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MisterSwig

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In his new YouTube video, Bill Whittle argues that progressives are "cultural parasites." Similar to the fictional alien in Alien or the real parasitoid wasps, progressives use and kill their cultural hosts in order to reproduce. They inject their ideas into a beloved character or story, then they consume this cultural product from the inside out before moving to the next victim. Whittle gives several examples including "woke" Ghostbusters, which replaced the original male team with females, and a gay Captain America I'd never heard of.

I think there's some truth in what Whittle claims. But this practice of altering and repurposing cultural products is nothing new. And it has the potential of producing an improvement on a flawed original, despite popularity. In my view the main problem is actually institutional censorship, when the original is systematically cancelled from existence and fades from memory, and then a truly parasitic version becomes the new host organism.

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Assuredly so. From someone who's had a surfeit of movie watching this last year, only one angle of cultural (gender) parasitism became plain. What used to commonly be the male hero fighting his way over evil forces, if quite inauthentically beating up the evil opponents against all odds to protect the weak, often women and children. Good always prevails. Today I'll state with confidence that three quarters of all film plots extant have the replacement, a small, slim woman - overpowering or killing big men, one or several at once (above all credible authenticity). And sure, in the context of the plot the men deserved it and the viewer is satisfied justice was done. This is no accident, this is deliberate and violent, revenge fantasy. White men "cancelled from existence", you put it. Hollywood's distorted version of 'good' prevails also.

Edited by whYNOT
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4 hours ago, whYNOT said:

White men "cancelled from existence"

Oh no. Anyway,

4 hours ago, whYNOT said:

This is no accident, this is deliberate and violent, revenge fantasy.

Revenge by who against who? These movies are usually made by White men. The 2016 Ghostbusters movie was directed by a White male. Are these White men seeking revenge against White men? They're just using non-White, non-male characters as human shields to deflect blame and allow race obsessed people like you to wallow in White victimhood. These movies are like corporations trying to cash in on Pride month. If anybody is a parasite, it's the directors and producers trying to cash in on political issues, not the "progressives" or leftists or whoever. They're using your emotional investment in identity politics (and belief in White male victimhood or, alternatively, non-White, non-male victimhood) to make a profit. These movies would have been total crap even if they had straight, White male leads catering to poor, White, victimized males.

Also, you're acting as if casting straight White males is somehow natural and unintentional and non-deliberate and has no politics or power play behind it; as though non-Whites and non-males were never "cancelled from existence" in Hollywood.

Also, before you accuse me of being "racialist", like you inevitably do in an attempt to victimize yourself more: I have never, in the history of posting on this forum started a discussion on race. I have only made posts about race as a response to White people on this forum making racial comments about non-White people like me. So no need to start a tirade about how my posts are "racialist" or any of that non-sense. And I generally don't care about race because it's not a politicized topic in India. It's usually Americans (and people who care about American politics, and maybe politics in the West generally) who go on and on about race. Race is not important in the politics of most of Asia.

Edited by human_murda
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3 hours ago, whYNOT said:

From someone who's had a surfeit of movie watching this last year, only one angle of cultural (gender) parasitism became plain.

They do it with the class issue too. Consider The Magnificent Seven. The original was actually an American remake of the 1954 Japanese movie Seven Samurai. Samurai was about a village of peaceful farmers hiring samurai to protect them from a gang of bandits. The original Seven consistently adapted this idea for an American audience in 1960, portraying a peaceful Mexican village hiring American gunslingers to protect them from a gang of outlaws. In both cases the enemy was a gang of bandits. The movie was remade in 2016 and they turned the enemy into an evil businessman, altering the original class dynamic and theme of the story, in my opinion reducing it to stereotypical anti-capitalist garbage.

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41 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

They do it with the class issue too.

Who is "they"? Progressives don't make movies. There's no group of leftists sitting around and deciding whether some movie is going to be economically viable. These decisions are made by Studio executives who determine if there's going to enough interest in a movie to generate a profit. Sometimes, political topics generate enough interest (like the case of the Ghostbusters movie) even if they're crap. And these are not flagship movies for a Studio. They just generate some passive income (like remakes of Video Games), while they focus on bigger projects. They're the equivalent of card games made by well known gaming studios. And these movies are not made by leftists.

Bigger projects that are not lazy cash-grabs and have different leads are the Star Wars series, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (the lead isn't Peter Parker) or even a video game like The Last of Us 2. These are well made films (and games) and no, they're not made by "progressives".

Edited by human_murda
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5 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

when the original is systematically cancelled from existence and fades from memory

When has this happened? I mean, it seems like the Magnificent Seven remake was the forgotten one... And if the original was forgotten, it's not because it was canceled.

1 hour ago, human_murda said:

If anybody is a parasite, it's the directors and producers trying to cash in on political issues, not the "progressives" or leftists or whoever.

The logic seems to go like this:

1) companies that are rational make money

2) companies that are not rational don't make money

3) therefore companies that make money are rational

 

4) since it is not rational to make parasitic movies, the companies that make such movies won't make money

5) therefore the companies make these movies for reasons besides money

 

1-3 is circular (Why they rational? Because they make money. Why do they make money? Because they are rational.)

4 misses the fact that you can make money this way.

5 indicates a hidden premise that no one who is irrational tries to make money or will always fail to make any money. 

 

Sometimes it's hard to accept that companies can be manipulative. You can make money off of marks and do quite well. The progressives are the marks. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, human_murda said:

These movies are usually made by White men. The 2016 Ghostbusters movie was directed by a White male.

And co-written by Katie Dippold whose Twitter bio links to the BLM "Ways you can help" page.

1 hour ago, human_murda said:

These movies are like corporations trying to cash in on Pride month. They would have been total crap even if they had straight White male leads.

They would have been totally different stories with straight, white male leads.

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21 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

And co-written by Katie Dippold whose Twitter bio links to the BLM "Ways you can help" page.

Despite the existence of Katie Dippold's twitter page, Paul Feig and Ivan Reitman are still men. Who are they taking revenge against? Also, the Ghostbusters movie is about women in media. BLM is irrelevant here and doesn't prove any point about women taking revenge against men (the director and one of the producers are men). Sure, there are women in the team but that's not relevant to the point that these movies are supposedly ways of taking revenge against men.

27 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

They would have been totally different stories with straight, white male leads.

And they could have written totally different and better stories with pansexual, brown, female leads but they didn't. It's easy to talk about how imaginary movies would have been better, but given how the 2016 movie was a lazy sequel, they would have produced a shitty movie with straight, white male leads. You are blaming the problems of the movie on the fact that they have non- straight, White male leads (or the politics behind it) when the actual problem is that they just used that as a selling point and did not try to be original. They tried to sell the movie with politics but the problem is not the politics, the problem is that they were lazy (and they would have been lazy no matter who the leads were).

Similar stuff could be said about the recent Aladdin movie. It was a remake and wasn't that well done (from the Genie's CGI to the costumes looking home-made to the casting). Jasmine was specifically supposed to be Persian, but they did not cast someone Middle-Eastern (and she was probably the only famous Middle-Eastern character in Western media who wasn't a terrorist, apart from Jesus). Is this because the casting was done by the alt-right trying to make Jasmine whiter? No, it was because Naomi Scott (who doesn't look Persian) was more famous and could sing and because the film was a remake and kind of lazy. The film wasn't bad because Disney was infiltrated by the alt-right or because of politics. It was bad because it was a lazy remake.

There are also examples on the opposite end of the spectrum, like Hollywood casting light-skinned actors to appeal to China. Has the alt-right infiltrated Hollywood?

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:
7 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

when the original is systematically cancelled from existence and fades from memory

When has this happened?

Obviously it's very hard (or near impossible) to do this with durable, cultural products that are published and distributed to many collectors. In ancient times, before printing presses and compact discs, perhaps it was much easier for official censors to collect and destroy banned versions of cultural items and leave the approved ones alone. But something similar still goes on today, because creators are often reliant upon others to finance and produce their work. This means that screenwriters and directors often create characters and stories that are censored or altered by studio executives who purchase the rights. In preproduction an original character or story might be radically changed (for better or worse) and the only version we'll know about is the one eventually released in theaters. Or in postproduction, during the editing phase, a director might clash with the studio, and we never get to see the director's cut of the film. If fans of Zack Snyder hadn't pressured Warner Bros., we probably never would have gotten the 4-hour version of Justice League. There are calls to release other director's cuts, but how many from the distant past have been totally destroyed and forgotten? And how many were changed for the worse? We might never know.

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4 hours ago, human_murda said:

Oh no. Anyway,

Revenge by who against who? These movies are usually made by White men. The 2016 Ghostbusters movie was directed by a White male. Are these White men seeking revenge against White men? They're just using non-White, non-male characters as human shields to deflect blame and allow race obsessed people like you to wallow in White victimhood. These movies are like corporations trying to cash in on Pride month. If anybody is a parasite, it's the directors and producers trying to cash in on political issues, not the "progressives" or leftists or whoever. They're using your emotional investment in identity politics (and belief in White male victimhood or, alternatively, non-White, non-male victimhood) to make a profit. These movies would have been total crap even if they had straight, White male leads catering to poor, White, victimized males.

Also, you're acting as if casting straight White males is somehow natural and unintentional and non-deliberate and has no politics or power play behind it; as though non-Whites and non-males were never "cancelled from existence" in Hollywood.

 

Huh-uh. "As though non-whites and non-males were never..."

You got it!

The Cancel Culture is partly about social justice - reparation - but is mainly driven by vengeance and "ressentiment". Payback time to the oppressors.

All that's Woke is post-modernist deconstruction by latter-day philosophers: in history, race, feminism, individualism, reasoning, 'privilege', capitalism, literature - oh, and you heard of Post Modern Art...?

I recommend the works of Stephen Hicks to enlighten you on pomo.

Cashing in, right, of course; there's a ready Woke audience right now for producers.

Some people like being told they're bad and guilty. Like the male producers, perhaps confessing their guilt as well, that is highly popular 'signalling' of virtue.. But mainly, everything is to make 'a thing' about gender and race - as you are doing - in order to shut down anyone white and male protesting - as I am doing.

Isn't that a clever, ironic trick?

No, there is nothing normal, rational or believable about nearly every film delivering women characters who beat up men, not once or twice for the sake of novelty, but most of them.

Unless you enjoy revenge.

Edited by whYNOT
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21 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

In preproduction an original character or story might be radically changed (for better or worse) and the only version we'll know about is the one eventually released in theaters.

If you're just focusing on how studio executives ruin movies because they take too much editorial control, then I agree with you. They also ruin video games. Those are the parasites in this case. I don't think progressivism is the cause, because even woke people recognize them as disingenuous. 

13 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

All that's Woke is post-modernist deconstruction

What movies are you thinking of? The most recent postmodern movie I can think of is Tenet, and that one is hardly a blockbuster or even popular. Plus there is nothing about race in the movie anyway. I think that's enough evidence that the decline in quality IPs is not because of progressives doing anything, but because studio executives sacrifice quality for the sake of quick money.

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45 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

 

What movies are you thinking of? The most recent postmodern movie I can think of is Tenet, and that one is hardly a blockbuster or even popular. Plus there is nothing about race in the movie anyway. I think that's enough evidence that the decline in quality IPs is not because of progressives doing anything, but because studio executives sacrifice quality for the sake of quick money.

I don't know it. These are recent, average run of the mill action movies, I have seen several dozens in recent years I'm afraid to say, some not bad - but the movie doesn't have to be overtly 'post-modernist', the ¬narrative¬ of males getting brought down physically by female avengers is so common, I'm surprised if no one has noticed.

Such things are consequences of postmodernism, within the general culture, the producers/scriptwriters themselves might not even understand, but enough to capitalize on.

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1 hour ago, human_murda said:

Despite the existence of Katie Dippold's twitter page, Paul Feig and Ivan Reitman are still men. Who are they taking revenge against?

Don't know, that was whYNOT's line. I can't speak much about the Ghostbusters remake because I have only seen the trailer, which didn't do it for me. Aside from it being unfunny, I didn't appreciate the obvious attempt at pandering to a female audience, as if Ghostbusters isn't essentially about funny dudes fighting ghosts. It makes sense that four crazy guys would want to start a business fighting the paranormal. Making them all female is ridiculous. Out of curiosity I asked my girlfriend who she'd want to see on the team. She said Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey and Drew Barrymore.

Edited by MisterSwig
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There is, too, *equalism*. The progressivist post modernist doesn't actually want equality, that's insufficient. His/her motivation is the supremacy of previous 'victims'. Then we enter self-sacrifice for 'the sins of our past', and whatever.

I think this all relates, Swig, to "cultural parasitism". Take its near obverse, the obsession with "cultural appropriation", I think it's called? Whether one dresses up in a fancy outfit which isn't of one's own ethnicity. Or the actor who is slammed for not being of the portrayed, original person's race? No white allowed henceforth to play the Moor, Othello. Too many instances reported in the media to relate.

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3 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

the ¬narrative¬ of males getting brought down physically by female avengers is so common, I'm surprised if no one has noticed.

Two problems. 

Postmodern movies would be the type that don't have linear narratives, often about breaking down various tropes by putting them in different contexts, subverting expectation, referencing meta-narrative, things like that. Gender or race isn't what makes something postmodern in terms of art, but those things might be commonly played around with in postmodern stuff. Sometimes I like postmodern elements, but not something so thoroughly postmodern like Eraserhead or anything else by David Lynch.

If you're talking about a specific use of gender or race for the mere emotional effect without any further motive, that's not postmodern. It's just an appeal to emotion with the same use of modern tropes and overused assumptions, including using female characters only for appearances without any real effort to create a female character who is interesting and varied. I'm thinking of Game of Thrones season 8. I think it's mostly to appeal to white people who want credit for trying. But again, that's not postmodernism. It's something else. You can call it progressivism, but it is movie producers trying to capitalize on it (and failing anyway because the progressives say that Hollywood is terrible at it). The distinction matters because it tells you more about why movies are terrible these days. 

Anyway, what movies are you talking about? 

Tenant, by the way, is a Christopher Nolan movie. I was giving as an example of something postmodern, and what you're thinking of isn't postmodernism.

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3 hours ago, human_murda said:

There are also examples on the opposite end of the spectrum, like Hollywood casting light-skinned actors to appeal to China. Has the alt-right infiltrated Hollywood?

Did you read that? Not "the alt-right" - it's in order to appeal to China's and the Chinese' 'colorism':

Quote: "Since 2012, US filmmakers apparently became aware of the aesthetic preferences of Chinese movie-goers — who place a higher premium on light skin — a practice known as colorism, Axios reported, citing a 2017 study.

The researchers concluded that Hollywood is not only influenced by Chinese censors but by cultural preferences, as well".

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53 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Two problems. 

Postmodern movies would be the type that don't have linear narratives, often about breaking down various tropes by putting them in different contexts, subverting expectation, referencing meta-narrative, things like that. Gender or race isn't what makes something postmodern in terms of art, but those things might be commonly played around with in postmodern stuff. Sometimes I like postmodern elements, but not something so thoroughly postmodern like Eraserhead or anything else by David Lynch.

If you're talking about a specific use of gender or race for the mere emotional effect without any further motive, that's not postmodern. It's just an appeal to emotion with the same use of modern tropes and overused assumptions, including using female characters only for appearances without any real effort to create a female character who is interesting and varied. I'm thinking of Game of Thrones season 8. I think it's mostly to appeal to white people who want credit for trying. But again, that's not postmodernism. It's something else. You can call it progressivism, but it is movie producers trying to capitalize on it (and failing anyway because the progressives say that Hollywood is terrible at it). The distinction matters because it tells you more about why movies are terrible these days. 

Anyway, what movies are you talking about? 

Tenant, by the way, is a Christopher Nolan movie. I was giving as an example of something postmodern, and what you're thinking of isn't postmodernism.

Too complicated for me. Influenced by post-modernism, not overtly so, I repeat. Say I watch a hundred films and as I normally do with an art form, examine their premises, the views of reality, and notice an unusual new phenomenon emerge in the last decade - women consistently beating up men - and conclude that this nouveau violence is the effect of a greater phenomenon, an existing philosophy that has taken root in the culture. Theme: The female gets her own back. Violently. It appeals to emotions also. This is where symbolism is properly supposed to be, in art. Anyone knows that can rarely be possible in reality.

(Not winning by her wits, qualities and tough inner resolve, as I admire about 'strong' and individualist women, including characters in films - but by dumb muscular power and fighting skills - new wave feminism on a rampage one might say.)

Deconstructionism equates with post-modernism.

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51 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

Influenced by post-modernism, not overtly so, I repeat.

You aren't even talking about postmodern elements. There isn't a trace of that influence. You're talking about something else. If you want to talk about critical theory as a type of postmodern philosophy, that's fine. But the movies themselves are not postmodern. Or at least, the movies I think you're referring to. Postmodernism is not what made the movie bad, rather, you could argue that postmodernism as critical theory created an environment where movie producers could feed off of the social world we live in. To say postmodernism makes a movie bad would be something like "Eraserhead is objectively bad because it is postmodern". 

53 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

(Not winning by her wits, qualities and tough inner resolve, as I admire about 'strong' and individualist women, including characters in films - but by dumb muscular power and fighting skills - new wave feminism on a rampage one might say.)

Name a movie please, so we have something to talk about. What are you thinking of, Kill Bill? Your criticism here doesn't seem to make sense, you seem to be criticizing having female action characters? There's a good way to do it, and a bad way to do it. Just name a few movies. Give us something more concrete to talk about.

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2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Sometimes I like postmodern elements, but not something so thoroughly postmodern like Eraserhead or anything else by David Lynch.

It's been awhile since I saw Eraserhead. Isn't it more surrealist than postmodernist?

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

You aren't even talking about postmodern elements. There isn't a trace of that influence. You're talking about something else. If you want to talk about critical theory as a type of postmodern philosophy, that's fine. But the movies themselves are not postmodern. Or at least, the movies I think you're referring to. Postmodernism is not what made the movie bad, rather, you could argue that postmodernism as critical theory created an environment where movie producers could feed off of the social world we live in. To say postmodernism makes a movie bad would be something like "Eraserhead is objectively bad because it is postmodern". 

 

Let's begin at basics.

Do you think that deconstructionism is observable in the general culture?

Do you think that art forms are representative of the general culture?

(i.e. the film medium is ¬a mirror¬ on reality, reflecting and sometimes prescribing how people behave and think).

When you resolve those two questions we can discuss further.

You always return to one element, critical race theory. That is not the whole. When books are banned for 'hurtful' content, or statues are brought down, academics are fired because of cultural 'fascism' - those are a few more aspects. Genderism is another. You've heard how skepticism, relativism and subjectivism are the pm's substitutes for objectivity.

Kill Bill was an early example, maybe one of the first, but then it was fresh and original. I think it was stylistically good and plotted pretty well, btw. As I said, the many dozens that have followed are indicative of - something.

Film makers knew they were onto something newly popular with masses of audiences.

The approval of brute force by women used to subdue or kill men (quite, who 'deserved' to be - in the movies). Men who as we know have been the traditional, physical oppressors of females... That's the leftist, deconstructionist fantasy. The white male gets cancelled. As good as tearing down a statue of one (PM historical "revisionism").

Edited by whYNOT
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5 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

Do you think that deconstructionism is observable in the general culture?

I don't think it is as strong in American culture as you think. 

6 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

Do you think that art forms are representative of the general culture?

Yeah, and that the art forms we are talking about aren't excessively postmodern. They are bad for other reasons.

13 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

The approval of brute force by women used to subdue men (quite, who 'deserved' to be in the movie). Men who as we know have been the traditional, physical oppressors of females... That's the leftist, deconstructionist fantasy. The white male gets cancelled.

 Which movies? 

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2 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

I don't think it is as strong in American culture as you think. 

 

You haven't been looking. There's not an area untouched by it. Politics especially.

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One of my favorite actors is Denzel Washington (the reason why I suffered through the Magnificent Seven remake). He's the star of The Equalizer movies, which are pretty good action flicks. Washington plays a man of mystery who rescues a young woman from a bad situation. Well, they turned it into a TV show now, starring Queen Latifah as the badass hero. I can't get through the trailer without laughing at and lamenting the debasement of the franchise at the same time.

 

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8 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

You haven't been looking. There's not an area untouched by it. Politics especially.

 

12 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

I don't think it is as strong in American culture as you think. 

Yeah, and that the art forms we are talking about aren't excessively postmodern. They are bad for other reasons.

 Which movies? 

I don't take records of titles of many mediocre movies, but I assure you of my conclusion from many samples.

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The Queen Latifah is one I've not seen but fits the accepted mold. And thanks, when it comes this way I'll avoid it now. When that meme has become so commonplace I don't think violent women overpowering males is even paid attention any more. Then we can deduce how deep into the culture that movies have penetrated. And vice-versa.

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