This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Man, I could put up a whole new effortpost about how bad Rom-Com TV shows are at writing happy marriages. Having written themselves towards a marriage that should be happy, the writers typically either need to throw up strange obstacles to create tension, toss one of the characters the idiot ball so they fuck it up, or they just draw out the process of getting together/marriage for so long that the audience gets restless.
GG suffers from the latter in the late seasons, Rory has met Logan and Lorelei is with Luke openly, but they can't just have happy marriages so they keep drawing it out with increasingly strange obstacles and weird reticence to commit. HIMYM did the idiot ball thing, from what I recall of friends complaining about it, with the couples creating drama by going off the deep end completely at random. SATC would have no idea how to write Charlotte's first marriage, so they just gave him terminal ED. The Office, I never watched in detail but people generally say it peaked at the Wedding and declined thereafter.
Even the Big Bang Theory, I will go to the mat arguing that the first season was brilliant (to me as a nerdy 16 year old with a group of friends fairly well described as a mix of Indians, Jews, and autists). But they had no idea how to write it once they coupled the characters up. The first season is a classic Rom-Com, and ends with the leads kissing, as a self contained story it works. After that the show went into terminal decline, they had no idea how to deal with the unrealistic aftermath.
Hooray for the /comments page. It's a shame there's no "/comments, but just the ones replying to two-week-old threads, since everything else is easier to read threaded" page.
I'd love to see this in Friday Fun some time.
... especially if you've got any thoughts about "Mad About You". I barely remember it now (though now I find out there was recently an 8th season, produced decades after season 7!?!), and what I remember does include a few "idiot ball" episodes, but I remember thinking decades ago that it really stood out from the crowd of implausibly-drawn-out "Sam and Diane" "will they wont they" romantic melodrama subplots. The main characters were a happily married couple from episode 1, the show A plots were about their interpersonal issues with each other and family and friends, and yet IIRC they managed to get several seasons out of that without most of the spousal issues being ridiculously foolish or melodramatic. IMDB says there wasn't much quality decline until halfway through season 6.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link