty sure the BBC does not receive a lot of voluntary donations.

As a child I really like Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo, and Mr. Rogers. As an adult I occasionally listen to NPR and I like NPR affiliate stations because they play a lot of jazz and classical musical which is hard to find elsewhere on the radio.

Some people in the United States are clamoring for PBS to lose their public funding. I don't really care that much. NPR gets about a quarter of their funding from the government. It would be rough but they would survive having their funding cut. I don't believe the BBC could survive losing their public funding.