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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31877 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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Criticism of the movie itself is weak, with the arguments boiling down to "it's not realistic" and "the plot doesn't always make sense", things that could be leveled at any summer blockbuster.

Yes, and those exact criticisms ARE levied by critics at summer blockbusters, all the time. I see that the film has a 74% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is the same as Elemental and Asteroid City, and better than the Little Mermaid, Indiana Jones and Fast X. Are you sure there is a culture war angle here?

There is actually a summer action thriller out in theaters right now starring an actor known for his membership (and not simply membership - in many ways he's been the mascot) in a controversial organization that's been accused of being a cult, and has been tied to various crimes including fraud, embezzlement, racketeering, stalking, harassment, rape, and abetment of suicide. But have you noticed that the reviews for the latest Mission Impossible film don't bring up Tom Cruise's membership in the Church of Scientology, or his endorsement of Scientology's many anti-medical claims about the field of psychiatry? Why do you think critics prefer to discuss Jim Caviezel's association with QAnon instead?

One big reason people are not bringing up Tom Cruise's Scientology connection is that it is old news. For better or for worse, if a nasty fact has been out there for a long time, people don't bring it up in the discourse as much. This is how the process of un-cancellation works on an individual level (I think broad vibe shifts also have something to do with it). The Scientology thing has been litigated in the court of public opinion for quite some time.

I don’t have an opinion on that, because I try not to make generalizations based on n=2. And, given that Scientology is a religion, whereas QAnon is a political organization, I would certainly want to control for that. I would also want to control for the fact that QAnon has very much been in the news of late, whereas Scientology has not.

  • -23

They made a good point. Acknowledge it and carry on.

This kind of pseudointellectualizing diminishes your argument.

No, they didn't. Their "point" is infantile. "Why did they mention this guy's political views but not this other guy's religious views" is a terrible argument, because they are different categories. People generally do not condemn the religious views of others; the political views of others is much more fair game. Hence, it is hardly surprising that reviews did not mention Cruise's religious views.* It is no less inane than people claiming racial bias when police crack down on gang violence but not Wall Street fraud.

I would prefer that a filmmaker's views not be mentioned at all, but OP's "argument" is pathetic..

*Assuming that they didn't. But it seems that Rolling Stone -- the very magazine that OP complained of, published this article yesterday.

  • -12

“Scientology is a religion” is a very feeble deflection, considering that’s very much up for debate, and in fact several governments have refused to consider it a religion, classifying it variously as a scam, a cult and even an organized criminal enterprise. QAnon being in the news of late is very much a function of who makes the news, and this is largely the same cohort that writes movie reviews for major publications. It was quite recently that Danny Masterson was convicted of rape, and his victims went on record accusing the Church of Scientology of harassment and intimidation on his behalf.

QAnon being in the news of late is very much a function of who makes the news, and this is largely the same cohort that writes movie reviews for major publications

That's the point. QAnon is the flavor of the month, so a filmmaker's association with QAnon is more likely to be mentioned. Scientology is yesterday's news, the legal travails of a has-been actor notwithstanding, so a filmmaker's association with Scientology is less likely to be mentioned. This is not a new phenomenon.

in fact several governments have refused to consider it a religion, classifying it variously as a scam, a cult and even an organized criminal enterprise

  1. Not in the United States.
  2. Regardless of whether it is a cult, it is not a political organization. So, the whataboutism still doesn't work.
  • -15

I don’t think most people think of Scientology as a religion, more as a hybrid cult and a scam.

But you repeat yourself, waaaaHEY!

I feel the spirit of the fedora returning from the 00's!

(But for real, I do feel the spirt coming back. I would bet a small amount that religion is going to renter the culture ware space as a real target in the next couple years.)

(But for real, I do feel the spirt coming back. I would bet a small amount that religion is going to renter the culture ware space as a real target in the next couple years.)

As a veteran Internet Atheist, I sure hope you're wrong. In retrospect the whole enterprise was somewhat undignified in it's heyday, at this point it would be downright perverse.

Then there's the small inconvenient fact that atheists have been proven absolutely wrong about the impact of religion on society, and about what secularization would bring about.

Then there's the small inconvenient fact that atheists have been proven absolutely wrong about the impact of religion on society, and about what secularization would bring about.

EDIT: I'd argue they were wrong about what religion did, but the people arguing in favor of religion are also wrong about what religion does. It might have done that in the past, and it might still do it if you are a goat herd in the Hindukush or a dirt farmer in the Indus valley, but not so for a western capitalist. I forgot to include this though so you get it as a weird edit instead lol.

Yes, but nowadays we've moved further along the Nietzschean path and there are new angles to attack religion from kinda percolating out there in gen z and gen alpha; mainly that people who claim to believe it don't actually believe it, because they don't act like they believe it.

Think about all these Johnny come lately statue profile pic dudes shopping which trad version of religion to choose; and realize that is how young people are going to experience popular religion; jut like we experienced religion like a kubrik film of incredibly venal mega churches and 9/11 and such.

We are in the Reaction phase right now; soon we will be in the counter-reaction phase.

but not so for a western capitalist

Huh? They're admittedly thinned out, but there still are religious communities in the west, and you can actually observe they're getting something out of it.

mainly that people who claim to believe it don't actually believe it, because they don't act like they believe it.

So? This applies to anyone as far as I can tell, even nihilists.

We are in the Reaction phase right now; soon we will be in the counter-reaction phase.

This is what I meant when I said it's going from undignified to perverse. As misguided as it was, I can understand "counter-reacting" to Alabama hicks teaching creationism in public schools because you think it will bring about a new age of peace, science, and freedom from dogma, but "counter-reacting" to dudes on Twitter trying to LARP themselves into finding some meaning in their life because something, something, muh Nietscheanism feels like a parody of itself.

You place too much importance on causes and not enough on people being cringe.

The reaction to new atheism had nothing to do with it's program; and everything to do with the spirit of the fedora.

More comments

I for one see no principled distinction to be made between a religion and a cult. The former all arise from the latter, and they accrue a veneer of respectability from being old, or formed at a time where accusing something of being bad because it was a fresh cult would be met with mild confusion.

They're all scams anyway, even if some of the religious fall for it too. That's how MLMs work.

I don’t have an opinion on that, because I try not to make generalizations based on n=2

This is so silly. You can't take scientific language and apply it in any way you'd like. If your parents lavish your brother with attention, encourage him, give him 2 free ferraris when he turns 12, and so on, while locking you in the attic, n(umber of brothers)=2 so you shouldn't generalize about their behavior.

No, n != 2. Yes there are 2 movies involved but there are innumerable critics making the same decisions about those two movies. You don't just get to find a hypothesis, pick a certain aspect about that hypothesis which involves a small number of entities, and decide that since that number of entities is small the hypothesis must be discarded without further evidence. Perhaps there are only 2 brothers, but there's a long chain of consistent behavior to observe and use to inform your conclusions about your parents. Perhaps there are 2 sexes, but there are billions of instances of each sex to observe. Perhaps there are 2 movies, but there are hundreds of critics to observe. n(umber of relevant entities) != 2.

As far as Scientology vs. Qanon, you mentioned wanting to control for one being a political organization. Yes, that's exactly the point. People care about one as a political organization and not the other as a religious organization. You're controlling for the very point which @CriticalDuty made. "Oh well obviously one actor has politics they disagree with, so we should definitely control for that before determining whether critics care about actors' political opinions."

Perhaps there are 2 movies, but there are hundreds of critics to observe. n(umber of relevant entities) != 2. Yes, but I don't have that evidence. At best, I have the claim of some guy on the internet re what the evidence shows.

Oh well obviously one actor has politics they disagree with, so we should definitely control for that before determining whether critics care about actors' political opinions."

But, again, the example you raised -- Tom Cruise -- is about religious belief, not political beliefs. So, you seem to be saying that that example is not germane.Which I agree is the case.

  • -15

The point is that the critics' complaints are explicitly political, rather than actual criticisms of people with crazy beliefs. Tom Cruise is a great example of someone with crazier beliefs who has not received the same criticism, proving that the critics' motivations are partisan, not principled.

Rolling stone on another summer blockbuster:

Thrillingly and thoughtfully directed and written...the film lights up the screen with a full-throttle blast of action and fun. That’s to be expected. But what sneaks up and floors you is the film’s...profound, astonishing beauty.

From a summer blockbuster whose politics align with Rolling Stone's. Considerably more unrealistic (it's a comic book film).

(it's a comic book film).

Well exactly; it's not supposed to be realistic, so criticising on those grounds would be absurd. But if you're making a film at least partly based on real events that is being sold as an important story that needs to be told, the bar is obviously going to be considerably higher as far as realism goes.

Going off on a tangent here, but yet another live action remake of a Disney classic animated movie is going to be released next year (I think) and judging from prelimary photos, it's going to be - interesting.

They're making "Snow White" as a live action movie. Rachel Zegler will play Snow White and Gal Gadot will be the Wicked Stepmother Queen. All well and good, but the seven dwarves are - by the looks of it - not going to be dwarves. EDIT: and of course no Prince Charming, Snow White is a Strong Independent FairyTale Princess who don't need no man, she dreams of being a leader herself.

These photos were first claimed to be fake, and to be fair I couldn't believe anything so badly costumed was real, but then the revised commentary on that was "these are not official photos", they're using stand-ins and they're pick-up shots (whatever those may be).

Judge for yourselves as to how you would describe the Seven Companions 😁

Now, it could be that these are indeed fake photos to mislead people snooping around trying to get shots on-set, and I hope so. But one never knows, do one?

They're making "Snow White" as a live action movie. Rachel Zegler will play Snow White and Gal Gadot will be the Wicked Stepmother Queen. All well and good,

"Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"

"Fairest? Not you, and surely not your stepdaughter. Cruella de Ville has a shot at it. Maybe Hannah. Fairest. Ha. You know I'm a normal mirror when you're not waking me up, you could see for yourself!"

There's "fairest" as in "lightest-skinned" and "fairest" as in "most beautiful". I think a lot of people think Gal Gadot is an attractive woman, so "aging queen whose vanity is what makes her insecure" works just as well there. The Snow White actress is half-Polish, half-Colombian, or quarter-Colombian at least, so again we're not talking totally South American Hispanic/Latina. Traditional Snow White has coal black hair anyway. So that one is "they don't understand the source material, and the folkloric tradition of 'black hair from the raven, white skin from the snow, red cheeks from the blood on the snow', but it's not as awful as it could have been" for me 🤷‍♀️

I'm more concerned about the awful looking costumes so far. Even the one for Snow White looks cheap and poorly-designed, something for an am-dram presentation rather than a multi-million dollar big studio adaptation.

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I doubt it--why should some corrupt wicked stepmother care about who's the fairest of them all in that case? Her motivation is that she wants to be fairest, and anyone with that motivation isn't exactly going to hunt down the people fairer than them.

Indeed. Though the movie need not make sense of course. The stepmother does indeed mean "fair" in the sense of "beautiful", but in Snow White specifically, beauty is tied into pale skin. It isn't just that; Snow White is white from birth but doesn't surpass the Queen until she is seven years old.

Oooh, that one makes sense, because one report had it that there wouldn't be any Prince Charming and that Snow White wanted to be a leader! So Justice Snow could indeed be the interpretation going on there!

they're going to interpret "fairest" as "most even-handed, just" and not "lightest-skinned."

Not sure if joking, but "fair" in the context of "somewhat archaic faery-tale English" just means "beautiful" -- I'm actually somewhat surprised that they haven't cast a black girl tbh.

Not sure if joking, but "fair" in the context of "somewhat archaic faery-tale English" just means "beautiful"

True. But in the tale Snow White was considered beautiful largely because of her fair skin (as contrasted with her red lips and black hair), which she was literally named for.

Why not just come out and say that you are referring to Black Panther?

And, I have seen neither film, but surely you can see that lack of realism is usually a more serious flaw in a film that purports to be a true story than it is in a comic book film. You seem to be falling victim somewhat to confirmation bias.

lack of realism is usually a more serious flaw in a film that purports to be a true story

But it is also a convention that for "dramatic purposes" characters can be dropped, amalgamated, and even invented for the movie, even ones based on true stories. 'Lack of realism' has not been a criticism much seen before in such cases.

for movies that purport to be based on true stories, maybe lack of realism should be?

I'd agree that lack of realism should be a criticism for 'based on a true story' but the accepted interpretation seems to be that for dramatic purposes, sometimes you can/have to do a bit of inventing.

In which case, if you were perfectly fine with "the last true-story movie totally made up the character of Benji Bestboi and in fact the ending in reality was not that they won a gazillion dollars and shut down the evil Rice Krispie manufacturing plant, but they had to cease their protests since they were being nuisances and the Rice Krispie plant was sold for a gazillion dollars so the Wicked Owners made a fortune", then you don't get to suddenly be all "in scene 94 of this movie, the calendar shows 1st July 73 when in actual fact that particular visit to the bar happened on 30th June 73" about this.

My point is that there is nothing notable about the content of the movie to warrant controversy - it's all about how it was made and is watched by the wrong type of people. Skim through that linked Rolling Stone article - it's pretty obvious culture war. And understand that this isn't an isolated event; there are many more articles like that one, and most of the discussions of this movie on Reddit quickly devolve into claims of conservative histeria over supposedly non-existent child trafficking.

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