5 ms·

> ” pushing all their crazy beliefs down our throats,” It always sound both funny and silly to me when people use these terms to describe the presence of equal

by soneca 5y ago

> ” pushing all their crazy beliefs down our throats,” It always sound both funny and silly to me when people use these terms to describe the presence of equality ideas in movies/shows. I read a review of Brooklyn 99 where the reviewer complained that the episode was ”force-feeding” political discussions to them. Really? That’s the analogy for it? What is remotely mandatory about including a political topic in a movie? I couldn’t think of anything less mandatory than an arbitrary American movie or show. There are literally thousands and thousands of them. And movie watching is not “required” in any sense or circumstances. And when you compare one black actor performing a role that you have an opinion that should not be black inside a movie with how much white washing and under representation of black people happen in Hollywood movies, it becomes even sillier to say that you are entitled to have your allegedly white roles being performed by white actors. How can someone seriously use analogies such as “down the throat” for this kind of message?

Zababa 5y ago
I don't share the opinion that it's "foced down the throat", but at least for young adults, many conversations are about the currently popular TV show or movie. So while it's not "forced down your throat", I think many people watch them to fit in. From what I saw it started with Breaking Bad, then Game of Thrones, and then it started getting faster and faster.
anticodon 5y ago
Meh. Let me guess: you live in USA. You're obliged to justify all this out of the fear of being "canceled": fired from your job, removed from social networks for saying politically incorrect stuff or supporting wrong political party or saying that there're less or more genders that is proclaimed by some powerful minority organization with the right to cancel. From other places this is experienced as craziness. What is "equal and ethical" about black women playing King of Sweden from IX century (this is a contrived example as I haven't even attempted to watch any of the contemporary historical movies from USA)? He wasn't black, he wasn't woman, why violate the history? Especially, considering that most of the world has nothing to do with the slave trade in the US, or with genocide of Indians in the US, or any consequences of it. So why we should suffer raping of the history just so that Americans could "restore the balance"?.. Besides, I don't even think that it restores the balance. It's a superficial measure that is very cheap compared to restoring the equality indeed.
- soneca 5y ago
  I live in Brazil, I am Brazilian. Why did you feel such strong rejection of a black woman playing a white king? I have no idea which movie are you talking about, but I am pretty sure their intention was not to trick, mislead, or miseducated viewers that the Swedish king was not a white male. You continue to sound silly to me.
  - anticodon 5y ago
    It's not a strong rejection. It's two things: 1) I'm annoyed that US tries to impose its cultural norms on all other countries in the world, like they have monopoly on some absolute truth. Some of their cultural norms are weird and repulsive. 2) They include huge fragments dedicated to the ideology in all the movies and all the books, like it is obligatory by law. E.g. when I open almost any recent Sci Fi book of US author, it would be filled with graphic descriptions of various sexual deviations. Or something even less relevant, e.g. that "half of the country is filled with dumb bigots supporting Republican party". I didn't buy the book to read about US politics, I don't care. I want my Sci Fi, not read about gender 33 and gender 45 group sex orgy every second page. I just made a conclusion that it's simply not worth the time to watch recent US movies and read US books. It has almost nothing to do with equal rights, etc, etc. Besides, like I said in the other comment, including this in the movies doesn't make people equal. People at Amazon will work for measly pay, while Bezos will continue to get richer. Black people will be put in jails instead of giving them education and jobs - including them in the movies doesn't change that a single bit.
- mahogany 5y ago
  > He wasn't black, he wasn't woman, why violate the history? Because it's acting. Maybe women are just trying to have some fun playing men, given that historically in the West, women were always played by men (or boys). Cross-gender and cross-race acting is nothing new. Have you ever seen a play? Are you upset whenever Othello is played by a white person?
jeegsy 5y ago
> What is remotely mandatory about including a political topic in a movie? We are talking about fairly subjective preferences or perceptions. You don't have to be a film student to know that films/movies/tv are frequently used as tools for social engineering. When you notice, you can either feel positively or negatively about it and most importantly, you dont need to have a "good reason" for feeling either way.
vorpalhex 5y ago
Some things are germaine to a plot, some are not. This is a frequent issue in hero movies where a producer wants some particular detail added for nostalgia, or wants an extra villian added because they scored well in audience opinion testing. The standard example of this is romantic subplots. Frequently stories with no romantic subplot are modified to have one to align with a studios research - and these romantic subplots always feel fake, pushed down your throat and overall contrived, especially for characters never written to have chemistry. Social justice bingo is the romantic subplot of our time. I have no doubt there are general mandates around including certain ideas or themes, or removing others. See eg, the huge plot change in "WandaVision" where they even left in the Doctor Strange commercials (plot point from original story) but totally removed him from the ending.

by soneca 5y ago

Zababa 5y ago

I don't share the opinion that it's "foced down the throat", but at least for young adults, many conversations are about the currently popular TV show or movie. So while it's not "forced down your throat", I think many people watch them to fit in. From what I saw it started with Breaking Bad, then Game of Thrones, and then it started getting faster and faster.

anticodon 5y ago

Meh. Let me guess: you live in USA. You're obliged to justify all this out of the fear of being "canceled": fired from your job, removed from social networks for saying politically incorrect stuff or supporting wrong political party or saying that there're less or more genders that is proclaimed by some powerful minority organization with the right to cancel. From other places this is experienced as craziness. What is "equal and ethical" about black women playing King of Sweden from IX century (this is a contrived example as I haven't even attempted to watch any of the contemporary historical movies from USA)? He wasn't black, he wasn't woman, why violate the history? Especially, considering that most of the world has nothing to do with the slave trade in the US, or with genocide of Indians in the US, or any consequences of it. So why we should suffer raping of the history just so that Americans could "restore the balance"?.. Besides, I don't even think that it restores the balance. It's a superficial measure that is very cheap compared to restoring the equality indeed.

soneca 5y ago
I live in Brazil, I am Brazilian. Why did you feel such strong rejection of a black woman playing a white king? I have no idea which movie are you talking about, but I am pretty sure their intention was not to trick, mislead, or miseducated viewers that the Swedish king was not a white male. You continue to sound silly to me.
- anticodon 5y ago
  It's not a strong rejection. It's two things: 1) I'm annoyed that US tries to impose its cultural norms on all other countries in the world, like they have monopoly on some absolute truth. Some of their cultural norms are weird and repulsive. 2) They include huge fragments dedicated to the ideology in all the movies and all the books, like it is obligatory by law. E.g. when I open almost any recent Sci Fi book of US author, it would be filled with graphic descriptions of various sexual deviations. Or something even less relevant, e.g. that "half of the country is filled with dumb bigots supporting Republican party". I didn't buy the book to read about US politics, I don't care. I want my Sci Fi, not read about gender 33 and gender 45 group sex orgy every second page. I just made a conclusion that it's simply not worth the time to watch recent US movies and read US books. It has almost nothing to do with equal rights, etc, etc. Besides, like I said in the other comment, including this in the movies doesn't make people equal. People at Amazon will work for measly pay, while Bezos will continue to get richer. Black people will be put in jails instead of giving them education and jobs - including them in the movies doesn't change that a single bit.
mahogany 5y ago
> He wasn't black, he wasn't woman, why violate the history? Because it's acting. Maybe women are just trying to have some fun playing men, given that historically in the West, women were always played by men (or boys). Cross-gender and cross-race acting is nothing new. Have you ever seen a play? Are you upset whenever Othello is played by a white person?

jeegsy 5y ago

> What is remotely mandatory about including a political topic in a movie? We are talking about fairly subjective preferences or perceptions. You don't have to be a film student to know that films/movies/tv are frequently used as tools for social engineering. When you notice, you can either feel positively or negatively about it and most importantly, you dont need to have a "good reason" for feeling either way.

vorpalhex 5y ago

Some things are germaine to a plot, some are not. This is a frequent issue in hero movies where a producer wants some particular detail added for nostalgia, or wants an extra villian added because they scored well in audience opinion testing. The standard example of this is romantic subplots. Frequently stories with no romantic subplot are modified to have one to align with a studios research - and these romantic subplots always feel fake, pushed down your throat and overall contrived, especially for characters never written to have chemistry. Social justice bingo is the romantic subplot of our time. I have no doubt there are general mandates around including certain ideas or themes, or removing others. See eg, the huge plot change in "WandaVision" where they even left in the Doctor Strange commercials (plot point from original story) but totally removed him from the ending.