Even ignoring the Vietnam War allegory in the OT, the first prequel series episode was literally a movie about a trade embargo? There was a galactic senate where people debated?? Like very literally a political movie.
Whole message of the prequels was that crises (all manufactured by Palpatine for simplicity) could persuade people to vote to give up their “democracy” in favor of security.
The prequels were about liberalism's decay into fascism. The OT was about revolutionary resistance to fascism.
Then Disney bought it and wrote them as trying to reinstate liberalism only for it to decay into fascism again, so the sequels were about fighting fascism again in order to reinstate liberalism again.
At least we have Andor where it's clear most of the Rebels are revolutionaries that get ratfucked by Mon Mothma and her libs.
I read Andor's rebels as a surge of popular discontent against Imperial rule that got hijacked by the deposed ruling class into a movement to restore the old shitty system instead of actually effective change.
It's pretty good. Main character is loosely based on Young Stalin. There's a great speech by Space Lenin that directly quotes Brecht and Gramsci (Gramsci gets a few other quote drops too.)
"The pace of repression outstrips our ability to understand it" comes to mind. Though now that you mention it that might be from Anderson's "Antinomies" critique of Gramsci.
By the time of 9 they are not even talking about restoring liberalism or the pretense of democracy again. It is just the rebellion. The rebels become totally apolitical, thus Abrams keeps the franchise in an eternal state of rebels vs empire like he is a kid playing with toys reenacting the OT over and over again
thus Abrams keeps the franchise in an eternal state of rebels vs empire like he is a kid playing with toys reenacting the OT over and over again
He's the worst kind of uncreative brat in the neighborhood, the kind that bashes the toys together until they break (killing off characters and undoing any changes that they had established) and scratches his name on stuff that was never his (like the not-Tatooine "Jakuu" and the not-Corsucant "Hosnian Prime" that was almost Coruscant until the suits said he can't quite break that toy, and the not-Empire "First Order" and the not-Rebellion "Resistance" and don't get me started on the not-Sith "Knights of Ren.").
i thought the "knights of ren" were another shitty side gig like they made a bunch of in the comic books, except worse and less thought out.
renaming the chancellor to bushaltine and watching as people still don't get the exceptionally straightforward allegory
I remember talking to my coworker when the first avatar movie came out and I said it was good but thought it was a little too on the nose about the American military and he just gave me this surprised look and said “wait it’s about the American military?”
It's interesting because it kinda isn't, like obviously it's meant to be about the US and there are symbols all throughout the movie (like when they show the villain in front of a window with stripes that form the US flag), but IIRC Cameron stated the movie is supposed to be more evocative of European colonialism.
cameron must have been bullshitting there. the movie is pocahontas in space. someone told him to make it 'not about america' somehow.
Maybe he considers Pocahontas as being about European colonialism too? I’m not sure when that crosses over from American colonialism to European colonialism, seems like a fuzzy semantic thing.
Well, there's no delimitation there. American colonialism is just an independent form of european colonialism. The way I see it that's a sleight of hand that helps things stay kosher, so to speak.
Cameron stated it's about how the Native Americans should have fought harder.
Renaming the Rebel Alliance to the Viet Cong still wouldn't be enough for them.
Fucking Nute Gunray didn't turn many heads as a name, even when Newt Gingrich was still in the news.
Gunray to Ray-gun/Reagan was too subtle for the American brainpan.
Do people really believe that ''fictional work'' are really 100% fictional and not the product of their time or based in some real life history?
They absolutely do. It's genuinely breathtaking to realize what a surface level read most people have of the fiction they consume. Back when I was on
I remember being downvoted into oblivion for pointing out that literally the entire genre of science fiction and fantasy is political because the whole point is to reframe various social/philosophical/political concepts in ways that let you recontextualize your own ideas and biases.I remember talking to someone about Starship Troopers once, the conversation made me seriously question if the person I was talking to had a grasp on what was and what wasn't reality. He was arguing that society should essentially be exactly like it's depicted by Heinlein, and I was trying to point out to them that the only reason that type of society works in the book is because the author wrote it that way, but they kept referring back to the book itself to try and prove that that type of society would work in reality.
I remember talking to someone about Starship Troopers once, the conversation made me seriously question if the person I was talking to had a grasp on what was and what wasn't reality. He was arguing that society should essentially be exactly like it's depicted by Heinlein, and I was trying to point out to them that the only reason that type of society works in the book is because the author wrote it that way, but they kept referring back to the book itself to try and prove that that type of society would work in reality.
Do we have the same relative?
Mine also had a long unsolicited rant about how Gambo "corrupted" his preteen children because there was a gay blowjob once. Yeah, the rest of the Gambo show's sexual violence and gory torture scenes were fine for those same preteen children though. According to him, they are "mature for their age" so that's all fine, as long as no gaaaaay.
To them all art is entertainment and all entertainment should be escapism.
No one is immune to propaganda, and those that only see the blue curtains still absorb the rest, just in an unexamined way that is more dangerous in many cases.
reminder that tolkien's works are literally urbanist propaganda, he really didn't like cars and the way a lot of modern society is designed.
It's more of anti-urbanist propaganda, because he wasn't fond of cities and industrialism in general.
I thought it was more agrarian and monarchist propaganda? His solution to the problems of the modern city seems to be "don't live in a city"
They believe that AND they think art is 100% separate from the artist, just so they can consume their treats without feeling guilty.
It was really funny to watch my friends drop companies and stuff they liked because of something the CEO or whatever did until it was JKR and Harry Potter was at stake. Suddenly separating the art from the author was really easy to them.
Honest question. I've been thinking a lot about the whole HP/JKR thing for a while. We have terrible people who have been great artists, and we as a whole separate that just fine. Beethoven drove his nephew to attempt suicide, Edgar Allen Poe married his underage cousin. Wagner wrote at length about why Jews were a detriment to society. I never had a problem saying "Yeah, they were a shitty person but they made good music." But i do admit that's harder with the whole JK thing. Narrative media is different than instrumental music, because it can convey much more concrete messages, but it's not like Ayn Rand where the work is a thin veil for shitty beliefs. Just like Poe's work isn't a thin veil for pedophilia.
Is it age that makes it okay to most people? The fact that they're not around to enjoy their fame? Should I feel bad for reading my downloaded ebook of Harry Potter or playing a pirated copy of Hogwarts Legacy? Will it be okay to like her work when she dies? 50 years after when copyrights have run out and her estate gets nothing?
These aren't questions I expect to hear answers to, but what I honestly ask myself. Because I do believe bad people can be good artists, but I am also one of those people that refuses to give terrible people and corporations a dime if I can help it.
I guess what I'm asking is where do people draw the line between "Bad person who is skilled at a craft and produces enjoyable work" and "horrible monster I refuse to have a positive thought about" because, like you said, a lot of people seem to want both whenever it's convenient.
I am thoroughly on the "not ok to enjoy her work" side, not because of the morality questions, her stories just kinda suck if you're a teenager or older. Why bother struggling with your beliefs when you can read/play something good instead?
Edit: thinking about it it's more helpful for me to provide specific example replacements:
Diana Wynne Jones - coming of age fantasies, often with a strong crossover into traditional british mythology
Ursula Le Guin - coming of age fantasies, usually with extremely leftist themes
Terry Pratchett (GNU) - Tiffany Aching series covers child entering fantastical world of adventure with a darker side.
Rick Riorden - summer camp instead of boarding school, traditional greek/roman/egyptian/norse mythology depending on series. Great ethnic, disability, and LGBT+ representation.Gameswise, Canis Canem Edit (Bully in the US) is the premier representation of boarding school life, and one of the few GTA games I actually enjoyed enough to complete. Arx Fatalis has the potter-style casting if you really need it. Go play CCE.
I was one of those kids that grew up as the movies were coming out. I grew with the series and the characters. I honestly have no interest exploring similar media, it's just a literature version of eating the same comfort food you got as a kid. It's a familiar setting, and a world I was fascinated by when I was younger. The adult in me can see the less than ideal story writing and whatnot, but it can't unsee the amount of sticks I picked up wishing they were wands. Or staying up on my 11th birthday with a fool's hope to get a letter.
It's not about quality, it's losing an old familiar friend in literature. Not a perfect friend, and their mom is shitty, but a friend.
Ah, I grew up with the books, and the first one actually inspired me to learn to read, but that was just an entry to reading for me so by the time the 5th book came out I'd read a bunch of Brian Jacques, some Enid Blyton, Susan Cooper, Hardy Boys, Le Guin, Swallows and Amazons, all the stuff Jowling drew inspiration from and some stuff that drew inspiration from the same sources as she did, and it heavily overshadowed her work both in quality of writing and quality of the actual fantasy they presented. Before the last books were out I'd discovered Pratchett and Robert Rankin, and gotten into the weird and subversive side of fantasy, so in comparison the Potter books were just completely flat and predictable.
I do wonder if being British (and particularly going to a private high school) made it less fantastical to me. Apart from being a boarding school, Hogwarts itself didn't feel hugely magical. The whole house system is completely normal, all our schools do that. Trecking around a massive old building via convoluted routes that constantly seem to change if you've not been there before is completly normal, a bunch of out schools do that. Having massive grounds with a forest and lake isn't so common, but I was at a private school with grounds big enough for some woods and a pond, so it wasn't that far fetched, and I'd later go to a university with a forest and lake. To me it was just a normal school plus magic, so nonmagical children exploring the irl lake district in a nonmagical sailboat actually presented more of a fantasy to me.
Same thing about the first book being the reason I learned how to read lol. I didn't want to wait for other people to read it to me anymore. But the setting probably has a lot to do with it. As an American who went to small schools, even the idea of grounds was cool and exciting. Houses were new and, I thought for many years, not a thing in the real world. All that paired with magic and brooms and the idea of an entire unexplored world sitting under our noses hooked me hard as a kid. I don't even really like low fantasy as a general rule, but this was one of the only exceptions to that. The other was the Xanth series by Piers Anthony, but that entire magic system was based on puns and only dipped into the real world rarely so I give it a pass.
It’s tough. I think if you avoid art by people who have done some bad things, you are going to end up really limiting yourself.
For me personally, I try to acknowledge (really just to myself, but I’ll bring it up when the artist or their work comes up) what that person did or who they were, but then still enjoy the art. Yes, this person was shit, their art is good though. Here are some practical examples of what that looks like:
The Lord of the Rings is among my very favorite works of fiction. I love it, not just for the story but for the personal meaning those books have in my life. I don’t think Tolkien personally was all that questionable (he was completely consumed by his work so I don’t think he had much there to be critical of). However, the LotR books absolutely have some sus aspects to them (racism, classism, et al). So right now, I’m working on an effort post for here where I break down all the problematic aspects of the books from a Marxist perspective. I think it’s important that we understand these aspects of the books and where they came from (Tolkien was a bougie English white guy who lived in the first half of the 20th century, so it’s not strange that he picked up plenty of brain worms just from the society he lived in). At the same time, in my mind I acknowledge all these problematic aspects but I still enjoy the art.
The book Towards a New Socialism was the one book that helped me understand Marx’s concept of value and abstract labor better than any other book I’ve read, including the first volume of Capital. However, one of the authors (Paul Cockshott) is a massive, unrepentant TERF. He doesn’t even beat around the bush like JKR does. He just spews vile transphobic shit all the time. But I can’t deny his book can be incredibly useful in understanding what is admittedly a really difficult concept to grasp. So whenever I discuss that book, I’m always clear that he is a horrific transphobe and at least don’t buy his work, just pirate it or something. I’m also constantly on the lookout for any authors who are able to explain abstract labor as good or better that I can recommend instead.
Norman Finkelstein is providing some critical insights into the current situation and historical background for what is going on Gaza right now. We need his voice out there, because he’s among the very best. But when he’s not talking about Palestine, I understand he apparently has some chuddy “anti-woke” social views. For him, I just keep that in mind and tune out anything that isn’t about Palestine (which for him, isn’t hard because he really does seem to stay on message).
Hope this helps. Not saying any of this is “right”, it’s just my own approach.
Them being dead and not actively profiting from their works while they spew hate is a good start. Yes, HP Lovecraft was a piece of shit, but he's dead, so enjoying a work derivative of his is easy to do. Rowling says every bit of money she makes from her work makes her right, so I can't abide by that at all.
Edit- To answer one of your questions, I don't expect you to feel bad for enjoying Harry Potter. My approach is more that people, despite claiming to be staunch allies, can't fathom NOT giving JKR all of their money because they can't let go. These people don't pirate the media, they go to Harry Potter Land or whatever, and pretend that it isn't directly funding JKR's ego.
Sorry, I keep editing as I'm able to put my thoughts into words. Personally, there is no real line to cross for dropping a thing I enjoy because of what the creator did. It depends on a lot of factors, like how bad the thing they did was, their response to being called out for it, and how they operate afterwords. I have no problem giving someone the benefit of the doubt if they seem truly sorry for what they did, but they have to prove that with their actions too. JKR isn't sorry and continues to double down.
I've wanted to get Legacy since it was announced, and I've window shopped on steam many times, but every time I do I see her smug smile and remember that whole "my money means I'm right" shit. It also doesn't help that I can't find a good copy on the high seas. Like i said in another comment, I just wish there was work in that universe that she is entirely uninvolved in. I would consider giving money to that, if only to prove that making her irrelevant is not only right but profitable. Imagine if the most successful work in that franchise was the only work that she never touched or profited from. I can only imagine that would steam her beans.
And that's what I hope for her, as quick as this society will allow. The one thing egotists dread more than anything else: true irrelevance. When she goes, I'd like it to be a footnote. I want people to read the headline and say, "Who?"
It won't happen, but a guy can dream. And if I do see an opportunity to help it along, I'll take it
We have terrible people who have been great artists, and we as a whole separate that just fine
i think this is a good place to start. placing Beethoven, Poe, Wagner, and Rowling in the same category of "great artist" seems like a stretch. i get that people think the wizarding world is fun, i think star wars is fun even though the plot is full of holes and the writing and lore are OK at best. i grew up in the HP era, and i feel that i just grew out of them. what really baffles me is that people consider HP to be a great work. like i've read a lot of YA fiction and HP doesn't really stand out to me. Rowling is clearly a commercial success, which is a fine thing to be, but i think that's different than being a great artist. buying her media contributes to that success and increases the size and scope of her platform, which does have political consequences that can't really be removed from the transaction. i guess piracy is probably a fine way to gain access without being part of the commercial success, but i still wonder why you'd want to do that in the first place. like, i don't agree with Rowlings politics (obviously), but i don't even need to go there to decide that i don't want to consume HP content.
Honestly for me, it's mainly tied to nostalgia and just having been invested in the world the series created for so long. I was around 10 when the first movies started coming out, and I read them at release from 4 on, and the series is largely what brought me into fantasy and sci-fi in general. In a lot of ways, it was the basis for a lot of things that I've come to love throughout life, and letting it go is hard. I just wish the whole IP wasn't wrapped up in so many contracts its more like papier mache. That way other creators could contribute more positively. But as it is, Universal is probably going to snap it up the moment JKR croaks and monetize the fuck out of it even more.
Idk, to me JK Rowling was just a name on the cover of books I liked. I didn't care who that was or what they were like, it was just a couple of words I was vaguely aware of because I saw them a lot. I just want that level of not giving a fuck back. I can't, because she's a terrible person and that isn't going to change. She just keeps doubling down. But I still like to look at every pirated copy of media as a dollar out of her pocket.
They believe that AND they think art is 100% separate from the artist, just so they can consume their treats without feeling guilty.
Many such cases, such as when Justin Roiland's apologists said that all of the SV against children was "ironic" and "just a joke" in the edgy trash he put out (especially his "children's special" television shorts that involved nothing but constant and repeated SV "just to see how audiences would react") and when it was revealed that he was actually an enthusiast for such things in his personal life "death of the author!" was chanted to make the "ironic" "just a joke" edgy trash somehow still seem acceptable. Justin Roiland was always a piece of shit to match the value and message of his output.
I don't even think most people believe in history in the real world to be honest with you
Not only do they believe this, I have only come to this realization in the past few years and it dramatically shifts your perspective of the world.
Wouldn’t surprise me if there were some who recognize this but refuse to acknowledge it because it’s deeply uncomfortable
This is probably old. I think it's the
kiss that happens for a second in Rise of Skywalker.context
They celebrate the defeat of the bad guys, and there's two women kissing. It quickly cuts to this guy
. Dweebs got mad about it for reactionary reasons.I can't remember if there was any dork outrage regarding Bix and Vel in Andor, but I think that show didn't have enough shiny jangling keys
for 
types.It is absolutely amazing that the first good star wars in 40 years bounced right off supposedly their biggest fans.
The biggest fans with the littlest media literacy lol. Let's be honest, they were never going to be into it, and it's a miracle that it even exists!
They really want a giant galaxy where only 12 people ever did anything important so they can jack off to some published fanfic about Bonti'iib Fucko's adventures in the Nood Thorwok piss mines cause he was some alien in thar bar from episode 2.
They want this but for old Star Wars EU ephemera with 0 room for adaptation.
WHY DIDNT DISNEY MAKE THE THRAWN TRILOGY?! EVERYONE LOVES THE THRAWN TRILOGY! Like, I barely know who that guy is and I'm a nerd who engages in mocking voyeurism of Star Wars fans for fun
In a way I'm glad they didn't, because then I don't feel bad about not caring about star wars anymore and "Oops, how did fascism get in our republic again?" is a good bit.
I haven't watched Rebels or Asohka, but I think he's a main character in those. Dave Filoni's been picking his way through the EU crates, but the worst Star Wars fans just want "Thrown: the Movie" or "KotOR: the Movie."
It is so disrespectful to the craft of those books and that game that people just want them made into movies. Like broadstrokes can be worked into a show like Ahsoka and I am enjoying that, but I have no interest in just adapting the novels or game into film. An RPG is written to be an RPG, a novel written by a professional and accomplished genre author is meant for prose. Sure Thrawn had comics, but those are easier to directly translate and are more to give visuals than to be good sequential art
I want a Monkey's Paw where they literally just use KotOR's script as a screenplay and we have this incomprehensible mess where dialogue trees are just run through straight. It's what the dweebs deserve.
the biggest fans gave up after how atrocious the movies were. what's left are casuals (no shade), "wow cool sword" losers, and traumatized fans who can't look away from the trainwreck.
They had the same outrage over a two second same sex smooch on that Buzz Lightyear movie too. They even claimed that that is why the movie didn't do well, and not because like, people didn't understand why the film to exists in the first place.
no blue lady no sale
putting mira on the poster would've been bank.
“stupid nerd” just hit me so hard
like how are these clowns into nerd shir and so fucking dumb?
Star Wars is stupid as hell, which is fine if taken for what it is, but being someone who understands the average wookiepedia article doesn't make you smart, it means you know a lot about something really dumb
They think having an encyclopedic knowledge and having media literacy is the same thing.
But what about Porritch GamGams? The Falloopian from Ventos 12 who tried to sell Luke a handful of chuck peas in 24 ABY in the Karfart Marketplace on Wantoo
I had a co-worker once, a really nice guy who never expressed a single political idea ever. He was a huge Star Wars nerd and would keep Star Wars toys on his desk and one for a costume party he dressed up in a full Darth Vader costume. He had never given it a thought that the movies could be an allegory of something in the real world and he was really surprised to learn about them being an allegory of the Vietnam war.
me dressed head to toe in a darth Vader outfit: wait the veterinarians fought in a war?
My wife doesn't really get subtext, and once showed me an exchange between her and a male friend, about 6 month into us dating.
Male friend was clearly into her and she was oblivious, and male friend kept using euphemisms to avoid saying it outright, and was pissed she was dating someone "while we're talking"
She had no idea that some people use "talking" as code for "not dating officially but super into each other" and she had no idea he was even into her. And based on what I now know of both my wife and this (now former) friend, she was being a normal nice and a decent human being instead of shitty and short with everyone at the factory, and he took that as interest in him.
So this whole time he's going on about them "talking" she's just like "yeah we're talking? Like right now? Are we not? Is this not talking?" as in "yes we are exchanging words" and he wants to hear "I'm into you" so he things she means "of course we're talking silly".
Awkward exchanges after that.
And I've had to explain plenty of movies that are allegories and what sociopolitical influences made a show go a certain direction. She understands once I explain, but she probably wouldn't get there on her own.
Some people do NOT understand subtext. At ALL.
I'm sorry but they are kids movies that got out of hands in a era of artistic illteracy.
tell me you don't know star wars history without telling me you don't know star wars history.
The kid direction started in empire, but the studios REALLY swung hard into it, purposefully, in return of the jedi onward. I mean ewoks were literally only introduced to sell toys.
'Political' is such a useless word in the context of what media you consume. Even if a piece of media doesn't explicitly have a political message, it's still political because people made it and people will act on their politics whether they're aware or not.
If they're unaware, then the politics likely have shallow messaging that reinforces the status quo, or the media goes through an approval process by whoever is funding the project/its distribution.
It's so oversimplified, the belief around where politics can exist. Rarely do these people consider outside factors affecting a piece of media. Marvel movies get to use US military resources as long as the military gets to veto any creative decision for any reason. A creator can have their work removed or changed based on someone else's politics.
Here we are, nearing 2024 and the understanding of what it means to be 'political' is factually stating that there are people other than straight cisgender white people.
That's pretty disturbing to me - that my existence is considered not just political, but a political threat.
The term isn't useless, it's a weapon. They know the above is true, but they use it to mean "you better not say anything I dislike, or support anything I dont, or else."
Nothing more.
I guess I more meant that the term is made useless when it's used to describe Rey being competent in the Star Wars movies. Kinda like how therapy/abuse terms have been overused and diminish conversations around improving conditions.
But that's a fair point. It's not just being made useless, it's being weaponized to advance reactionary politics.
https://youtu.be/fv9Jq_mCJEo?t=60
George Lucas has actually said this himself. He says that the Rebels in Star Wars were the Viet Cong and the empire is United States.
The Empire has a such a nazi feel to it I guess I could see how they missed that.
The nazis were inspired by the US and immediately incorporated into their institutions after nazi germany's failure.
That's true, but aesthetically the Empire doesn't really evoke the USA. Avatar succeeds better in that way
All powerful empire that tells everyone else what to do - or else - evokes the US to everyone that's not in the US.
I agree, but those aren't aesthetic qualities. Those are material relations.
You could make a case for their space ships evoking the appearance of a carrier group, which is emblematic of US empire.
If you want average people in America to draw the connection, it's more effective to make the aesthetics obvious.
all the imperial guys have british accents, not american accents
I still remember when MAGA chuds in places like Fox News whined about Rogue One being "anti-Trump propaganda."
That was an amazing self-own.
Wait what they seriously though Rogue One was anti-Trump? How did they get to that logical leap?!
It could be as simple as a lot of MAGA chuds also liking how "based" the Galactic Empire seemed, and attributing all "based" things to their (their words not mine) "God Emperor."
It's funny they reference 40k so much because the Emperor was a reddit atheist that banned religion. He's only considered a "god emperor" because he failed to predict which of his son's would betray him that made him half-dead and sitting on a throne nasogastrically consuming the souls of his dead citizens to stay alive.
Many such cases of them not even reading the wikis of the treats they consume.
Many such cases of them not even reading the wikis of the treats they consume.
Some do; those ones just see the Imperium's mass-murdering death cult as "based" too.
"Omg so awesome my big chungus space marine killed millions of innocents! I can't wait to spend 1000s of dollars on figurines! So based!"
When I play 40k, I get a lot more pleasant non-chuddy vibes from fellow gits among da Orkz.
failed to predict which of his son's would betray him
my dude didn't even read the evil overlord list
Except Reddit Atheists don't have empirical proof that god-like beings that feed on human belief actually do exist, which makes the Emperor even worse. He literally made a Faustian bargain with those same Chaos Gods to create the Primarchs in the first place but thought that he could just keep their existence a secret.
"War is the continuation of being non-political by other means" -anti-woke
BismarkClauswitz
