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MisterSwig

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41 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

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

If you can't come up with examples, then all we have is a floating abstraction.

Edited by Eiuol
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An aside. The Big Deconstructionist Con works in this approximate manner. If you assert that a woman is an individual, one you hold to the same standards of character, thinking and ability etc. as any other person, you're probably misogynist. If you say that other individuals of other races are identically held to those as well, you're of course a racist. If you have esteem in yourself and conduct yourself as an individual, you must be a narcissist/egotist. If you value your country above others you're a nationalist. Don't dare argue against those personal injustices, nor defend who and what you are without shame. Too late, you've been deconstructed. You will go down as another privileged white male.

 

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26 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

If you can't come up with examples, then all we have is a floating abstraction.

You might have one, not me or even "we".

You've seen one example above, you mentioned another - do you need to taste all the oceans to know sea water is salty?

Your distrust of my observations is noted. 

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I thought you said that Kill Bill was not an example? Or if you meant that it is, it's a completely sensible premise as far as what the movie is. It's not about killing men or anything like that, even implicitly, and if someone takes that as the message, it's a strange interpretation.

But like with anything else, if you don't have examples to talk about, your discussion won't be in reality. It's not that I don't believe what you observe, it's that I don't even know what you observed! As a general point to anyone, if you can't come up with at least 3 examples of something when talking about a particular concept or topic like this, your own understanding is weak. 

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8 hours ago, whYNOT said:

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.

 

 

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7 hours ago, Eiuol said:

As a general point to anyone, if you can't come up with at least 3 examples of something when talking about a particular concept or topic like this, your own understanding is weak. 

Nope. I saw ten birds yesterday. I couldn't validate that and show them to you as proof. should it automatically be your "understanding" that the birds were a figment of my imagination - or should you take my word for it for now, being an honest debater, awaiting further experiences? It is too easy to evade an unpopular and uncomfortable conclusion by not having to acknowledge that someone could well be right.

Failing which, already you have two "examples", one old and dated, one brand new, right in front of you. I've always advised you to apply induction. An "active mind"- right? Not to passively await validation from others.

That you haven't seen many, many instances of (birds/) movies with violent women is - incredible.

It is not worth my while to try to remember and research the titles of films to convince a doubter. Most readers will know what I mean.

Edited by whYNOT
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Some possible examples of gay-turned-straight are the movie Enigma and Noel Coward's play Present Laughter. They weren't remakes, but they took real-life gay people and turned them straight, Alan Turing in the first case and Coward himself in the second.

People have been speculating for decades that George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf are both men, but the author insisted otherwise.

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If you're looking for unrealistic female fighters in movies, I could name several, but here's the thing. It's not really about the fact that there's some woman kicking the asses of a bunch of males. Depending on how it's written that could be a well-integrated aspect of a well-done movie. Trinity in The Matrix comes to mind. And Selene in Underworld. To make that work Trinity is fighting in a computer-generated world where her "action" depends more on programmed skills and mental power than raw, physical strength. Selene is also in an abnormal (supernatural) realm. She's a vampire assassin with special training and royal blood that gives her superpower. I can also buy Wonder Woman, because she's a superhero character from a warrior tribe. Also, these characters are very fit, athletic women, which helps us suspend disbelief and accept that they could pull off the action fighting necessary to defeat large men. I've read that Queen Latifah's The Equalizer requires unsatisfying jump cuts to mask her limited action abilities, which seems likely from the way they put that trailer together. But even if Latifah looked like the ebony goddess of martial arts, The Equalizer is still set in a normal world where it's harder to believe that a lone woman is going around like Batman crushing evil male gangsters. Such one-on-many action is already very difficult to accept when done with a male hero. It's nearing absolute absurdity with a female one, and so many convenient plot gimmicks are required to help it along.

 

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2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

It is not worth my while to try to remember and research the titles of films to convince a doubter.

I don't doubt what you saw. But since you can't even remember the name of any movies, literally unable to remember, all you have to refer to are probably some vague memories of emotions that you had. Or if not that, then the concept or idea you're dealing with is a floating abstraction in your mind detached from reality. 

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Hot dog, I found one! Well, almost.

A Splash redo has been in the works for years now. The twist? This time it's a woman who falls in love with a merman. I guess this could work because lots of girls would want to see Channing Tatum as a naked fish.

 

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19 hours ago, Eiuol said:

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.

Thinking about this some more, we could probably discover evidence of how a parasitic remake (or version) affects the original. If it doesn't outright kill the franchise, I bet it drastically devalues it. Checking this theory properly might require inside knowledge of sales figures and property values. Did the Ghostbusters remake increase or decrease the value of the franchise? Are more people buying the classic movies and merchandise because of it? Are fans more or less likely to buy a ticket to see future Ghostbusters movies? I stopped watching Star Wars movies, for example, when I realized that Force Awakens was a "woke" version of New Hope.

Sometimes I hear about franchise-killing movies. People make lists of them. Some on that linked list, like Annie and Catwoman, include race-switched roles. A couple, Ghostbusters and The Mummy, include sex-switched characters. We could debate whether or why these films killed (or wounded) the franchise. Maybe it was due to the character alterations, or maybe that didn't matter much and the remakes suffered from poor scripts, terrible acting, bad timing, etc.

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On 3/24/2021 at 10:44 AM, whYNOT said:

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.

Weirdly enough, despite agreeing with the OP that cultural parasitism is a real and bad thing I also have to take issue with this.

 

Unless you're watching something about actual genocide, watching individual bad guys die is not the same thing as witnessing the destruction of "white men" (unless you literally meant that you disapprove of the death of any white male character, but since that would be ridiculous I'm going to assume it's not what you meant).

Doctor Seuss is actually a great example of what I mean.  One of the primary things he created which is currently being called out as an example of white supremacy was this illustration:

783951829_AChineseBoywhoEatswithSticks.thumb.jpg.8d3c0e710ba39b6eb68801a4614a7ae4.jpg

Depicting "A Chinese Boy who eats with Sticks".

 

Many people are calling that image racist because not all Chinese boys eat with chopsticks.  And although it is true that not all Chinese people eat that way (even though the vast majority in point of fact do, I'm sure there are at least a few exceptions) this is not a picture of "all Chinese people"; it's a picture of an individual Chinese boy who happens to eat this way.

I have yet to think of a way to visually depict "all Chinese people" in such an illustration.  I don't think it's possible without at least some sort of caption to explain that this image includes the entirety of that racial group.

 

It would be possible to depict such a thing in a film, but if there is such a thing as "white male genocide: the movie" I have yet to hear about it.  It would be a disgusting and evil thing if it was created (and I wouldn't put it past certain members of our intelligentsia to try it) but if you mean that certain villains are white and male then that's not the same thing; that just means that these particular villains happen to have light skin and penises.

And just as there are, in fact, Chinese people who eat with chopsticks, there are also white males who are villainous and fully deserve a good trouncing.  Many of them are the ones screaming the loudest about Doctor Seuss.

 

And there's something really artistic to watching a small, virtuous woman beat up a big bad dude.  The fact that we'd expect her to lose raises our tension, as audience members, while we're watching it; it's really not different from how the climax always has to involve a small team of heroes against the endless hordes of the bad guys.

Here is not a music video (believe it or not) but an example of what I mean that's actually done very well.  Since the character in question is a slim little cyborg whose body is packed full of god-only-knows-what it manages to get the best of both worlds: our perceptual-level gut reaction that she's going to get pulverized without any disbelief that she actually doesn't.

Now, you would be totally right to point out that Hollywood has been stretching that well beyond the point of believability lately, which ultimately makes the end product less fun to watch.  But I don't know of any reason why that can't just be chalked up to lazy and sloppy writing.

 

So in short although there obviously is something to this "Cultural Parasitism" thing (and I'm sure I'll have a chance to elaborate on that momentarily) I also think that specific post was taking it a bit too far.

 

Don't use their dumbass terminology within your own private thoughts.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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On 3/24/2021 at 2:23 PM, human_murda said:

Oh no. Anyway,

That bit literally made me laugh out loud.

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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.

The vast majority of people in America are white and the vast majority of people on this planet are straight.  So if the people involved in these decisions were actually aliens from another world who had no idea what race or gender or anything like that meant, and were casting exclusively for the purpose of who can play the part best, I would expect most of their picks to be straight white people.

It would be weird if they were the only kind of people cast, or if they were less represented than some other group, but as long as the end product was still good I personally would not give a damn.

 

I do not think that "representation of my approximate skin color or genitalia in cinema" is a rational thing for any truly selfish person to worry about.  That goes for both sexes (note: TWO of those) and every conceivable race.

 

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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.

I also disagree with that but suspect there'll be ample opportunity to come back to it later.

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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.

I'm sorry.  This obsession with race and racism does seem to be a uniquely American thing (probably because of the contrast between our founding documents and our actual history) and it's one of our only exports that we cannot actually brag about.  But I, for one, am sorry that even in India you have to deal with this retarded thing.

 

Hopefully we'll be able to get our shit together sooner rather than later.

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On 3/24/2021 at 6:00 PM, whYNOT said:

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?

He specifically said that he doesn't see this as a racial thing; in India (where he said he lives) they don't care about race nearly as much as Americans do.  I see that as a good thing: in America we truly do have a racial problem nowadays, and the problem is that nobody will ever shut up about it.

You actually sound like the White Male stereotype that the SJW's are always screaming about, there.

1442501503_TheWhites.thumb.jpg.e1362b424ff6aad359bc1c833a78e7a4.jpg

 

You need to stop thinking in the SJW's terminology.  I'm not trying to be an asshole (for some of us it just comes naturally :P) but it shows that you have been doing that, and it's not good for you.

It's not good for the rest of America either but what you should really care about is that it's not good for you.

 

I'm not gonna reply to anything else you said yesterday; partially because of my blood pressure (which is something I need to start paying attention to) and partially in the hopes that your next post might be better.  IDK; maybe yesterday was a particularly rough day for you, and if when tomorrow came you felt like renouncing a few of the things you'd said then I'd do my best to forget about them.

 

Good luck!

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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7 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Maybe it was due to the character alterations, or maybe that didn't matter much and the remakes suffered from poor scripts, terrible acting, bad timing, etc.

The reason could always be put on low standards for writing. It's not that changing the expected look of a character is inherently bad. It's about what about the characters identity is important for the plot. I don't think Annie as a character should have any particular race. Same with Catwoman. It doesn't matter what race they are. But their sex matters, because those are factors that are meant to influence who they become (as related to how people react to them or judge them). Ghostbusters is not dependent on sex of the characters for conflict in the plot, but the writing was terrible anyway, the jokes were not good. A gender-swapped Ghostbusters sounds interesting, to see what kind of comedic ideas that can uniquely come out of that, but writers failed to do that.

One reason writers can fail is that they treat their story as a product rather than a piece of art or meaningful story. If writers are not careful, they end up destroying some of the tension in the franchise, because they improperly consider why the character had a specific identity. That's not an effort to be "woke" because 1) "wokeness" at least recognizes that sometimes maintaining the race of a character matters, and 2) these movies are focused around sales and money (and why would "woke" like even the slightest whiff of capitalism?). The issue is loss of artistic integrity. 

If anything, the relatively large number of bad movies is due to the proliferation of technology and Internet. Big studios are not the only way to make a movie anymore. There is a much greater volume of movies out there than ever before, so you are going to find more trash. Just as you will find more good movies in total, or more good movie and television media in general. 

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On 3/24/2021 at 5:46 PM, MisterSwig said:

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.

This is as far into the thread as I'll read for tonight (for various reasons, including both my blood pressure and the fact that I'd like to have a drink soon) but I just wanted to mention a few very general points before I go.

 

Firstly, Cultural Parasitism definitely is a thing which Ayn Rand described way back in the 60's (although it's gotten much more intense since then) and which is demonstrably both real and bad.

I think we should try to make a clear distinction between that and genuinely creative efforts to adapt old stories into new forms, which often leads to very good places.  Firefly (which is by far my favorite TV show; it's not even a contest) includes elements of several dozen ancient stories that I know of, but blended together in a brand-new way which I personally find quite delightful.

Actually, on second thought, that's not a personal matter; I will fight any one of you over Firefly.  It is objectively amazing.

And although I don't agree that all the examples mentioned in the OP should be in that category (primarily the Viking shield-maidens) there really is something to it.  And it's not the same thing as simply adapting an old story in a newer and edgier way because (as in the archetypical case of the New GhostBusters) there is no creative flair or original elements that an outside observer could ever discern.  The new and unique twists might exist within the minds of their creators but since nobody else could possibly identify them I suspect they were never even there.

 

It's really only an attempt to repackage an old story with a black queer midget trans woman as the main character in the hopes that everybody will treat it like a legitimately new thing.  Zero effort and zero risk and hopefully millions of people will be tricked into spending actual money to see it.

 

However, the second point I'd like to make is that the great thing about Hollywood (ESPECIALLY now that we're in the digital age) is volume.  They've been cranking out far more movies and TV shows than any one person could ever watch, and although many of them have been soulless cash-grabs the sheer quantities involved almost guarantee that there will always be at least a few new greats made every year.

How many works have been torturously replaced in an Alien-esque fashion?  As long as we've still got more good ones coming out consistently, I don't think we have to care.  Let the soulless cash grabs be relegated to the much-deserved trash bin of history.


Finally, music!  :D

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

and why would "woke" like even the slightest whiff of capitalism?

True that!

21 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

The issue is loss of artistic integrity. 

Actually, I think you're right about that.  This whole thread is and should be about artistic integrity.

 

Anyway.  Talk to you later!

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1 hour ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:
On 3/24/2021 at 2:06 PM, MisterSwig said:

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

What?????

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat????????

Hey, are you drunk? What are you listening to?

Warning: This video contains explicit lyrics about dirty sex.

 

Edited by MisterSwig
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20 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat????????

Hey, are you drunk? What are you listening to?

No; I'm only slightly tipsy for now, and what I was listening to a minute ago is in my last post.

The Polka version of WAP is hilarious, though.  I think that's actually better than Ben Shapiro reading out the lyrics deadpan; "I told you n-words there's some wet-ass-p-words in this house".  That's awesome.

I haven't read the rest of the thread yet (as I just said above) so I'm sorry if you've answered this already, but the statement that 'whether the lead actor is a White Male or not would change the entire story' confuses me greatly.

 

I had a similar issue when it came to the Hulu show The Great (about Catherine the Great of Russia) since several of its main characters were black, and in that place and that time if they had been then nobody around them would've been calmly discussing Russian politics; they would've been screaming "OH, SHIT!  WHAT ARE YOU?"  When in the show it wasn't even mentioned.

I'm still fuzzy on exactly what the right take on that point is.  It's certainly historically inaccurate.

 

You didn't mention historical accuracy or even historical stories in your post, though.  You just said that a story would be totally different if the main character was played by a white male.  And although that would be true of historical fiction I really don't think it would affect anything set in the modern day at all (really, think about it; what would it change?) and if we're talking about science fiction then it'd really depend on what sort of future we're trying to project.

 

You fundamentally seem to be implying that the race and sex of a person dictates what sort of character they are, which would be both racist and sexist if you meant it and just stupid if you said it without ever considering its implications.

 

Finally, you'd better own me in this, because by the time I've gotten to the bottom of this post I have become considerably drunker and since you wanted to be a dick about it I'll return the favor if I end up owning you with half of my brain tied behind my back.

 

The Polka WAP will always be hilarious no matter what, though.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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On 3/24/2021 at 8:48 PM, whYNOT said:

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

Well, you know that now, because I gave a source. But if you were just observing patterns about casting in movies, you could easily come up with conspiracy theories about the alt-right controlling Hollywood.

On 3/24/2021 at 7:00 PM, whYNOT said:

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.

I never said that non-(White men) should be cast because they were discriminated against by Hollywood historically. I'm just saying that your White victimhood narrative doesn't hold up.

On 3/24/2021 at 7:00 PM, whYNOT said:

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.

You came up with the claim that "White men were getting erased from existence". And you have previously made claims such as "There is more to discuss about the increasing assault on, and the self-abnegating guilt by, one specific race and specific gender - i.e. white men - wherever they live - racialistically motivated, also". You keep making the same claims on a lot of threads and also claim that other people are making everything about gender and race. You're the one making the claim that White men, as a collective, are assaulted and victimized everywhere on the planet.

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