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I don't know if calling it a "New Literalism" is helpful. I just don't know that a penchant for literalism ever went away. Now, what IS relatively new is the "

I don't know if calling it a "New Literalism" is helpful. I just don't know that a penchant for literalism ever went away. Now, what IS relatively new is the "ruined punchline" phenomena that they identify (without naming) on the movie recap podcast Kill James Bond, which is that contemporary movies always ruin jokes by telling one, say... "x" and then having another character chime in with "Did you just say 'x' !?" I think there's a fear of losing attention because you're asking people to think about something other than the eyewash happening right in front of them by inviting them to have to -think- about a movie. Anyway, to close: "No one in this world ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people..." - HL Mencken

justanotherjoe 1y ago
Can you describe more about the "ruined punchline" thing? Cause that sounds natural to me. Like in Jurassic Park, Alan Grant hears "We clocked the t-rex at 32 mph" and he goes "Did you just say 't-rex'?". Actually they repeat it like 3 times more to really lean into it. And I guess my point is that Jurassic Park doesn't feel modern or clumsy in this particular execution.
- Duanemclemore 1y ago
  Having never seen Jurassic Park (yeah, right?) I'm guessing the preposterousness to an unaware onlooker is played for effect. This is a more recent phenomenon. This is literally just repeating a punchline so that it tells the audience - "that was the punchline, you can laugh now." I've seen plenty but I can't give any specific examples. I mention Kill James Bond [0] because they specifically point it out in the movies they watch. Although they don't watch any Whedon movies, in talking about it in movies where it happens a lot they cite Whedon as particularly guilty of this. [0] https://killjamesbond.com/ https://killjamesbond.com/
  - emsy 1y ago
    The T-Rex bit is not a joke, the line is said seriously. Also, watch Jurassic Park. Good movie.
    - Duanemclemore 1y ago
      I actually have less than zero excuse. I was a 13 year old nerd when it came out - PRIME market. But I think even then I was allergic to hype. Same reason I've never seen a vast number of well loved movies. Like Titanic. ... just a contrarian LOL. We didn't have the money to go to movies. So I think the exposure to entire cohort of my fellow nerds having seen it three times over opening weekend, wearing the t-shirt every day, and talking endlessly about it for weeks made it easy for me to just nope out by the time it came out on video. That and I was really hitting the "girls and rock and roll" part of puberty and probably ran as far and as fast as I could from stuff that reminded me of being younger. Enough biography. LOL
      - justanotherjoe 1y ago
        I'd say, if you have a core memory at a zoo or a theme park, then you'll probably like it.
      - beAbU 1y ago
        Like others have said, go and watch it. It holds up exceptionally well. It's just a plain good movie. The tension, acting, the special effects, quotable moments, the dinosaurs, everything. Do it tonight and report back tomorrow please. I'm not gonna promise that it'll change your life - don't want to over hype it. But I am genuinely curious what an adult's initial reaction to it would be after watching it for the first time.
        kikokikokiko 1y ago
        The special effects on that movie are superb. On the vast majority of big early 90s blockbusters really. Just enough CGI to make the animatronics feel perfect. Nowadays I can't watch any movie, they all look like I'm watching a bunch of PS2 cutscenes spliced together.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  One one level I really enjoy Steven Spielberg, but boy is he heavy handed.
  - JKCalhoun 1y ago
    Yeah, maybe the poster-boy even.
- beowulfey 1y ago
  One might argue that it is the same thing, but that Jurassic Park comes from an era before that was common. It would be a different, though related, point in favor of the duplicative nature of media today to the one the author mentions.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  Part of it is overexposure. The same thing happened to snappy "Joss Whedon" dialogue. This stuff worked really well in Buffy and Firefly, but Whedon was good at writing dialogue like this and he knew when not to use it. We've now had 15+ years of various writers at Disney doing crappy Whedon impersonations and this style of dialogue has worn out its welcome for many.
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  Well, that's people repeating the line for confirmation in a scenario where communications weren't very reliable and the information was extraordinary. That's close to the way the conversation would happen in real life.
  - Duanemclemore 1y ago
    Sure! I would humbly suggest that we don't go to movies to see -real- real life situations re-presented back to us. I mean, unless you have two comedic geniuses who can really sell yelling down the stairs to ask the partner what they want for dinner, getting met with "HUH???" inching a little closer, and having repeat this three times until you finally just go down and ask in a normal voice. In the right hands that could be comedy gold on screen. But by in large, we don't consume media because it represents the banal reality of everyday life.
    - watwut 1y ago
      That does not mean some amount of banal reality is an infraction or something bad. It makes movie feel less artificial. The weird thing is when people are so used to artificial, that they reject banal reality as "overdone joke" rather then "scene where people talk normally move on".
- IncreasePosts 1y ago
  That's not a punch line, it is Dr Grant babbling in disbelief that they actually created a T-rex
burnt-resistor 1y ago
> the intelligence of the [..] masses George Carlin didn't emphasis this enough in retrospect. The idiots in-charge now appear to begging for educational percussive maintenance, albeit in hyperbolic, euphemistic form for legal reasons only.
woolion 1y ago
>No one in this world ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people... I think you're disproving your own point. If you look the major flops in all industries (video-games, movies, ...) the general trend is contempt for the audience. This generally results in some form of uproar from the most involved fans, which is disregarded because of the assumption that the general public won't pick up on it. At the very least, I would say that for this to be true you need to have a very specific definition of intelligence that would exclude a lot of crowd behaviors.
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  > I would say that for this to be true you need to have a very specific definition of intelligence That phrase is about conning people...
- Duanemclemore 1y ago
  I would suggest some shades of meaning on the Mencken quote. You're absolutely right that showing contempt for your audience will -absolutely- pave the road to losing money. In contrast if you -pander- to the lowest common denominator of intelligence required for engagement? Money printer go brrrrr.

justanotherjoe 1y ago

Can you describe more about the "ruined punchline" thing? Cause that sounds natural to me. Like in Jurassic Park, Alan Grant hears "We clocked the t-rex at 32 mph" and he goes "Did you just say 't-rex'?". Actually they repeat it like 3 times more to really lean into it. And I guess my point is that Jurassic Park doesn't feel modern or clumsy in this particular execution.

Duanemclemore 1y ago
Having never seen Jurassic Park (yeah, right?) I'm guessing the preposterousness to an unaware onlooker is played for effect. This is a more recent phenomenon. This is literally just repeating a punchline so that it tells the audience - "that was the punchline, you can laugh now." I've seen plenty but I can't give any specific examples. I mention Kill James Bond [0] because they specifically point it out in the movies they watch. Although they don't watch any Whedon movies, in talking about it in movies where it happens a lot they cite Whedon as particularly guilty of this. [0] https://killjamesbond.com/ https://killjamesbond.com/
- emsy 1y ago
  The T-Rex bit is not a joke, the line is said seriously. Also, watch Jurassic Park. Good movie.
  - Duanemclemore 1y ago
    I actually have less than zero excuse. I was a 13 year old nerd when it came out - PRIME market. But I think even then I was allergic to hype. Same reason I've never seen a vast number of well loved movies. Like Titanic. ... just a contrarian LOL. We didn't have the money to go to movies. So I think the exposure to entire cohort of my fellow nerds having seen it three times over opening weekend, wearing the t-shirt every day, and talking endlessly about it for weeks made it easy for me to just nope out by the time it came out on video. That and I was really hitting the "girls and rock and roll" part of puberty and probably ran as far and as fast as I could from stuff that reminded me of being younger. Enough biography. LOL
    - justanotherjoe 1y ago
      I'd say, if you have a core memory at a zoo or a theme park, then you'll probably like it.
    - beAbU 1y ago
      Like others have said, go and watch it. It holds up exceptionally well. It's just a plain good movie. The tension, acting, the special effects, quotable moments, the dinosaurs, everything. Do it tonight and report back tomorrow please. I'm not gonna promise that it'll change your life - don't want to over hype it. But I am genuinely curious what an adult's initial reaction to it would be after watching it for the first time.
      - kikokikokiko 1y ago
        The special effects on that movie are superb. On the vast majority of big early 90s blockbusters really. Just enough CGI to make the animatronics feel perfect. Nowadays I can't watch any movie, they all look like I'm watching a bunch of PS2 cutscenes spliced together.
PaulHoule 1y ago
One one level I really enjoy Steven Spielberg, but boy is he heavy handed.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Yeah, maybe the poster-boy even.
beowulfey 1y ago
One might argue that it is the same thing, but that Jurassic Park comes from an era before that was common. It would be a different, though related, point in favor of the duplicative nature of media today to the one the author mentions.
AlexandrB 1y ago
Part of it is overexposure. The same thing happened to snappy "Joss Whedon" dialogue. This stuff worked really well in Buffy and Firefly, but Whedon was good at writing dialogue like this and he knew when not to use it. We've now had 15+ years of various writers at Disney doing crappy Whedon impersonations and this style of dialogue has worn out its welcome for many.
marcosdumay 1y ago
Well, that's people repeating the line for confirmation in a scenario where communications weren't very reliable and the information was extraordinary. That's close to the way the conversation would happen in real life.
- Duanemclemore 1y ago
  Sure! I would humbly suggest that we don't go to movies to see -real- real life situations re-presented back to us. I mean, unless you have two comedic geniuses who can really sell yelling down the stairs to ask the partner what they want for dinner, getting met with "HUH???" inching a little closer, and having repeat this three times until you finally just go down and ask in a normal voice. In the right hands that could be comedy gold on screen. But by in large, we don't consume media because it represents the banal reality of everyday life.
  - watwut 1y ago
    That does not mean some amount of banal reality is an infraction or something bad. It makes movie feel less artificial. The weird thing is when people are so used to artificial, that they reject banal reality as "overdone joke" rather then "scene where people talk normally move on".
IncreasePosts 1y ago
That's not a punch line, it is Dr Grant babbling in disbelief that they actually created a T-rex

burnt-resistor 1y ago

> the intelligence of the [..] masses George Carlin didn't emphasis this enough in retrospect. The idiots in-charge now appear to begging for educational percussive maintenance, albeit in hyperbolic, euphemistic form for legal reasons only.

woolion 1y ago

>No one in this world ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people... I think you're disproving your own point. If you look the major flops in all industries (video-games, movies, ...) the general trend is contempt for the audience. This generally results in some form of uproar from the most involved fans, which is disregarded because of the assumption that the general public won't pick up on it. At the very least, I would say that for this to be true you need to have a very specific definition of intelligence that would exclude a lot of crowd behaviors.

marcosdumay 1y ago
> I would say that for this to be true you need to have a very specific definition of intelligence That phrase is about conning people...
Duanemclemore 1y ago
I would suggest some shades of meaning on the Mencken quote. You're absolutely right that showing contempt for your audience will -absolutely- pave the road to losing money. In contrast if you -pander- to the lowest common denominator of intelligence required for engagement? Money printer go brrrrr.