Honestly. As a guy who's trying to write a novel, specifically one inspired by Arcane and Andor, this sentence sums up the essence of those two series' so blasted well! They have a concept the narrative is shaped around (The cycle of violence and the nature of tyranny) and explore it though the characters. Exploration that provokes thought, with viewers coming out of it with different, yet entirely valid ideas about the subject matter and moral culpability of the characters. I hope that when I eventually finish, my art can do likewise with an exploration of leadership.
Telling an idiot to think accomplishes nothing. Religious nuts, for example, are completely devoid of thought. They shouldn't even be told what to think. They should just be given a really great plot of land somewhere that they'll be fine on their own, but can't bother anyone else.
@@feartheghus Nute Gunray’s name was based on Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan apparently. Not sure myself but that's what pops up when I search for it.
I won't say all art is political, but the mere act of making art itself is political. Being allowed to make whatever you want is an exercise in freedom of expression, taking away that freedom often makes many people rebellious even in the face of prosecution.
This is roughly the same way I feel when I say that modern video games have been injected with modern politics and that sucks. “Oh but video games have always been political” no they weren’t fuck off!! People can tell when it’s modern activist messaging shoddily shoehorned and hamfisted in their escapism.
I think this can be summed up as "The politics need to serve the story, the story should not serve the politics". Most of the greatest movies/books/games etc. have political messages within them but even if you don't pick up on those messages or care about them they're still great stories; they add to the story but they are not the story.
Exactly. If it’s written well, people won’t care about what politics are shoved in the story, whereas if it’s written poorly it’s very clear that the writers are just shoving politics in there and don’t care about the story at all
@@damiantirado9616Nope. Not all art is propaganda. Just because you view every single piece of media through a propaganda lens, does not mean that lens actually exists. That just means you’re obnoxiously political and ideological.
@@master_samwiseYou have no idea how exausting it is, to the point of dirving me to dislike and even hate certain political agendas/groups, before being exposed to this i couldnt care less.
As someone who is American, it’s still exhausting being preached at about American politics. It’s just that, if I don’t pay some semblance of attention, it’s going to screw me over. At least I can see it coming.
The core of the politics being pushed is not even remotely an American idea. It's all based on Critical Theory and closely aligns with the goals of Marxism, that being the destruction of existing power structures, so Communists utilize it as a weapon to their own ends. The ideas were developed by the Frankfurt School. You're only seeing the effects of it applied to the American landscape when it's being done everywhere with a slightly different coat of paint each time. Go complain to the Germans instead.
As someone who is American, i fully concur Yes, i'm well aware our current political climate is a clusterfuck, that's kind of why i want to watch a movie or a TV show, to forget how fucked it is. If i wanted to engage with the clusterfuck i wouldn't be watching something that, for example, claims to be a high fantasy drama....
People don’t hate politics, they miss escapism. People are very, very desperate to escape from the hyper-politicized climate we’re in right now and hollywoods not giving it to them
Fair, but also unrealistic. Just about anything can be “political” so there is no real way to escape from it. Additionally I really question whether it’s beneficial for us to encourage each other to essentially stick our heads in the sand and just hope that something changes.
To paraphrase the great J.R.R. Tolkien "I cordially dislike allegory. I much prefer history, whether real or feigned, with its varied applicability. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."
That's out of context. He was referring to Lewis's work "the Jesus, the Satan, and the Stargate". He eventually did embrace the use of the label "allegory" to describe his own work.
Political stories can be complex and intriguing, but political messaging feels wrong because they’re not our own opinions. Opinions are personal property, owning is better than renting
Exactly. Good stories present readers/viewers/players with scenarios and then allow them to think about what they might do in that position. Political messaging tells them what they should do/think. I, for one, don't like being told that I'm a bad person simply for having a different point of view.
Political messaging feels wrong when it doesn’t reinforce our existing opinions. How many people watched “Birth of a Nation” back in the day and felt that it was just a fun story with no political baggage?
@@Justanotherconsumer probably very few! At least some contemporary people understood it as heavy-handed propaganda, the way people discuss movies today. Just that fewer people watched movies then, since streaming didn't exist and you couldn't look at cinema any time you'd like, on a screen that lived in your pocket.
"The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that." - Hoid, The Stormlight Archive, Book One: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
@@ericjohnson6120 Superhero movies tell me to think that being a bully is bad, and being nice is good. I don't think there was enough brain power behind B v S Dawn of Justice for it to be called 'propaganda'.
Stan Lee always spoke about this that political art was always in his comics but never the theme of the story While today “If you don’t like my politics don’t buy my book” I agree with the Terms of the service
The sort of “If these politics don’t please you, go find another book” literature only serves to limit the ideas’ spread and reinforce differences. Ideas, if they desire to survive beyond a small but devoted base, generally prefer to be expressed among the public to try to convince people in their favor and thus grow. Conflicting ideas exist. Their adherents interact with one another and sometimes the ideas trade adherents. This is normal and typically benefits society. I don’t have to support a certain political position to recognize ideas of it within a work of media and appreciate that those were included in a way meaningful to the story.
Yeah, somewhere down the line, Marvel Comics went from telling the readers what the writer felt about this or that, to telling the the readers what the writers WANTED them to feel.
There is a good quote in a story telling book that I think sums this issue up pretty well. "When your premise is an idea you feel you must prove to the world, and you design your story as an undeniable certification of that idea, you set yourself on the road to didacticism. In your zeal to persuade, you will stifle the voice of the other side. Misusing and abusing art to preach, your screenplay will become a thesis film, a thinly disguised sermon as you strive in a single stroke to convert the world."
The problem isn’t proving a premise, it’s acknowledging that people can have reasons to disagree. In order to argue for a point well, you must be able to argue against it. The “politics” in movies doesn’t argue or explore political ideas, they just state them. It’s like a random stranger approaching you and saying “you need to go to restaurant X” and then they get mad when don’t go there or when you ask follow-up questions like “I’m allergic to Y, is it safe?”. It can be boiled down to the old saying “show! don’t tell”. So many shows/movies now a days spend more time telling you about people than showing them act. The MCU suffers a lot from this, like how in Wandavision, Wanda enslaved people, isolated their children, stole a witch’s power and brainwashed her but then a side character calls her good, and we as an audience are supposed to just believe that?
@KHJohan I think it's a bit of both. As people would strive to prove their premise, they would, as you pointed out, just declare their opinion to be fact and leave it at that. They fail to acknowledge the opposing ideas or just create strawman versions of the ideas that they can easily dismiss.
Thank you! The political pushing feels like cringey Christian movies that aren't made well. They are sermons, or political rants, that are acted. (And I'm a Christian.)
Indeed, the animated movie Prince of Egypt movie shows that you can make stories about the Bible work and still be entertaining and not preachy, even if it does take some creative liberties.
@@paxluporum4447 No, Kingdom of Heaven was blatant anti-Catholic propaganda and also pseudo-historical. Seriously, Riddley Scott sucks at historical movies.
There is a difference between shouting your ideas at someone and getting them to engage with your ideas. And the Exec at hollywood have completely forgotten this.
Very true. I actually like encountering different viewpoints in media, especially when the author bothers to represent the opposite opinion in a non-trivial way. I don't like it when it ceases to be a story.
@@DandDgamer Some of my favorite movies and music have political messages that are coming from a place that I don’t agree with. Because they’re well made enough and not preachy
@@Johnnysmithy24one example i. have that is the backwards of yours is Judas by A Perfect Circle. i’m an atheist but that doesn’t mean whomever can crap on religion without any knowledge behind it. that whole song is just bashing christianity
1:07 I think you hit the nail on the head. The theme of “Democracies turning into Dictatorships” can boiled down into an even simpler themes he established with the Dark side. Without making this comment paragraphs long, the republic goes through fear, anger, hate, and then suffering by the end of RoTS. I think that’s what makes it work. It’s in line with the rules in universe along with telling a story-not slighting the US during 2001. Thanks for the Goat breakdown as usual!
6:32 weird how they change the fall of numenor to “numenorians were being mean and racist” instead of “numenorians were being prideful and envious” for they desired what the elves had, they wanted a sort of dare I say, equality? Why would the writers want to discard a cautionary and timeless tale about the dangers of envy, and coveting that which belongs to others?
I also think it's ironic that the Rings of Power show is trying to address the fall of Numénor, when the cause of that fall in the original works is exactly the mentality of these modern showrunners and writers. Seeing them twist it to fit their narrative in the most unnatural way possible is kind of fascinating. It's like how in the most recent edition of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rulebook, Slaanesh, originally the demonic god of hedonism, decadence and excess, suddenly became the god of "inequality". It just proves that these new creators aren't willing to view hedonism and excess as evil anymore because they actually champion those things. So they have to change the lore to fit their worldview.
@ lol the only way that Slaanesh angle works is by going like “yeah they want to have more than everybody else, more pleasure, more riches, etc.” however, that inequality is a result of Greed and Pride and Envy, weirdly enough. The inequality of Slaanesh is a symptom of the vices Slaanesh whole heartedly promotes.
@@Estupendomagnifico1In a world where everyone is constantly high and in a 3-4-5 way "relationship" people refuse to admit that their hedonism turns their brain into that of a beast. Angry, shallow, focused only on what it can get for itself. And that's an insult to the many beasts that can have social bonds that don't break on a whim. These people have less self control than birds.
@@shibasaurus322slaanesh doesn’t want inequality. she wants EVERYONE to partake in unlimited decadence and drown themselves in pleasure. she doesn’t want specific people like tau or any of the space marine companies.
See, this is why people hate preachy Christian movies too! The overly activist movies are also just giving a sermon about morality, just from a different moral worldview. There’s a difference between expressing your political beliefs and pedantically teaching them to others.
As a follower of Christ, I agree. Though the brothers have always made movies for the church (so they are more set up as a movie long sermon), there are so many bad movies that always make the believer completely innocent or have an atheist who hates everyone who doesn't agree with them.
@Ironica82 Art Imitates life, as they say. Anytime I tell anyone about anything that has to do with Jesus or the Bible, I'll get the patented and true response of "get that fairy-tale away from me." Not all protocol messaging is bad because, quite frankly, people WILL ignore messages unless you tell them. Most people don't care about things that need to be said until they're right at their doorstep, ready to present themselves through hamfisted and ignorant claims and ideas.
@@Ironica82 Honestly wish more of them were like you. I've got a Pentecostal preacher for a father-in-law, and anytime he puts anything on the TV, it's always so preachy. I'm atheist myself, but I do love theology, and I wish more media would tackle some of the more interesting problems. The writings of Aquinas are so much more interesting to me than any of those Christian movies. A Christian movie that did a good job of tackling atheists' objections in a well written story would be incredible.
@@Alexander_Grant problem is that a lot of what you want works better in more of a documentary style or a long YT video than a movie with a story. Movies can only go so deep before they really do become preachy.
One of my inspirations as a writer is Rod Serling (creator of Twilight Zone and Night Gallery). Now he was a liberal (for his time) writer and he explored themes such as antisemitism, bigotry, racism, fears of the unknown, paranoia, hatred and prejudice. However, he was smart and talented enough to understand that his message would only be as good as the story he was trying to tell. So he focused on creating stories that spoke dangerous truths but made them interesting and compelling. We could get behind the characters and their plights. And, above all, he knew when to hammer home the message and when to let the audience draw the conclusions he wanted them to make. It’s uncomfortable but it’s the good kind of uncomfortable. It’s the uncomfortable you get when you grow or are forced to take new paths you haven’t taken before. And that’s why Twilight Zone has stayed around for as long as it has. The series has been revived no less than three times but it’s always the first one that is still fondly remembered. “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” was remade in 2002 and it still holds up amazingly well with commentary on the War on Terror as opposed to communism. It’s still used as a teaching tool in many schools around the world to not only invite debate on the nature of paranoia and fear causing us to turn on each other but on storytelling in general. I think Serling would honestly be disgusted with the state of storytelling in popular culture today. And he wouldn’t have been shy about saying something about it. That’s why storytellers like him will be remembered and the others relegated to the dustbin.
I recently got on a nostalgia binge of watching the 1985 Twilight Zone. Holy fuck does it hold up. The latter seasons get flaccid sometimes, but the first season is razor sharp. There's a sense of, 'We are treading on sacred ground, and we have an obligation to do this right.' I miss when entertainment was made with that mindset. 'I have a responsibility to the audience to do my best for them.'
The original Star Trek was another really good example from that era. There was an episode that essentially covered the topic of mixed couples in the context of an alien hybrid, like (I cannot remember if Spock is half human if he isn't im so sorry) but in the episode one of the aliens the character was a hybrid of were extremely phobic of alien hybrids. It was written into the show and was immersive throughout, and even then as popular as star trek was by then it nearly got the entire series cancelled, its an incredibly admirable thing when done well, its that especially nowadays writers are increasingly hamfisted.
Wow. I am impressed. I’ve enjoyed politics in some media and not in others. I thought about it a bit and just came to the conclusion that I like it “when it’s done well”, but I couldn’t accurately define WHAT makes it done well. Seeing the title “Activism vs Art” immediately defines it extremely accurately. Suddenly it just “clicked” in my mind. Thank you so much for producing these videos! Also, concerning the bit at 4:05 where you say you want your analyses to help the audience understand the art, you DEFINITELY do. Your videos are well produced, well thought out, and very meaningful. Every new analysis is a gift
Andor made me stop and actively think about and wrestle with my political opinions. The sequels cut off any discourse that could have happened. That’s the difference that art and passion can have
The Star Wars Prequels made me think about the stories with the politics along with it, but in the Sequels, I didn't glance at the politics because it felt like a horrible original knock-off, and it was jarring to see it in there because it doesn't fit in the story.
if the message of Andor is "fascist genocidal dictatorships are bad" and that message made you wrestle with your political opinions... I have some concerns lol
@@JohnCena-fd5yw That wasn't the part I was talking about. I meant stuff like acceptable uses of torture, the American Justice and prison system, and what actions should be taken in response to an oppressive evil. If the only message you got out of Andor is "fascist genocidal dictatorships are bad," I'd suggest watching it again.
@@CW11721 dont worry i was just joking for funny points on the internet. that said, the original point still stands if any use of torture was viewed as acceptable before Andor. and the american justice and prison system already include tons of protections that prevent the Andor style situations from happening, especially since the discovery of DNA. dictatorships bad isn't the only message but its certainly the main one. i would say the power of community and relationships is also a theme
@@JohnCena-fd5yw It's a personal gripe of mine, that we use "dictatorship" where "tyranny" is the word that should be used. A dictatorship is just a form of government; inherently, it isn't good or evil, it's just a form of rule. There can be such a thing as a benevolent dictator. The Rebellion in Star Wars is not fighting because the Emperor holds power singularly; they're fighting because the Empire is tyrannical and grinds the everyman of the galaxy under it's apparatus, stripping away freedoms, cultures, and ways of life to better mold it's subjects to be cogs in the machine. Many things that the Empire has done are things the United States has done before, despite being a Republic/Democracy. Even in the show, Nemik, the political idealist, doesn't rail against the Empire for being a dictatorship, he specifically uses the word "tyranny".
Eh. Just for the fun of it, I'm going to try. Just to be clear, this isn't some passive aggressive stuff, just me being bored on a Monday evening. "A totalitarian form of government typically characterized by hyper-militaristic nationalism, fusing party/government control over certain industries, but otherwise maintaining a domestic free market."
@@captainuseless2120 Sorry I can't help myself I have a masters in politics so I will also add to this because I will one day die from a conniption if people keep using an incorrect definition as a lazy pejorative. An important part of real fascism is the spiritual component. I chose spiritual deliberately as religion, while prominent in fascistic societies, is not synonymous because any religion can be used within fascism. Fascism seeks a national spirit which allows for an easily perceived in-group/out-group dichotomy. A leader emerges from the people who feel or are a part of this national spirit thus becoming the leader. This is very easily glossed over as just hyper nationalism, but Mussolini is very clear on the distinction here. Another important component is that all things must be subservient to the state or the aforementioned national spirit, as all things should work to advance it. The people are for the state and the state is then supposed to work for the advancement of the adherents to the spirit of the state. This why cults of personality are synonymous with fascism, as it's very easy to reduce the government to it's head ie; the appointed leader. I could continue if anyone wants me to ramble more. I'm very passionate about this stuff and firmly believe the longer people use words like fascism and communism as words that might as well just reroute to "evil bad guys I don't like" the worse off discourse will be and the longer propagandists will run roughshod over culture.
I completely agree with that statement. These days it is a term usually just thrown around as an insult without any knowledge of the historical movement deeper than "autoritarian, nationalistic, and militaristic government", ignoring all its complexities and apparent contraddictions from a 21st century political perspective. For instance, the big emphasis on state control of the economy, social welfare, and lack of individualism for the benefit of the nations, all pillars of Mussolini's historical fascist regime, would be at odds with the beliefs of many people that today are called "fascists" by their opponents.
Transformers One just recently came out and I like how the movie did a good job at using political themes in service of its story, world building and how it affects the characters instead of being solely use to “own the chuds.”
@@smbd1234Well it helps that the franchise has gotten the formula down. The ideas were first explored in the IDW comics exploring how Cybertron’s society would operate with so many varieties of transformers (eg. Triple Changers, Combiners and every other type that doesn’t fit the traditional mold).
Transformers even way back then, tended to already have political and social themes in it, like the Autobots taking on civilian vehicles and public service cars while the Decepticons usually took on military and surveillance forms But not much of it really matters for the fanbase since what they love are the characters themselves. Just like us humans, for the race of the Transformers, there's more to them than meets the eye.
The problem with people who always say "the personal is political" is that they mostly ignore the fact that compromise is necessary in both personal interactions and politics.
THIS. People LOVEE to put the blame on politics and say that the reason people don't like a movie is "bEcAuSe ThErE's A wOmAn", or "pEoPlE hAtE dIvErSiTy!". While that might be the opinion of a few, it is NOT the majority. Like you said, the problem isn't the politics. Stories like the Star Wars OG trilogy and prequels, and The Last Airbender, have plenty of politics in them, but the politics of those stories fit within them and ACTUALLY have a purpose. I don't feel like I'm being preached at, because those stories aren't forcing a specific opinion down my throat. It is still mainly focusing on TELLING A STORY. I am also of the opinion that the best stories are those that focus on universal truths. Things that anyone could relate to. Stories like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, whose main theme is learning to appreciate the life you have by focusing on the people around you. By being the best person you can be, because in the end that will matter more than wealth or fame. Kung Fu Panda, where the main theme is learning that you can be capable of great things, even if everyone around you doesn't believe it. How to Train Your Dragon, similar to Kung Fu Panda, but also showing that there are other ways to fight, and just because you're not the same as everyone else, it doesn't mean you can't make a difference. You can choose to do better. These are all examples from animated movies, partially because those are the kinds of movies I watch more, but also because I feel like they're some of the best at storytelling, at least in the past. To me, what matters isn't whether or not the character is diverse, or if they look like me. There are plenty of characters that I like that look nothing like me, but I relate to them because of the experiences they go through. They feel real, not like a character that was written solely for the purpose of pushing an opinion.
I think of _Nabucco,_ an opera taking place in the Jewish exile to Babylon premiering to an audience of Italians, and that audience resonating with the play enough that it became closely associated with the desire for Italian unification. It was first performed in Milan, and I wonder how many local viewers thought of the plight of its characters similarly to Austria’s control of Lombardy and Veneto at the time.
Thank you! I personally love stories that, when appropriate, feature diversity and lots of women. One of my favorite TV series is the original "Penny Dreadful", the one with Eva Green; it had a diverse cast, a morally ambiguous female lead, and lots of (frequently gruesome) debauchery. I just don't like the way practically any stories, in general, are written today. As much as I love "Penny Dreadful", I dislike "Agatha All Along," which has similar superficial elements -- and Patti LuPone is actually in both series as a witch.
You are so right, but I feel like your points are become more lost as the days go bye. More people really do seem to just hate diversity and women now, their minority is growing, and it’s making the majority of people who want good stories seem in league with them and look bad.
The people saying that people hate a movie because of "Women or diversity" are the people actually making the films and they are gaslighting to deny that their film bombed because it sucked. everyone knows that "Nerds" have always liked badass Lady heroes, people did not love Leia and Ripley and Sarah Connor for decades and then just suddenly decide badass Ladies suck. people hate Mary Sues and girlbosses because they are obnoxious and unlikable from awful writers. and people may be triggered now as soon as they hear a film is diverse or stars badass women, because for the last several years the first thing you hear about any project is the studio or people involved gloating and bragging and shoving it in your faces that it is diverse. and you are like "uh ok but what is it about?" their reply "it is diverse, GIRL POWER!!! down with the patriarchy". then you see the film and time after time after time after time after time after time after time it is awful, in EVERY respect. so yeah NOW as soon as you hear them promoting its diversity itis instant loss of interest. some people would argue that what they are doing is the opposite of helping their cause.
Star Wars and The Last Airbender were in an unstable equilibrium, specifically girl power. If it is a good thing add more- and their sequels ratcheted up the girl power and were garbage. You can have women with power (Star Trek Voyager wasn't hurt by Janeway), but genderflipping the Batman or James Bond type character doesn't seem to work.
A lot of the pieces that we see labeled as political just seem to come across as overly preachy about the creators political ideas them pushing. At best they are preaching to the choir at worst their preaching to non-believers. Star Trek has gotten itself the label of political and woke applied to both new iterations as well as the old. Hell, my favourite episode of TNG, Measure of a Man, is about civil rights, slavery, and even has the antagonist accept another character's pronouns at the end. At no point did this episode feel like a lecture, it came across as an in universe story that could have real world applicability. It was a good story, good fiction. My personal favourite take away from it is the philosophical approach Picard took instead of an appeal to emotions. "Slavery is bad because it is wrong to do it to a sentiet being". I think your video on strong women actually sums it up best; Audiences hate bad writing, not political stories.
Another thing about political stuff in media is that it has to be NUANCED or INTERESTING, SCARY even. Problem is it almost never is that, especially after Trump took office. Then "those people" will say "politics aren't ruining media" and point at things like Bioshock, Deus Ex, or Metal Gear Solid...but fail to see that the politics in those series are the FIRST. LAYER. in the stories they tell and neglect the other, heavier, more substantial topics presented in them. -Bioshock: The dangers of obsessing over a paradise of individual freedoms. When left completely to our own devices for too long, humanity tends to go down VERY dark paths out of greed and disregard for the rights of others. -Deus Ex: The purpose of "God" and, without a guiding hand to point us in the right direction, we'll apply the role to authority figures like governments and agencies which can turn out VERY bad b/c they are human and subject to their flaws. -Metal Gear Solid: The ever-shifting and easily-manipulated nature of "the times", how today's good can become tomorrow's evil and vice-versa. Also, hidden organizations subtly shifting the culture to normalize genuinely messed-up stuff to the public. Stuff like this is WAY more complicated and WAY more interesting than an X-Men member killing innocent people b/c a turtle choked on a plastic bag.
Hopefully, the fact that believing in God is de facto putting your faith in humans to tell you what the right direction is... isn't lost on you. I really hope it's not lost on you.
Also the "God as authority" argument is still flawed because human perspectives need to first understand who God is and how we determine morality from such a being. Who's to say my interpretation of God is morally better than yours?
@@innitbruv-lascocomics9910the "god is tyrant" argument comes from God if he knew Lúcifer was going to betray him and let him means he is manipulative and not so God people think If God did not know Lúcifer betray that's means God is not omnipotent and flawed like a human.
I think two words are important here: CAN BE. Movies CAN BE political, they have the potential. But that doesn't mean they always should be, or even need to be at all. The people who can't extricate media from politics are ideologically captured droobs.
Exactly. You can make art have political meaning, but art is not by definition political. Otherwise, you have people who not only will say everything is political, but will flat out say you are objectively wrong for interprating something "incorrectly".
@@blade8741 In a certain way, everything is political though. Creating art is exercising freedom of expression. Even the simplest children’s cartoons like Dora the Explorer preach messages of acceptance and being kind to others. Edit: the top comment explains it better than I have, so just go look at that instead if you wanna know what I was trying to say
Art is political lol. A perspective within itself is political because it is some sort of belief. We aren't blank slates, you only see politics when you don't agree with said politics or that it's in your face.
@@josjos-x5s Explain to me how the Mona Lisa, or Van Gough's _Starry Night Sky_ , or _The Great Wave off Kanagawa_ , or or any of Jackson Pollock's work are political, if you please?
@@MrNickPresley Its funny that you mention those paintings for the fact they are famous due to their style and meaning within their time periods. The Mona Lisa is famous for the framing and realistic depiction of a portrait, coming out of a period where paintings were more based on abstract religeous depictions. Van Gough is well known for his abstract style which still challenged societies standards of art. It also has a lot of meaning relating to his feelings on his own mental health and the looming shadow of death (apparently). The Great Wave off Kanagawa is literally about foreign influence coming into japan. Past just the core idea of any subject being political, it is literally one you cannot argue has no political meaning. And you can just read the wiki article on jackson pollock.
The general public wouldn't know most propaganda if it bit them in the arse, as a rule. What they hate is Preaching. Their tollerance goes up a bit if they agree with the message, but even that has its limits. Because Preaching gets in the way of what they're actually there for.
To be fair Propaganda happens in movies since forever i mean, you can't say to me that a hollywood movie showing how great the US army is and how evil the *insert current enemy of the US here* soldiers are is not trying to make a point there, just see Rambo for example (great movie, but shameless propaganda at the time)
I've never understood why so many people seem to hate propaganda in general. Propaganda itself is not inherently bad. Take, for example, campaigns against drunk driving or certain drugs. Those are, by definition, propaganda. Now, that's not me trying to say that all propaganda is good. There is a shit load of bad propaganda. But just to reiterate, propaganda itself is not bad.
@@riddell26 i mean, it depends, because one can make a point that war movies, hero movies and spy movies and even some comedy movies are different genres but they all had propaganda, especially during the cold war. Surely not every movie that exists have/is a propaganda, and that was not the point i was trying to make, i was saying that propaganda always existed in movies, it's not a recent thing
I’m cool with a serious political message being tied into a story but like you said, it has to be good writing. On top of that, you have to tell the truth and be accurate with your analogy(Don’t be changing history and don’t lie to the audience). That’s why I love the prequels for Star Wars. The political part of the story really adds to the world building. Showing how giving too much power to one man is dangerous and the dangers of being in debt. Oh man, they spent a LOT of credits in the Clone Wars.
To me, "Show, don't tell" applies to any political themes/topics a writer wants to explore, too. Yes, a writer is in full control of the story and can make any character be "right" or "wrong", based on what they want to happen. But if it comes in the form of a character getting on a soapbox, or twisting your plot in order to make your ideology right, then it's just as lazy as a dull exposition dump, or a Deus ex Machina. And frankly, if you can't explore a real world topic in storytelling in good faith, it's not just dishonest, it makes your position feel weaker. If you clearly have to set up fictional strawmen who will follow a strict script in order to make it work, then you don't seem to trust your ideas to stand up on their own. (Or you don't expect your audience to be smart enough to figure it out.) If you don't trust your own beliefs to survive any real challenges, or to speak for themselves, then why should your audience?
Sometimes it seems that the most expressly ardent supporters of any political ideology or religion end up being the most defensive and weakest supporters, and you seem to recognize that well.
I think audiences hate overt political activism. If it's sufficiently subtle, or fits in with how events would unfold anyway, they aren't phased so much.
True. Whether the politics are good or bad all comes down to the writing. If the writing is good people won’t get mad about any politics within the story, whereas when the writing is bad people start to notice and get mad at how politics have been shoved in there (and then blame the politics being shoved in there as the reason the writing is bad, rather than thinking that the blatant politics are just a symptom of the bad writing, and not the cause)
@@LearnRunes I think it entirely depends on the message being spread, and whether people in support of that message are vocal enough. 1984 isn't exactly subtle, yet we still study as the masterpiece it is in school. We all love the daleks as villains, but they are so explicitly conservative allegories, with the Doctor being the libertarian hero who stops them.
@@MiloW456seemingly past tense for the doctor who examples. Liberal doctor I get, but conservative daleks? How are the daleks in any way conservative? What to the conserve? In what way are they for limited reach into people's lives? Honestly, they seem far more like authoritarians.
@@MiloW456 1984 is also expressly written as social commentary, in the same vein as other 'fiction' stories such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Atlas Shrugged, Animal Farm. I'm not going to read through Atlas Shrugged, and complain that there's political themes in my political fiction. If anything, I'd read through Atlas Shrugged and complain that the story which serves as the vehicle to push the political theme is too dry, or complain that I disagree with the conclusions reached by Rand. But it works because I approach these stories the same way that I would approach a reading of The Federalist Papers, Das Capital, or Mien Kampf; as works where I am reading with the intent to learn about the beliefs of the author, to digest what they have to say intellectually, and come to my own conclusions on whether I agree or disagree with them. Compared to watching Star Wars where my main expectation is entertainment value from watching space wizards fight against soldiers who shoot lasers at them and evil space wizards.
Sincerity is not a conclusion, it is the pursuit, the exploration. Its why characters in sequels have often grown, but they aren't done growing just because of the previous movie.
I mean that's what acting is. Morgan Freeman, he's not a violent pimp. James Earl Jones was not a genocidal murderer. Mark Hamill is not a psychotic clown or a space wizard.
@@VictorLHouette Think about it: Mark Hamil M ark ham il M Arkham il It’s pretty clear that mARK HAMil is a psychotic clown who terrorised Gotham, it’s been hidden in plain sight the entire time!
AGREED!!! You can make a political story without it being preachy or about personal beliefs, you can make a political story simply because its engaging
Don’t forget about the blatant allusions to the Democrats & Republicans in season 4. They rammed it down the viewers throats that Democrats (aka Starlighters) are good while Republicans (aka Homelanders) are evil.
@@master_samwise Not true. What is Star Wars? Listen to George Lucas again and he made his movies super political from the start. Nerds just hate it when the message is directly condemning them like Joker 2
There are many stories that have political inspiration. What determines success is how you choose to deliver those ideas and themes. Most modern movies etc choose to brow beat a particular message into the viewer. Meanwhile a well written story invokes those political ideas etc and gets the viewer to contemplate those ideas within the context of the story. The difference comes down to telling the audience what to think and giving the audience a reason to think. We want a reason to think and engage with. Modern film and television feels like we're all evil beyond belief and need to be trained to think correctly.
It is not my job as a storyteller to tell you what to think, but rather to give you things to think upon. -Wit, Way of Kings (I hope I got the wording correct)
"if don't like your costumers and want to change them, become a therapist..." no don't do that either. we don't need more terrible therapists that hurt people.
4:45 I would say both. Because my stories are inspired by the works of Tolkien, Lucas, and the Bible. I tell stories that I want to hear, because I know that they are inspired by greater men than myself. And as I’ve grown up, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to remove art from artist, because modern works are solely based on self. They’re soley told because the author’s want to hear them, rather than have their stories be ones people want to hear.
@@HaydenStephens515 unfortunately they’re not uploaded anywhere. Mostly just told to friends through D&D sessions, or just talks of world building. I’ve been thinking about writing them out, but life’s been far too busy for me to do so right now
There is the contrary to that: Why should you debase your stories to fit the masses? Is money and fame greater than the story that needs telling? You yourself stated the Bible is a reference, the prophets and apostles all died aside from a few to tell a truth others would not understand or reject with hostility. I myself find the world full of itching ears.
Couldn't agree more. As much as I enjoy and often wholeheartedly agree with channels like Drinker and Nerdrotic, it always annoys me when they say that art should never so much as make any allusions to political issues, though I'm sure they don't mind when the art takes a stance they agree with. I think the most impactful and timeless art is very political, but as you argued, it should be thought provoking and handle nuanced issues with intelligence rather than ham-fistedly shoving an agenda down your throat and attcking you for disagreeing with it.
Its why i love your channel. you talk about political themes without being political. I dont know if youre Trump or Kamala, I dont know how you feel about abortion, or the border, or if pinapple goes on pizza. you keep the themes on point, you keep the information true to the source, and you have a great voice. keep it up broski Im going to get blasted for heresy, but if you want a video suggestion: The indepth analysis of Titus and his brothers from Space MArine 2.
Nail? Hit. Where? On its head. My political opinions are often in agreement with much of mainstream cinema’s political leanings, but I often am largely annoyed by HOW they go about it. It’s heavy handed, disjointed, and clearly lacking in the nuanced skill of true artists of the industry. I really enjoyed the recent Alien movie because it wasn’t a ham-fisted “girls are better” and “corporations are all evil” but rather an artistic way of continuing a franchise trend of gripping horror, bravery in the face of fear, a main female lead in each movie not at the expense of other supporting actors, and a dystopian future of utter greed at the expense of the welfare of your everyday person. But those are the things that are consistent and integral to the universe, not just a messaging checkbox. The key to art over activism is creativity. Without it, we’re just going through formulaic motions. And who wants that, besides the AI bot keeping track of my Amazon habits?
To quote Soul Reaver 2: "Let's drop the moral posturing, shall we? We both know there's no altruism in this pursuit. Your reckless indignation led you here, I counted on it. There's no shame in it, Raziel, revenge is motivation enough, at least it's honest. Hate me, but do it honestly."
What you're describing isn't this idea of "Political Art vs Political Activism" but rather overt messaging versus subtle messaging. And contrary to what many may believe, overt messaging isn't poor storytelling as many great works of art present ideas and political messages as plainly as possible or with very little ambiguity as to what they're referring to.
I agree. Sometimes I worry about people saying that they don't like politics in movies, as that gives me the impression that they are ignorant of social issues, or perhaps, would prefer to remain ignorant of them. The problem isn't "politics", it's when media is just propaganda that's not trying to do anything BUT say the political message outright.
King of the Hill vs Mr. Birchum, one is a classic the other is hot garbage both have right leaning protagonists. OK KO, The Owl House, Duck Tales (2017), and Inside Job are entertaining and very Liberal. As a fellow Star Wars fan I did not enjoy TLJ, because the implicit understanding was that the Republic and Jedi did not work because they were too ineffectual. The Galactic Empire failed because they were tight fisted, human supremacists. The dark side was an aberration a failure to heed the will of the Force not an equal opposite to the Light. In Sequel trilogy the Republic went back to the status quo that lead up to Palatine's rise by not having a military or cracking down on the crime syndicates. They also misinterpret the point of Luke vs Vader he saw the good man he used to be and refused to snuff him out. He rejected the Jedi and Sith Dogma to do the right thing. So in what world would Luke murder a sleeping child, his own flesh and blood, rather than talk it out?
The thing that frustrates me the most even as someone who's quite far left is the insincere pandering to popular political trends, they do truly annoy everyone.
I agree. For me, it is also the fact that they want us to agree with what they say despite all logic, facts, and moral reasoning goes against what they are preaching like the female admiral in last Jedi. There is nothing she did, screams a good miliatry leader. She was arrogant, snippy, and a bad communicator. If she shared her plans earlier, people would have trusted her more.
@@hecticfunentertainment9373 The best way to provide inclusion is to not bring attention to it. Make the thing normal in society, that it is a given that the person is there. Of course that doesnt work for someone coming into their identity, but that is just a coming of age story, and that is rather the point. For example In ALTA the military forces are fully integrated gender wise, they just don't mention it. It provides a sense of belonging. specificly calling out the existance of a character, or making them stand out for that feature is counter to the point. It suggests that the character is weird and out of place, mentioning that a women being there is new pushes the idea that this is an outlier and shouldn't be counted with the rest. TLDR: make the "difference" blend in, don't call attention to the point.
Great video, I'm subscribing. My favorite point was that doing the exact same thing on the right is just making the problem not worse, not a solution. Nobody wants to see "Lady Ballers" (2023), they want to see "Dodgeball" (2004).
You hit the nail on the head. The frustrating part is that so many people, for the sake of protecting the political tribe they belong to, will deny that this sort of stuff is even happening and try to gaslight you as a conspiracy theorist. Or whatever ism is convenient for the subject matter. Despite giving you crap for probing the motivations of the creator, they cant disprove your opinion without assuming yours or at least thats the first place they go
The issue is that evil isn't specific to a particular "side" or movement because it can infiltrate any of those things, so it's more important to impart principles that expose what that looks like through art instead of pointing to something too specific
Politics are not boring in shows, the thin is that it can only be as good as the writers can make it be, just like any other subject if the writers fail at it it's gonna be bad, if they don't it isn't, twitter mentality also doesn't help their case tho... 🎉
The difference is mainly if there's a discussion about the topic. Political messaging is only there to shove one's political view to the audience. It doesn't allow any questioning, any debate nor discussion.
This. Great exampel is the new proud Family on disney+ i had the disspleasure of seeing last year. They bring up some interesting topics but the conclusions are all allready set in stone. You are only allowed to agree nothing else
Not really. Not everything needs nuance. Schindler’s List has the message Nazis are bad, and I don’t think the story is made worse by the fact that it is trying to present this view to the audience. A Christmas Carol very clearly shoves one’s political view to the audience, and no one complains about that being an awful story. In Star Wars, they present the enslavement of species, the genocide of Geonosis and the destruction of Alderaan as something that needs discussing. They never go “Well maybe it’s a good thing that the Galactic Empire destroyed that planet of innocent people. Maybe we should think about whether this is for the best.” And guess what? People love Star Wars anyway. Sometimes political discussion can add to a story. Nuance is definitely interesting and gives the audience something to think about. But it’s not a necessary part of adding politics into the story, in the same way that it’s ok for a villain to be pure evil and not have some sort of tragic motivation. The problem isn’t presenting one’s political view to the audience, it just comes down to how something is written. If something is written well, the politics add to the story. If something is written poorly, the politics stand out and are just another symptom of the bad writing.
FreedomToons came out with the best "anti-woke" cartoon. Don't believe me, look up "Anti-Woke Dog". I completely agree with why the Daily Wire's attempt failed completely. Instead of starting with a story and inserting some politics, they (like so many in Holleywood now) started with the politics and created a story around it.
Ahh, a True Man of Culture! 😎🫡 If you’re eager for more “anti-woke” content of that sort, you might enjoy something I’ve been working on! I have been writing a fan-series that crosses over my 2 favorite anime, those being OnePunchMan and MyHeroAcademia. It’s called MyHeroAssociation! Look it up if you’re interested! I’ve been putting A LOT of work into this series, and have already published the First 8-Chapters and yet I’ve still only just begun! No political propaganda, just focusing on the themes and character-arcs that already exist in both shows. If you like OPM and/or MHA, then I think you’ll probably really enjoy this series I’m writing. I’ve been getting positive reviews so far, so I’m pretty sure I’m doing something right at least.
Eh, I think a show that deliberately tries to be Anti-Woke immediately loses the point, I’ve watched the video and it was funny, but it felt it’s objective was a little pretentious reading the comments. Like, it’s a good joke, and I love making fun of the left and how pretentious they can be, but trying to combat pretentiousness with pretentiousness, combating woke shows with anti-woke shows just serves to make you look like hypocrites fueling the problem even more. Just make good shows, movies, games, etc. Stop trying to be woke or anti-woke, I don’t give a flying fuck honestly about all that petty squabbling, so don’t put it in my media. Don’t force shit, you’ll only be compelling when you actually focus on the “story” and not on some message. Anti-Woke Dog doesn’t have a story, it’s a joke skit that focuses on a message, while great for a good joke, it isn’t able ground for a good show.
@@baron6588 Funny thing is, that's what they did. Instead of going into the amti-woke beliefs, they just had fun with the dog. They brought in the woke side but then showed the dog ignoring the debate and just having fun. He showed how the woke side tries to shove their politics into the show while also showing the best way to combat it by ignoring it and making a fun cartoon. The moral of the whole show is to stop obsessing over it and just enjoy your life.
@@Ironica82 Oh yeah, that’s a great moral to think about, makes for a great cartoon short in all honesty. Though, I don’t really vibe with the intention it was made for. It is called Anti-Woke Dog, why can’t it’s just be, well, just a dog? Why do we have to put Anti-Woke there? It’s just a good ol dog having fun. Nothing that woke or anti-woke about it. That’s the kind of thing I don’t like, what the creator’s intent was making it political by making it an anti-woke dog. It teaches to not care about the culture war yet still includes itself in it? A show with kind of premise would still be obviously pandered to the anti-woke crowd if it wasn’t satire, which goes back to my point about the hypocrisy of anti-woke shows. Making it political also makes any incoming viewer that isn’t of that same crowd dismiss the video thinking it will be about a preachy dog, when the video actually offers a very worthwhile moral. So what I am trying to say is, you need leave out your personal beliefs when you want to make something that properly expresses your personal beliefs, does that make sense? Probably not but eh, I should take the dog’s advice and not obsess over this like an idiot lol.
@@baron6588 He explains why he called it Anti-Woke in the first couple of seconds. When an "anti-woke" cartoon comes out and sucks, people keep asking him to make one since his cartoons are very well done. So, to fulfill their request so they would stop asking him, he called it "anti-woke". You can also go deeper in that the human represents the typical woke shows while the dog represents how the other side should make their shows instead of the crap that keeps coming out. All the other stuff you were saying about it was not in the creator's mind. As for leaving politics out, I like to say that politics in shows are okay but activism is what ruins it. Fresh Prince Of Bel Air is a great example of how to show real life issue without them becoming the main point of the show. They had a range of issues from racist cops (one of Uncle Phil's best scenes), to racist blacks (one of Carlton's best scenes), to the impact of losing your innocence after seeing your cousin get shot (the hospital scene is very intense), to even absent fathers and those who take that role in your life (one of Will's best scenes).. However, those themes were sprinkled around a show that main focus was on the comedic antics of a brother from the hood moving into his rich uncles' house and the culture differences between them. It is okay to put yourself into a show. However, make sure you actually put yourself and not some perfect ideological self. For example, if I put myself in a show as a follow of Christ who was raised in the church, I would not only show the hardships I have been through and show the grace of God, but I would also show the times where I was basically a Pharisee jerk to others and how God majorly humble me and shows me how much of a jerk I was. So, write yourself into shows, just make sure the character is actually you and not some fake ideological version of you.
Speaking as a Christian myself, I really hate it when movies preach to an audience. If i want to be preached to, I'll watch a sermon, not "God's Not Dead 4". i also really like the position of J.R.R. Tolkien on this issue, where he says that he dislikes allegory and would rather tell a story that the audience can draw from, rather than a story that shoves its lesson down your throat.
Came for relateable experience in moderm media. Stayed for helpful writing and political studies advice. That's how you make a good video. A breath of fresh air, honestly.
You are slowly and surely becoming the most wise channel on UA-cam. Your insight is always thought provoking, and your high quality videos never cease to entertain. Please, keep up the phenomenal work Master Samwise!!!
I watched the CW version of Nancy Drew because I love all things ND, and it wasn't a masterpiece, but it was fine for entertainment. But there was this one episode that could have been good, but I hated. The whole episode was about how this one woman was abused and mistreated by the police because she was black, but their fundamental mistake (to me) was to make it over an existing storyline. They ignored this black woman going missing because there was a white woman missing. WHO WAS 11 YEARS OLD. I don't care who you are, I am always going to prioritize helping a missing child over a grown adult. Nothing else matters. The age of the person is important, not the gender, race, or social position. That was my biggest frustration with the episode. I'm automatically dismissing your argument of people of color being mistreated by the authorities (a position that I agree with, by the way) because you're telling me that a grown woman is just as important to find as a child who can't take care of themselves as well. Yes, both are important, but theoretically, the woman can take care of herself better than a child. Any child. Find the girl, then worry about the woman. Don't ignore the woman, obviously, but to me, a child is more important to help than an adult. Always.
I can think of several reasons why prioritizing the adult first makes sense. However, just because of race doesn’t make a good story. Options include: A medical condition. A smaller search area. A harder to search area. Worse climatic conditions. Predators-human or not. There are a lot of options to make that story more compelling. Even better if you can work a reminder of humanity for a character into the story.
_"My panda, my choice"_ is nowhere near what any sensible person would call political activism. If anything, the film was clearly poking fun at the slogan by making light of it. This video has pretty much lost me at this point. 🤦🏿♂️💯
It's true that good writing can mask the feeling of being preached to. I just feel like it's worth mentioning one thing: it's generally easier for conservative messages to be masked than progressive messages, since conservative messages deal in the status quo and therefore FEEL normal by default. SPOILERS for Dune and Turning Red I would argue that Dune is a more overtly political movie than Turning Red, but Dune doesn't feel preachy because it depicts an alien world with these ideas already set in stone (same with Andor and the Star Wars prequels, in fact), where Turning Red is aimed at children and takes place in Toronto, and focuses on offsetting a tradition. Outside of a few cringey lines, the movie is mostly a metaphor for puberty and has a message about the importance of fighting for the right to be yourself, both of which are extremely common tropes found in innocuous movies like Frozen and Footloose. It mostly made headlines because it mentioned menstruation products a couple of times. Dune, on the other hand, is a little harder to pinpoint, since it seems to simultaneously depict religion as a tool used to control the masses while also giving credence to the validity of faith itself, depicting the main character as legitimate messiah of another culture. Having seen both movies, it's not really clear whether it's glorifying the messiah or not, but whichever way you slice it, the fact that it's opening up these questions at all makes it way more political than when Turning Red said "pads!" It just doesn't feel like it, because Dune has the luxery of depicting a religious underclass uprising, and it feels normal to us because it's just like the story of Moses, and it also benefits from being based on a book that's 60 years old and therefore less topical/relatable to modern politics, while Turning Red is a Disney/Pixar movie during a time where Disney is on a decade-long hotstreak of producing heavily criticized corporate-driven stories with hamfisted feminist undertones, and is aimed at children, and tries to be a more personal story that hasn't been told before. There's nothing wrong with the writing (mostly), it's just way more under the microscope than any of these other movies. Anyway, I kinda wish you talked about Dune and Turning Red, but I'm not in charge of the channel I guess. Good video overall. Gave me a lot to think about, clearly.
Yeah, that feels like an angle that's often left out of the conversation. There's a bit of a double standard when it comes to stories that deal in more conservative vs progressive/liberal topics. I think Turning Red was a pretty good movie overall, but many people wrote it off just because it has a few cringy, hamfisted feminist lines in it. Meanwhile, Dune is given a lot more grace. Even though it can be easily read as a scathing criticism of organized religion, magical thinking, and propping people up as messiah figures, it's given a pass because it doesn't call out real-world people or organizations, and therefore the audience can pretend that it isn't calling their beliefs out directly. It's preachy as hell, maybe even more than Turning Red, but people don't notice because the main character's journey is engaging and sympathetic to a very broad audience. Unlike a movie with feminist messaging that's mainly targeted towards tween girls. The main problem that I see with the "Art vs Activism" arguement is that, at the end of the day, the line between those two things will always be subjective. Someone may see Dune as activism, and someone else might see Turning Red as art.
@@damiantirado9616 Are you talking to me? I didn't mean to say that Turning Red is preachy, but rather that it may "feel" preachier to the general public because of the reasons I gave. I'm not even sure you can definitely say if a movie is either preachy or not preachy; most movies "preach" something. "Preachy" is just a feeling you get when you feel you're being lectured by the movie, which can be exacerbated if the movie tells you the message without exploring it through the narrative, but also masked if the movie takes place in a fantasy world. I actually didn't feel like Turning Red was preachy at all. But my guess is that many people did, judging by the reaction I see in videos like this one.
In Dune, Paul's ascent to power unleashes a vicious jihad on the galaxy at large. If not for him, the Fremen would have minded their own business. Dune is most certainly NOT glorifying the Messiah.
I agree. I feel unsure of this creator because he apparently found Turning Red too preachy. It has a few suggestive lines, but it really wasn't a political movie. It was mostly about puberty and generational/cultural clashes. I thought it was a very well-told story, and despite not being a girl or Chinese, I felt very sympathetic, in that way that I could tell that it was a story that the writer put a lot of herself into, and I understood this in common humanity.
This Video needs more views. Finally a voice that's explains the issue. It's like the "no politics in my xyz" and "everything is political" crowd talk past each other and worst of all don't really WANT to understand each other
I think a big part of the problem is how people define politics and how they interact with it. Its a common misconception that politics are a series of angry shouting matches and propaganda posters, so what do writers do when they have a political message? They write shouting matches and propaganda. But in their simplist form, politics are the basis of organized human interaction on a large scale. It's about how we organize ourselves and how we believe we should organize ourselves. When you look at it that way, almost every story has political aspects. Moana, Toy Story 3, Arcane, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse, Inside Out 2, the list goes on.
I think a useful video to round out this one is "Examining the Phrase "Everything is Political"" by ShortFatOtaku. Short version: Everything is political (if you yourself are an activist) therefore everything MUST be viewed in a political lens, there is no middle-ground where stories can just be stories (or books, or video games, or movies etc)
I think another part of the issue isn't even so much people disgracefully jamming their political beliefs into whatever they create as it often is a half-hearted attempt at what sounds politically deep but not offering any opinion on it at all. The war proffiteering example from Last Jedi feels like a 'brownie points' moment rather than any attempt to say or even understand anything.
Excellent video, I’m happy to see someone tackle this subject in a pragmatic and logical way, and hopefully people will actually see and understand this.
Good art presents its theme organically to its audience , passively invites them to explore and question the thematic premise freely , and ultimately allows for the possibility of misinterpretation. Bad art imposes its theme mechanically upon its audience , actively discourages them from exploring or questioning the thematic premise freely , and ultimately chastises those who come to alternative / contrary thoughts.
Valid point. For the actual problem aren't only wokism, but also the neu anti-wokism. Lots, LOTS of stories have political messages inside, even the ones that seems to not have. Wizard of oZ, for example has. The huge problem is that artists become to live in bubbles, they more an more haven't any real connection with population, doesn't matter the political leaning, and is very hard create good art, political or not, with real connection with the public.
I also like to often mention the idea that TV/Movies are a way to _’escape reality’._ I don’t want to watch a show that’s basically my current life struggles. Especially if the show never resolves them… as often happens.
I feel compelled to defend Turning Red's inclusion here, possibly because I have a bias to support more telling of Asian character's stories in western media, but yeah I think that "my panda my choice, Mom" line was more of a joke than a serious political statement in an otherwise un-political teenager vs parent coming-of-age fantasy story.
Some of the best stories are also the ones that even teach the author something. An author who isn’t afraid to even challenge their own viewpoints will usually create better stories than one who just wants to create an echo chamber for themselves.
Try telling that to folks who constantly blame the Military Industrial Complex for supposedly starting wars… with media technology that the MIC literally invented.
@@aravil2858 When was eye ran or the peninsula invaded? Eye ran was meddled with politically with the Shah, but only Eye Rack has been actually invaded in the region.
I had never heard the term “Mary Sue” before the Star Wars sequels came out. My UA-cam feed became way more conservative after RoP came out. Whatever social progress these franchises think they’re making, the opposite is true. They’re making good ideas like diversity and female characters in media look like mistakes and giving fodder to the anti-woke movement. It is very unfortunate.
If you ask me, to be woke is to be an obnoxious liberal who tries to appeal to minorities, while mocking the majority, and offending your minorities without knowing you are.
They are forcing in woke politics inturn making people hate woke politics,so instead of forcing it in,write them believably,instead of making everyone an idiot or unlikeable jerk
And this is why Arcane is as good as it is. It has pretty significant class themes with political corruption and bad people. But it WORKS because it actually benefits the characters and setting. Vi is a strong, punch first ask questions later character, and she’s a woman. But she’s so well liked because she had a very easy to understand backstory that led her to acting the way she does
Yesss, this is all i am about. Some writers and directors put a veil on their intentions of critical points of view, that doesn't harm the narrative. But nowadays, people put the intention above the art, it the trancends the movie/show, making it superficial and meaningless.
I feel like this is someting Angel Studios does really well. Tuttle Twins and the Wingfeather Saga are great (though I absolutely like the former more than the latter) - one is educational, with fun storylines each episode, and amusing characters, while the other tells a much more complicated story with an interesting animation style and great characters to watch. Seriously, they're an awesome studio and I can't wait to see what else they put out into the world (fingers crossed for a Green Ember animated series!) over the next few years.
Amazing video. Couldn't have said better. Shocked to not see any attack on titan clips or mentions, because it is a perfect example of an art that has its own politics that force you to think, rather than tell. Good art with politics in it is so rare that it is kinda refreshing to be watching arcane now. Thanks for the video!
Andor is entirely activist. But it's done well. There's no room for sympathy with the Empire...but the purity of the Rebellion is very thoroughly called into question. But throughout...the fact remains that the Empire are wholly and permanently in the wrong. It's not an opinion, it's objectively, clearly factually and logically true.
I disagree. Andor, to me, can be read politically any which way, and this is how Star Wars has always been. Yes, you can view the Empire as being a fascist allegory, but you can also read it, like George himself did, as the American Empire, with the Rebels being like the Viet Cong. It's the same thing in Andor, where we see the Empire destroy cultures to better suit their own purposes. This happened under Communist and Fascist countries as well as Democratic ones; the Cultural Revolution in China comes to mind, and so does the stamping out of many Native nations in the current-day United States. In interviews, Gilroy has always said that he did his utmost to use history, not politics, to write the show. I'm sure the writers have their own opinions and lenses which they view the politics of their show through, but I do not think they made the politics in their show their own. I also disagree that there is no sympathy for the Empire; or, more specifically to say, those serving the Empire can find sympathy. The institution itself, on the broad scale, is assuredly "evil", but the people serving it are a different case. The Banality of Evil is a very prominent theme in Andor, and is seen in many characters. Andor is a nice departure from the more moustache-twirling villainy of the Originals, and gives more nuance to both protagonists and antagonists alike; there's a clear effort to differentiate the institution from those who make it up when it comes judging them. The prison itself is evil, but not all of the guards are irredeemable or inhuman, for instance.
@@pwh1981 Nothing you said disagrees with the original comment. They said “there’s no sympathy for the empire”, they didn’t say “everyone who works for the empire is evil”. All they said was “the empire are wholly and permanently in the wrong”, which you agreed with by saying “the institution itself on a broad scale is assuredly ‘evil’” (and whilst the allegory of the empire is interesting, it doesn’t have much to do with the original comment and doesn’t change the fact that you agree the empire is evil)
@@BananaWasTakenBut there is no denying the writers did try a new angle in terms of portraying the Empire. They felt more human and relatable to a degree.
Psychology Grad here. Therapists are actually *_not_* supposed to give their clients answers or tell them what to do. Many do anyway, but that's because the field has been corrupted by activists and are technically violating their license. A therapist's job is to help their client see things they had overlooked and come to their own conclusions. They guide you to understanding, not to specific "facts". A *Life Coach,* is the one that tells people how to think and what to do. Therapist and Life Coach are two separate professions. Life Coaches aren't licensed and don't actually have to know what they're talking about, which is why they can get away with the things they tell people. Licensed practitioners, meanwhile, are liable for any advice they give (just like doctors), which is why actual therapists are supposed to avoid giving advice. Self help gurus are Life Coaches, not therapists.
I find Nimona to be a good example of a movie made with a theme in mind, it explores the theme with its plot characters and world created around that theme and isn’t afraid to explore all aspects of that theme no matter how dark (I’m looking at you statue scene) and it’s one of my favourite movies not to mention how it’s real life journey of it being rejected by Disney then getting picked up by Netflix and becoming an Oscar nomination further plays off of the central themes of the movie greatly. Overall I recommend watching it to anyone that wants an example of a movie with a theme done well
When you mentioned religious movies, I immediately thought of Prince of Egypt. That movie retells the biblical story of Exodus, but does so in such a way that many non-religious people love it because the writing is so phenomenal. Another UA-camr explained that even though the fundamental story is a religious one, God isn't the narrative focus on the movie, and that's what expanded the potential audience. The characters don't debate about the existence or morality or authority of God; He's a driving force for the narrative and is definitely present in the story portrayed by the movie, but the narrative focus is the relationship between Moses and Pharoah, and themes such as arrogance, pride, family dynamics, etc. Great video, Master Samwise. You said you hope to do your job here objectively and well, and you definitely reach that goal.
I think the biggest irony is that film made several changes to appease certain crowds. Specifically the Pharaoh in the Bible was basically a monster while the film makes Rhamses II a more complex and sympathetic antagonist. This was done because while Rhamses II is believed by some to the Pharaoh from the book of Exodus, in Egypt he is a beloved figure so they wanted to avoid getting the film banned there (it didn’t work).
Depends on the politics. Manipulating a Senate to overthrow a Republic belongs in a franchise called "Star Wars". A director shoehorning in their latest voting ballot choices about identity politics does not belong in a franchise called "Star Wars".
Good stories encourage you to think. Bad stories tell you what to think.
Samwise, can we pin this comment? I think this sums it up pretty well.
Stories that successfully reproduce displace stories that fail to do so. The stories need not be true or be apolitical.
Honestly. As a guy who's trying to write a novel, specifically one inspired by Arcane and Andor, this sentence sums up the essence of those two series' so blasted well! They have a concept the narrative is shaped around (The cycle of violence and the nature of tyranny) and explore it though the characters. Exploration that provokes thought, with viewers coming out of it with different, yet entirely valid ideas about the subject matter and moral culpability of the characters. I hope that when I eventually finish, my art can do likewise with an exploration of leadership.
Or, as The Closer Look puts it, “art gets the audience to think. Propaganda does the thinking for them”
Telling an idiot to think accomplishes nothing. Religious nuts, for example, are completely devoid of thought. They shouldn't even be told what to think. They should just be given a really great plot of land somewhere that they'll be fine on their own, but can't bother anyone else.
I’ll never forget when George Lucas said that the culture war is never good in entertainment. He was and is still right
This coming from the guy who named his villains after Republican congressmen. Although, that movie did suck... so... point George.
@@twelvecatsinatrenchcoatwhich republican congressmen? I never knew he was being political.
@@feartheghus Nute Gunray’s name was based on Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan apparently. Not sure myself but that's what pops up when I search for it.
@@feartheghus The Neimoidians are named after Republicans. "Newt Gunray" is named after Newt Gingrich and "Lott Dod" is named after Trent Lott.
And yet he sold Star Wars to disney……
"All art _can be interpreted through_ politics" ✅
"All art _must be about_ politics" ❌
Underrated Comment!
they can't differ the art of subtleties with blatant prpgnda 🙄
I won't say all art is political, but the mere act of making art itself is political. Being allowed to make whatever you want is an exercise in freedom of expression, taking away that freedom often makes many people rebellious even in the face of prosecution.
This is roughly the same way I feel when I say that modern video games have been injected with modern politics and that sucks. “Oh but video games have always been political” no they weren’t fuck off!! People can tell when it’s modern activist messaging shoddily shoehorned and hamfisted in their escapism.
@@HaydenStephens515 *appropriately rated
I accidentally clicked on this video and I didn’t realise it’s the smart guy who made the video “Children deserve good stories too”.
Omg I just realised it as well
I think this can be summed up as "The politics need to serve the story, the story should not serve the politics". Most of the greatest movies/books/games etc. have political messages within them but even if you don't pick up on those messages or care about them they're still great stories; they add to the story but they are not the story.
Pretty much 👍
That is really the core difference between art and propaganda.
@@KosherCookerynope all art is propaganda. There’s good propaganda or bad propaganda. Well written or badly written are still propaganda
Exactly. If it’s written well, people won’t care about what politics are shoved in the story, whereas if it’s written poorly it’s very clear that the writers are just shoving politics in there and don’t care about the story at all
@@damiantirado9616Nope. Not all art is propaganda. Just because you view every single piece of media through a propaganda lens, does not mean that lens actually exists. That just means you’re obnoxiously political and ideological.
as someone who isnt american, being constantly preached to about american politics is very tiring.
I can only imagine lol
@@master_samwiseYou have no idea how exausting it is, to the point of dirving me to dislike and even hate certain political agendas/groups, before being exposed to this i couldnt care less.
As someone who is American, it’s still exhausting being preached at about American politics. It’s just that, if I don’t pay some semblance of attention, it’s going to screw me over. At least I can see it coming.
The core of the politics being pushed is not even remotely an American idea. It's all based on Critical Theory and closely aligns with the goals of Marxism, that being the destruction of existing power structures, so Communists utilize it as a weapon to their own ends. The ideas were developed by the Frankfurt School. You're only seeing the effects of it applied to the American landscape when it's being done everywhere with a slightly different coat of paint each time. Go complain to the Germans instead.
As someone who is American, i fully concur
Yes, i'm well aware our current political climate is a clusterfuck, that's kind of why i want to watch a movie or a TV show, to forget how fucked it is. If i wanted to engage with the clusterfuck i wouldn't be watching something that, for example, claims to be a high fantasy drama....
People don’t hate politics, they miss escapism. People are very, very desperate to escape from the hyper-politicized climate we’re in right now and hollywoods not giving it to them
They're probably doing it on purpose.
Oh i in fact do hate politics and want to escape lol
Por que no los dos?
@@Quetzalcoatl-Dragon_97 Hollywood or the people using escapism to refuse to live in reality?
Fair, but also unrealistic.
Just about anything can be “political” so there is no real way to escape from it.
Additionally I really question whether it’s beneficial for us to encourage each other to essentially stick our heads in the sand and just hope that something changes.
@@theamazinggarbage3209its bot that people are ignoring it all the time people just like taking a break from it
To paraphrase the great J.R.R. Tolkien "I cordially dislike allegory. I much prefer history, whether real or feigned, with its varied applicability. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."
One of the many reasons I adore Tolkein's work.
Having a story to tell will always impact audiences more than having something to say.
That's out of context. He was referring to Lewis's work "the Jesus, the Satan, and the Stargate". He eventually did embrace the use of the label "allegory" to describe his own work.
Okay but his definition of Allegory is WAAAAY more strict than anyone today. Like seriously.
Political stories can be complex and intriguing, but political messaging feels wrong because they’re not our own opinions. Opinions are personal property, owning is better than renting
Exactly. Good stories present readers/viewers/players with scenarios and then allow them to think about what they might do in that position. Political messaging tells them what they should do/think. I, for one, don't like being told that I'm a bad person simply for having a different point of view.
Especially when modern politics is just depressing no matter what angle you look from.
@@jono3952if I'd were to describe politics with one sentence, that would be it
Political messaging feels wrong when it doesn’t reinforce our existing opinions.
How many people watched “Birth of a Nation” back in the day and felt that it was just a fun story with no political baggage?
@@Justanotherconsumer probably very few! At least some contemporary people understood it as heavy-handed propaganda, the way people discuss movies today. Just that fewer people watched movies then, since streaming didn't exist and you couldn't look at cinema any time you'd like, on a screen that lived in your pocket.
"I do put myself into the scripts - it's unavoidable - but I am not the product." And this is why your products are worth my time.
"The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that."
- Hoid, The Stormlight Archive, Book One: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
@@BelligerentPenguin Journey before destination
The words are accepted
"Nonsense. Balderdash. Figgldybrak." - Wit
Art tells you to think, propaganda tells you what to think
@@ericjohnson6120 Superhero movies tell me to think that being a bully is bad, and being nice is good. I don't think there was enough brain power behind B v S Dawn of Justice for it to be called 'propaganda'.
So the og Star Wars trilogy is propaganda? Is the incredibles propaganda? Aladdin?
Stan Lee always spoke about this that political art was always in his comics but never the theme of the story
While today
“If you don’t like my politics don’t buy my book”
I agree with the Terms of the service
The sort of “If these politics don’t please you, go find another book” literature only serves to limit the ideas’ spread and reinforce differences. Ideas, if they desire to survive beyond a small but devoted base, generally prefer to be expressed among the public to try to convince people in their favor and thus grow.
Conflicting ideas exist. Their adherents interact with one another and sometimes the ideas trade adherents. This is normal and typically benefits society. I don’t have to support a certain political position to recognize ideas of it within a work of media and appreciate that those were included in a way meaningful to the story.
There’s nothing wrong with “if you don’t like what I do don’t buy my book”. Nothing wrong with that
@@fa1509 I certainly don't want any homophobes who wouldn't like me being bi to touch anything I have created
@@damiantirado9616 Yeah, the actual problem is when the media starts complaining that the product failed because of people who didn't want it anyway.
Yeah, somewhere down the line, Marvel Comics went from telling the readers what the writer felt about this or that, to telling the the readers what the writers WANTED them to feel.
There is a good quote in a story telling book that I think sums this issue up pretty well.
"When your premise is an idea you feel you must prove to the world, and you design your story as an undeniable certification of that idea, you set yourself on the road to didacticism. In your zeal to persuade, you will stifle the voice of the other side. Misusing and abusing art to preach, your screenplay will become a thesis film, a thinly disguised sermon as you strive in a single stroke to convert the world."
Source please? Not calling you out, I just want to look into it further
@@curtishammer748 Of course. It is Robert Mckee's Story page 121.
The problem isn’t proving a premise, it’s acknowledging that people can have reasons to disagree.
In order to argue for a point well, you must be able to argue against it.
The “politics” in movies doesn’t argue or explore political ideas, they just state them. It’s like a random stranger approaching you and saying “you need to go to restaurant X” and then they get mad when don’t go there or when you ask follow-up questions like “I’m allergic to Y, is it safe?”.
It can be boiled down to the old saying “show! don’t tell”. So many shows/movies now a days spend more time telling you about people than showing them act.
The MCU suffers a lot from this, like how in Wandavision, Wanda enslaved people, isolated their children, stole a witch’s power and brainwashed her but then a side character calls her good, and we as an audience are supposed to just believe that?
@KHJohan I think it's a bit of both. As people would strive to prove their premise, they would, as you pointed out, just declare their opinion to be fact and leave it at that. They fail to acknowledge the opposing ideas or just create strawman versions of the ideas that they can easily dismiss.
Thank you! The political pushing feels like cringey Christian movies that aren't made well. They are sermons, or political rants, that are acted. (And I'm a Christian.)
Lmao same. Kingdom of Heaven did Christianity more justice than any of those movies.
Indeed, the animated movie Prince of Egypt movie shows that you can make stories about the Bible work and still be entertaining and not preachy, even if it does take some creative liberties.
@@paxluporum4447 No, Kingdom of Heaven was blatant anti-Catholic propaganda and also pseudo-historical. Seriously, Riddley Scott sucks at historical movies.
@daguroswaldson257 I don't care if it was anti-catholic nor did I mention catholicism at all.
@@brandonlyon730that movie was the best movie I ever saw as a kid. Made me believe in religion and all that.
There is a difference between shouting your ideas at someone and getting them to engage with your ideas. And the Exec at hollywood have completely forgotten this.
Very true. I actually like encountering different viewpoints in media, especially when the author bothers to represent the opposite opinion in a non-trivial way. I don't like it when it ceases to be a story.
@@DandDgamer Some of my favorite movies and music have political messages that are coming from a place that I don’t agree with. Because they’re well made enough and not preachy
@@Johnnysmithy24one example i. have that is the backwards of yours is Judas by A Perfect Circle. i’m an atheist but that doesn’t mean whomever can crap on religion without any knowledge behind it. that whole song is just bashing christianity
1:07 I think you hit the nail on the head. The theme of “Democracies turning into Dictatorships” can boiled down into an even simpler themes he established with the Dark side. Without making this comment paragraphs long, the republic goes through fear, anger, hate, and then suffering by the end of RoTS. I think that’s what makes it work. It’s in line with the rules in universe along with telling a story-not slighting the US during 2001. Thanks for the Goat breakdown as usual!
Mmm, what's on the smaller scale applies to the larger scale of the plot too. Perfection.
"It's like poetry, it rhymes"
6:32 weird how they change the fall of numenor to “numenorians were being mean and racist” instead of “numenorians were being prideful and envious” for they desired what the elves had, they wanted a sort of dare I say, equality? Why would the writers want to discard a cautionary and timeless tale about the dangers of envy, and coveting that which belongs to others?
Touché… they’d be calling out their entire ideology
I also think it's ironic that the Rings of Power show is trying to address the fall of Numénor, when the cause of that fall in the original works is exactly the mentality of these modern showrunners and writers. Seeing them twist it to fit their narrative in the most unnatural way possible is kind of fascinating. It's like how in the most recent edition of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rulebook, Slaanesh, originally the demonic god of hedonism, decadence and excess, suddenly became the god of "inequality". It just proves that these new creators aren't willing to view hedonism and excess as evil anymore because they actually champion those things. So they have to change the lore to fit their worldview.
@ lol the only way that Slaanesh angle works is by going like “yeah they want to have more than everybody else, more pleasure, more riches, etc.” however, that inequality is a result of Greed and Pride and Envy, weirdly enough. The inequality of Slaanesh is a symptom of the vices Slaanesh whole heartedly promotes.
@@Estupendomagnifico1In a world where everyone is constantly high and in a 3-4-5 way "relationship" people refuse to admit that their hedonism turns their brain into that of a beast.
Angry, shallow, focused only on what it can get for itself. And that's an insult to the many beasts that can have social bonds that don't break on a whim. These people have less self control than birds.
@@shibasaurus322slaanesh doesn’t want inequality. she wants EVERYONE to partake in unlimited decadence and drown themselves in pleasure. she doesn’t want specific people like tau or any of the space marine companies.
See, this is why people hate preachy Christian movies too! The overly activist movies are also just giving a sermon about morality, just from a different moral worldview.
There’s a difference between expressing your political beliefs and pedantically teaching them to others.
As a follower of Christ, I agree. Though the brothers have always made movies for the church (so they are more set up as a movie long sermon), there are so many bad movies that always make the believer completely innocent or have an atheist who hates everyone who doesn't agree with them.
@Ironica82 Art Imitates life, as they say. Anytime I tell anyone about anything that has to do with Jesus or the Bible, I'll get the patented and true response of "get that fairy-tale away from me." Not all protocol messaging is bad because, quite frankly, people WILL ignore messages unless you tell them. Most people don't care about things that need to be said until they're right at their doorstep, ready to present themselves through hamfisted and ignorant claims and ideas.
Movies like what?
@@Ironica82 Honestly wish more of them were like you. I've got a Pentecostal preacher for a father-in-law, and anytime he puts anything on the TV, it's always so preachy. I'm atheist myself, but I do love theology, and I wish more media would tackle some of the more interesting problems. The writings of Aquinas are so much more interesting to me than any of those Christian movies. A Christian movie that did a good job of tackling atheists' objections in a well written story would be incredible.
@@Alexander_Grant problem is that a lot of what you want works better in more of a documentary style or a long YT video than a movie with a story. Movies can only go so deep before they really do become preachy.
One of my inspirations as a writer is Rod Serling (creator of Twilight Zone and Night Gallery). Now he was a liberal (for his time) writer and he explored themes such as antisemitism, bigotry, racism, fears of the unknown, paranoia, hatred and prejudice. However, he was smart and talented enough to understand that his message would only be as good as the story he was trying to tell.
So he focused on creating stories that spoke dangerous truths but made them interesting and compelling. We could get behind the characters and their plights. And, above all, he knew when to hammer home the message and when to let the audience draw the conclusions he wanted them to make.
It’s uncomfortable but it’s the good kind of uncomfortable. It’s the uncomfortable you get when you grow or are forced to take new paths you haven’t taken before.
And that’s why Twilight Zone has stayed around for as long as it has. The series has been revived no less than three times but it’s always the first one that is still fondly remembered. “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” was remade in 2002 and it still holds up amazingly well with commentary on the War on Terror as opposed to communism. It’s still used as a teaching tool in many schools around the world to not only invite debate on the nature of paranoia and fear causing us to turn on each other but on storytelling in general.
I think Serling would honestly be disgusted with the state of storytelling in popular culture today. And he wouldn’t have been shy about saying something about it.
That’s why storytellers like him will be remembered and the others relegated to the dustbin.
I recently got on a nostalgia binge of watching the 1985 Twilight Zone. Holy fuck does it hold up. The latter seasons get flaccid sometimes, but the first season is razor sharp. There's a sense of, 'We are treading on sacred ground, and we have an obligation to do this right.' I miss when entertainment was made with that mindset. 'I have a responsibility to the audience to do my best for them.'
@@AlexReynardit's so fucken good that most Simpsons episodes are just twilight zone episodes with yellow people.
The original Star Trek was another really good example from that era. There was an episode that essentially covered the topic of mixed couples in the context of an alien hybrid, like (I cannot remember if Spock is half human if he isn't im so sorry) but in the episode one of the aliens the character was a hybrid of were extremely phobic of alien hybrids. It was written into the show and was immersive throughout, and even then as popular as star trek was by then it nearly got the entire series cancelled, its an incredibly admirable thing when done well, its that especially nowadays writers are increasingly hamfisted.
@ yes, it was Spock.
Wow. I am impressed.
I’ve enjoyed politics in some media and not in others. I thought about it a bit and just came to the conclusion that I like it “when it’s done well”, but I couldn’t accurately define WHAT makes it done well.
Seeing the title “Activism vs Art” immediately defines it extremely accurately. Suddenly it just “clicked” in my mind.
Thank you so much for producing these videos!
Also, concerning the bit at 4:05 where you say you want your analyses to help the audience understand the art, you DEFINITELY do.
Your videos are well produced, well thought out, and very meaningful. Every new analysis is a gift
Andor made me stop and actively think about and wrestle with my political opinions. The sequels cut off any discourse that could have happened. That’s the difference that art and passion can have
The Star Wars Prequels made me think about the stories with the politics along with it, but in the Sequels, I didn't glance at the politics because it felt like a horrible original knock-off, and it was jarring to see it in there because it doesn't fit in the story.
if the message of Andor is "fascist genocidal dictatorships are bad" and that message made you wrestle with your political opinions... I have some concerns lol
@@JohnCena-fd5yw That wasn't the part I was talking about. I meant stuff like acceptable uses of torture, the American Justice and prison system, and what actions should be taken in response to an oppressive evil. If the only message you got out of Andor is "fascist genocidal dictatorships are bad," I'd suggest watching it again.
@@CW11721 dont worry i was just joking for funny points on the internet. that said, the original point still stands if any use of torture was viewed as acceptable before Andor. and the american justice and prison system already include tons of protections that prevent the Andor style situations from happening, especially since the discovery of DNA.
dictatorships bad isn't the only message but its certainly the main one. i would say the power of community and relationships is also a theme
@@JohnCena-fd5yw It's a personal gripe of mine, that we use "dictatorship" where "tyranny" is the word that should be used. A dictatorship is just a form of government; inherently, it isn't good or evil, it's just a form of rule. There can be such a thing as a benevolent dictator. The Rebellion in Star Wars is not fighting because the Emperor holds power singularly; they're fighting because the Empire is tyrannical and grinds the everyman of the galaxy under it's apparatus, stripping away freedoms, cultures, and ways of life to better mold it's subjects to be cogs in the machine. Many things that the Empire has done are things the United States has done before, despite being a Republic/Democracy. Even in the show, Nemik, the political idealist, doesn't rail against the Empire for being a dictatorship, he specifically uses the word "tyranny".
“If you don’t like your customers and want to change them, become a therapist”
So powerful
I think that most people can't even *define* what fascism is.
Eh. Just for the fun of it, I'm going to try. Just to be clear, this isn't some passive aggressive stuff, just me being bored on a Monday evening.
"A totalitarian form of government typically characterized by hyper-militaristic nationalism, fusing party/government control over certain industries, but otherwise maintaining a domestic free market."
@@captainuseless2120 Sorry I can't help myself I have a masters in politics so I will also add to this because I will one day die from a conniption if people keep using an incorrect definition as a lazy pejorative.
An important part of real fascism is the spiritual component. I chose spiritual deliberately as religion, while prominent in fascistic societies, is not synonymous because any religion can be used within fascism. Fascism seeks a national spirit which allows for an easily perceived in-group/out-group dichotomy. A leader emerges from the people who feel or are a part of this national spirit thus becoming the leader. This is very easily glossed over as just hyper nationalism, but Mussolini is very clear on the distinction here. Another important component is that all things must be subservient to the state or the aforementioned national spirit, as all things should work to advance it. The people are for the state and the state is then supposed to work for the advancement of the adherents to the spirit of the state. This why cults of personality are synonymous with fascism, as it's very easy to reduce the government to it's head ie; the appointed leader.
I could continue if anyone wants me to ramble more. I'm very passionate about this stuff and firmly believe the longer people use words like fascism and communism as words that might as well just reroute to "evil bad guys I don't like" the worse off discourse will be and the longer propagandists will run roughshod over culture.
You can thank the people who misuse the term "Fascist" for that. They haven't a clue what fascism actually looks like or means
@@Arrestedrabbit
Amazing comment.
I completely agree with that statement. These days it is a term usually just thrown around as an insult without any knowledge of the historical movement deeper than "autoritarian, nationalistic, and militaristic government", ignoring all its complexities and apparent contraddictions from a 21st century political perspective.
For instance, the big emphasis on state control of the economy, social welfare, and lack of individualism for the benefit of the nations, all pillars of Mussolini's historical fascist regime, would be at odds with the beliefs of many people that today are called "fascists" by their opponents.
Transformers One just recently came out and I like how the movie did a good job at using political themes in service of its story, world building and how it affects the characters instead of being solely use to “own the chuds.”
Great movie
Ya I really enjoyed the movie they really did a great job making an entertaining movie while mixing it with the message in a sutle way
@@smbd1234Well it helps that the franchise has gotten the formula down. The ideas were first explored in the IDW comics exploring how Cybertron’s society would operate with so many varieties of transformers (eg. Triple Changers, Combiners and every other type that doesn’t fit the traditional mold).
Transformers even way back then, tended to already have political and social themes in it, like the Autobots taking on civilian vehicles and public service cars while the Decepticons usually took on military and surveillance forms
But not much of it really matters for the fanbase since what they love are the characters themselves. Just like us humans, for the race of the Transformers, there's more to them than meets the eye.
The problem with people who always say "the personal is political" is that they mostly ignore the fact that compromise is necessary in both personal interactions and politics.
You should say that to republicans who don’t want to compromise with democrats
THANK YOU!! FINALLY SOMEONE EXPLAINS IT! Oml I can't tell you how much relief this brings me.
THIS. People LOVEE to put the blame on politics and say that the reason people don't like a movie is "bEcAuSe ThErE's A wOmAn", or "pEoPlE hAtE dIvErSiTy!". While that might be the opinion of a few, it is NOT the majority. Like you said, the problem isn't the politics. Stories like the Star Wars OG trilogy and prequels, and The Last Airbender, have plenty of politics in them, but the politics of those stories fit within them and ACTUALLY have a purpose. I don't feel like I'm being preached at, because those stories aren't forcing a specific opinion down my throat. It is still mainly focusing on TELLING A STORY.
I am also of the opinion that the best stories are those that focus on universal truths. Things that anyone could relate to. Stories like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, whose main theme is learning to appreciate the life you have by focusing on the people around you. By being the best person you can be, because in the end that will matter more than wealth or fame. Kung Fu Panda, where the main theme is learning that you can be capable of great things, even if everyone around you doesn't believe it. How to Train Your Dragon, similar to Kung Fu Panda, but also showing that there are other ways to fight, and just because you're not the same as everyone else, it doesn't mean you can't make a difference. You can choose to do better. These are all examples from animated movies, partially because those are the kinds of movies I watch more, but also because I feel like they're some of the best at storytelling, at least in the past. To me, what matters isn't whether or not the character is diverse, or if they look like me. There are plenty of characters that I like that look nothing like me, but I relate to them because of the experiences they go through. They feel real, not like a character that was written solely for the purpose of pushing an opinion.
I think of _Nabucco,_ an opera taking place in the Jewish exile to Babylon premiering to an audience of Italians, and that audience resonating with the play enough that it became closely associated with the desire for Italian unification. It was first performed in Milan, and I wonder how many local viewers thought of the plight of its characters similarly to Austria’s control of Lombardy and Veneto at the time.
Thank you!
I personally love stories that, when appropriate, feature diversity and lots of women.
One of my favorite TV series is the original "Penny Dreadful", the one with Eva Green; it had a diverse cast, a morally ambiguous female lead, and lots of (frequently gruesome) debauchery.
I just don't like the way practically any stories, in general, are written today.
As much as I love "Penny Dreadful", I dislike "Agatha All Along," which has similar superficial elements -- and Patti LuPone is actually in both series as a witch.
You are so right, but I feel like your points are become more lost as the days go bye. More people really do seem to just hate diversity and women now, their minority is growing, and it’s making the majority of people who want good stories seem in league with them and look bad.
The people saying that people hate a movie because of "Women or diversity" are the people actually making the films and they are gaslighting to deny that their film bombed because it sucked. everyone knows that "Nerds" have always liked badass Lady heroes, people did not love Leia and Ripley and Sarah Connor for decades and then just suddenly decide badass Ladies suck. people hate Mary Sues and girlbosses because they are obnoxious and unlikable from awful writers.
and people may be triggered now as soon as they hear a film is diverse or stars badass women, because for the last several years the first thing you hear about any project is the studio or people involved gloating and bragging and shoving it in your faces that it is diverse. and you are like "uh ok but what is it about?" their reply "it is diverse, GIRL POWER!!! down with the patriarchy". then you see the film and time after time after time after time after time after time after time it is awful, in EVERY respect. so yeah NOW as soon as you hear them promoting its diversity itis instant loss of interest. some people would argue that what they are doing is the opposite of helping their cause.
Star Wars and The Last Airbender were in an unstable equilibrium, specifically girl power. If it is a good thing add more- and their sequels ratcheted up the girl power and were garbage. You can have women with power (Star Trek Voyager wasn't hurt by Janeway), but genderflipping the Batman or James Bond type character doesn't seem to work.
Arcane is everything The Acolyte wishes it was.
This is what I keep saying to those activist d+ riders
Amen. Looking forward to season 2
Shame it has to use THAT IP as a base
@@1stCallipostle sucks that blizzards name is attached to such a good show. Sucks even more that it's league.
@@6Northwoods2 Blizzard? Shouldn't be Riot Games? I'm confused
A lot of the pieces that we see labeled as political just seem to come across as overly preachy about the creators political ideas them pushing. At best they are preaching to the choir at worst their preaching to non-believers.
Star Trek has gotten itself the label of political and woke applied to both new iterations as well as the old. Hell, my favourite episode of TNG, Measure of a Man, is about civil rights, slavery, and even has the antagonist accept another character's pronouns at the end. At no point did this episode feel like a lecture, it came across as an in universe story that could have real world applicability. It was a good story, good fiction. My personal favourite take away from it is the philosophical approach Picard took instead of an appeal to emotions. "Slavery is bad because it is wrong to do it to a sentiet being".
I think your video on strong women actually sums it up best; Audiences hate bad writing, not political stories.
Another thing about political stuff in media is that it has to be NUANCED or INTERESTING, SCARY even. Problem is it almost never is that, especially after Trump took office.
Then "those people" will say "politics aren't ruining media" and point at things like Bioshock, Deus Ex, or Metal Gear Solid...but fail to see that the politics in those series are the FIRST. LAYER. in the stories they tell and neglect the other, heavier, more substantial topics presented in them.
-Bioshock: The dangers of obsessing over a paradise of individual freedoms. When left completely to our own devices for too long, humanity tends to go down VERY dark paths out of greed and disregard for the rights of others.
-Deus Ex: The purpose of "God" and, without a guiding hand to point us in the right direction, we'll apply the role to authority figures like governments and agencies which can turn out VERY bad b/c they are human and subject to their flaws.
-Metal Gear Solid: The ever-shifting and easily-manipulated nature of "the times", how today's good can become tomorrow's evil and vice-versa. Also, hidden organizations subtly shifting the culture to normalize genuinely messed-up stuff to the public.
Stuff like this is WAY more complicated and WAY more interesting than an X-Men member killing innocent people b/c a turtle choked on a plastic bag.
Hopefully, the fact that believing in God is de facto putting your faith in humans to tell you what the right direction is... isn't lost on you. I really hope it's not lost on you.
Literally all of that is political lol
I mean...you can exaggerate that and make is sound good for all political beliefs.
Also the "God as authority" argument is still flawed because human perspectives need to first understand who God is and how we determine morality from such a being. Who's to say my interpretation of God is morally better than yours?
@@innitbruv-lascocomics9910the "god is tyrant" argument comes from God if he knew Lúcifer was going to betray him and let him means he is manipulative and not so God people think
If God did not know Lúcifer betray that's means God is not omnipotent and flawed like a human.
"my panda, my choice mom!" I just got heart burn from the amount of visceral rage that clip summoned...
@tyrantangel same here.
I thought that the SJWs were the sensitive ones? What do you call this?
I think two words are important here: CAN BE. Movies CAN BE political, they have the potential. But that doesn't mean they always should be, or even need to be at all. The people who can't extricate media from politics are ideologically captured droobs.
Exactly. You can make art have political meaning, but art is not by definition political.
Otherwise, you have people who not only will say everything is political, but will flat out say you are objectively wrong for interprating something "incorrectly".
@@blade8741 In a certain way, everything is political though. Creating art is exercising freedom of expression. Even the simplest children’s cartoons like Dora the Explorer preach messages of acceptance and being kind to others.
Edit: the top comment explains it better than I have, so just go look at that instead if you wanna know what I was trying to say
Art is political lol. A perspective within itself is political because it is some sort of belief.
We aren't blank slates, you only see politics when you don't agree with said politics or that it's in your face.
@@josjos-x5s Explain to me how the Mona Lisa, or Van Gough's _Starry Night Sky_ , or _The Great Wave off Kanagawa_ , or or any of Jackson Pollock's work are political, if you please?
@@MrNickPresley Its funny that you mention those paintings for the fact they are famous due to their style and meaning within their time periods.
The Mona Lisa is famous for the framing and realistic depiction of a portrait, coming out of a period where paintings were more based on abstract religeous depictions.
Van Gough is well known for his abstract style which still challenged societies standards of art. It also has a lot of meaning relating to his feelings on his own mental health and the looming shadow of death (apparently).
The Great Wave off Kanagawa is literally about foreign influence coming into japan. Past just the core idea of any subject being political, it is literally one you cannot argue has no political meaning.
And you can just read the wiki article on jackson pollock.
The public hates PROPAGANDA. We may think that only happens in other countries, but that’s what this stuff really is.
The general public wouldn't know most propaganda if it bit them in the arse, as a rule.
What they hate is Preaching. Their tollerance goes up a bit if they agree with the message, but even that has its limits.
Because Preaching gets in the way of what they're actually there for.
To be fair Propaganda happens in movies since forever i mean, you can't say to me that a hollywood movie showing how great the US army is and how evil the *insert current enemy of the US here* soldiers are is not trying to make a point there, just see Rambo for example (great movie, but shameless propaganda at the time)
I've never understood why so many people seem to hate propaganda in general. Propaganda itself is not inherently bad. Take, for example, campaigns against drunk driving or certain drugs. Those are, by definition, propaganda. Now, that's not me trying to say that all propaganda is good. There is a shit load of bad propaganda. But just to reiterate, propaganda itself is not bad.
@@Ricardo_Rick thats a specific genre of film. It doesnt represent the format as a whole. I get your point, but you need a better example.
@@riddell26 i mean, it depends, because one can make a point that war movies, hero movies and spy movies and even some comedy movies are different genres but they all had propaganda, especially during the cold war.
Surely not every movie that exists have/is a propaganda, and that was not the point i was trying to make, i was saying that propaganda always existed in movies, it's not a recent thing
I’m cool with a serious political message being tied into a story but like you said, it has to be good writing. On top of that, you have to tell the truth and be accurate with your analogy(Don’t be changing history and don’t lie to the audience). That’s why I love the prequels for Star Wars. The political part of the story really adds to the world building. Showing how giving too much power to one man is dangerous and the dangers of being in debt. Oh man, they spent a LOT of credits in the Clone Wars.
To me, "Show, don't tell" applies to any political themes/topics a writer wants to explore, too. Yes, a writer is in full control of the story and can make any character be "right" or "wrong", based on what they want to happen. But if it comes in the form of a character getting on a soapbox, or twisting your plot in order to make your ideology right, then it's just as lazy as a dull exposition dump, or a Deus ex Machina.
And frankly, if you can't explore a real world topic in storytelling in good faith, it's not just dishonest, it makes your position feel weaker. If you clearly have to set up fictional strawmen who will follow a strict script in order to make it work, then you don't seem to trust your ideas to stand up on their own. (Or you don't expect your audience to be smart enough to figure it out.)
If you don't trust your own beliefs to survive any real challenges, or to speak for themselves, then why should your audience?
Sometimes it seems that the most expressly ardent supporters of any political ideology or religion end up being the most defensive and weakest supporters, and you seem to recognize that well.
Okay retard.
I think audiences hate overt political activism. If it's sufficiently subtle, or fits in with how events would unfold anyway, they aren't phased so much.
True. Whether the politics are good or bad all comes down to the writing. If the writing is good people won’t get mad about any politics within the story, whereas when the writing is bad people start to notice and get mad at how politics have been shoved in there (and then blame the politics being shoved in there as the reason the writing is bad, rather than thinking that the blatant politics are just a symptom of the bad writing, and not the cause)
@@LearnRunes I think it entirely depends on the message being spread, and whether people in support of that message are vocal enough. 1984 isn't exactly subtle, yet we still study as the masterpiece it is in school. We all love the daleks as villains, but they are so explicitly conservative allegories, with the Doctor being the libertarian hero who stops them.
@@MiloW456seemingly past tense for the doctor who examples. Liberal doctor I get, but conservative daleks? How are the daleks in any way conservative? What to the conserve? In what way are they for limited reach into people's lives? Honestly, they seem far more like authoritarians.
@@MiloW456 1984 is also expressly written as social commentary, in the same vein as other 'fiction' stories such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Atlas Shrugged, Animal Farm. I'm not going to read through Atlas Shrugged, and complain that there's political themes in my political fiction. If anything, I'd read through Atlas Shrugged and complain that the story which serves as the vehicle to push the political theme is too dry, or complain that I disagree with the conclusions reached by Rand. But it works because I approach these stories the same way that I would approach a reading of The Federalist Papers, Das Capital, or Mien Kampf; as works where I am reading with the intent to learn about the beliefs of the author, to digest what they have to say intellectually, and come to my own conclusions on whether I agree or disagree with them.
Compared to watching Star Wars where my main expectation is entertainment value from watching space wizards fight against soldiers who shoot lasers at them and evil space wizards.
Andor is a masterpiece ❤
100%. That show and arcane have unironically inspired me to write a my own story that takes a similar approach.
Sincerity is not a conclusion, it is the pursuit, the exploration.
Its why characters in sequels have often grown, but they aren't done growing just because of the previous movie.
I mean that's what acting is. Morgan Freeman, he's not a violent pimp. James Earl Jones was not a genocidal murderer. Mark Hamill is not a psychotic clown or a space wizard.
I dunno, I think Mark Hamill might be a psychotic clown. Just not the kind that terrorizes Gotham
@@VictorLHouette
He’s not a fire king either.
Of course Mark Hamill isn't a psychotic clown or a space wizard, he's a psychotic clown AND a space wizard. Perhaps better known as The Cocknocker.
Mark Hamill, Psychotic space clown fire wizard king!
@@VictorLHouette
Think about it:
Mark Hamil
M ark ham il
M Arkham il
It’s pretty clear that mARK HAMil is a psychotic clown who terrorised Gotham, it’s been hidden in plain sight the entire time!
AGREED!!!
You can make a political story without it being preachy or about personal beliefs, you can make a political story simply because its engaging
9:53 Should've used the Homelander "Im am better" speech in that instance since the writers are as narcissistic as Homlander himself.
I will note that for future use!
Don’t forget about the blatant allusions to the Democrats & Republicans in season 4. They rammed it down the viewers throats that Democrats (aka Starlighters) are good while Republicans (aka Homelanders) are evil.
@@dogloversrule8476 Not Republicans. Just MAGAts. All of whom are, in fact, scum.
@@master_samwise Not true. What is Star Wars? Listen to George Lucas again and he made his movies super political from the start. Nerds just hate it when the message is directly condemning them like Joker 2
@@suzygirl1843Except he didn’t. He only what information was needed for the story.
There are many stories that have political inspiration. What determines success is how you choose to deliver those ideas and themes. Most modern movies etc choose to brow beat a particular message into the viewer. Meanwhile a well written story invokes those political ideas etc and gets the viewer to contemplate those ideas within the context of the story.
The difference comes down to telling the audience what to think and giving the audience a reason to think.
We want a reason to think and engage with. Modern film and television feels like we're all evil beyond belief and need to be trained to think correctly.
It is not my job as a storyteller to tell you what to think, but rather to give you things to think upon.
-Wit, Way of Kings (I hope I got the wording correct)
If not, Wit will definitely make fun of you in some brutal & clever way
"if don't like your costumers and want to change them, become a therapist..."
no don't do that either. we don't need more terrible therapists that hurt people.
4:45 I would say both. Because my stories are inspired by the works of Tolkien, Lucas, and the Bible. I tell stories that I want to hear, because I know that they are inspired by greater men than myself. And as I’ve grown up, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to remove art from artist, because modern works are solely based on self. They’re soley told because the author’s want to hear them, rather than have their stories be ones people want to hear.
I’d love to read your stories! Where can I read them?
@@HaydenStephens515 unfortunately they’re not uploaded anywhere. Mostly just told to friends through D&D sessions, or just talks of world building. I’ve been thinking about writing them out, but life’s been far too busy for me to do so right now
There is the contrary to that: Why should you debase your stories to fit the masses? Is money and fame greater than the story that needs telling?
You yourself stated the Bible is a reference, the prophets and apostles all died aside from a few to tell a truth others would not understand or reject with hostility. I myself find the world full of itching ears.
Couldn't agree more. As much as I enjoy and often wholeheartedly agree with channels like Drinker and Nerdrotic, it always annoys me when they say that art should never so much as make any allusions to political issues, though I'm sure they don't mind when the art takes a stance they agree with. I think the most impactful and timeless art is very political, but as you argued, it should be thought provoking and handle nuanced issues with intelligence rather than ham-fistedly shoving an agenda down your throat and attcking you for disagreeing with it.
Its why i love your channel. you talk about political themes without being political. I dont know if youre Trump or Kamala, I dont know how you feel about abortion, or the border, or if pinapple goes on pizza. you keep the themes on point, you keep the information true to the source, and you have a great voice. keep it up broski
Im going to get blasted for heresy, but if you want a video suggestion: The indepth analysis of Titus and his brothers from Space MArine 2.
Idk I kinda like to know if the person I'm watching is an asshole or not. You can call that weird if you want.
Wow. Never thought I'd see someone use a hunt down the freeman clip and not be making fun of it.
Double points for it not being President Keemstar
I’m a writer. This is an amazing breakdown; Hearing someone else say this is heartening.
Nail? Hit. Where? On its head.
My political opinions are often in agreement with much of mainstream cinema’s political leanings, but I often am largely annoyed by HOW they go about it. It’s heavy handed, disjointed, and clearly lacking in the nuanced skill of true artists of the industry.
I really enjoyed the recent Alien movie because it wasn’t a ham-fisted “girls are better” and “corporations are all evil” but rather an artistic way of continuing a franchise trend of gripping horror, bravery in the face of fear, a main female lead in each movie not at the expense of other supporting actors, and a dystopian future of utter greed at the expense of the welfare of your everyday person. But those are the things that are consistent and integral to the universe, not just a messaging checkbox. The key to art over activism is creativity. Without it, we’re just going through formulaic motions. And who wants that, besides the AI bot keeping track of my Amazon habits?
To quote Soul Reaver 2:
"Let's drop the moral posturing, shall we? We both know there's no altruism in this pursuit. Your reckless indignation led you here, I counted on it. There's no shame in it, Raziel, revenge is motivation enough, at least it's honest. Hate me, but do it honestly."
What you're describing isn't this idea of "Political Art vs Political Activism" but rather overt messaging versus subtle messaging. And contrary to what many may believe, overt messaging isn't poor storytelling as many great works of art present ideas and political messages as plainly as possible or with very little ambiguity as to what they're referring to.
I agree. Sometimes I worry about people saying that they don't like politics in movies, as that gives me the impression that they are ignorant of social issues, or perhaps, would prefer to remain ignorant of them.
The problem isn't "politics", it's when media is just propaganda that's not trying to do anything BUT say the political message outright.
King of the Hill vs Mr. Birchum, one is a classic the other is hot garbage both have right leaning protagonists.
OK KO, The Owl House, Duck Tales (2017), and Inside Job are entertaining and very Liberal.
As a fellow Star Wars fan I did not enjoy TLJ, because the implicit understanding was that the Republic and Jedi did not work because they were too ineffectual. The Galactic Empire failed because they were tight fisted, human supremacists. The dark side was an aberration a failure to heed the will of the Force not an equal opposite to the Light. In Sequel trilogy the Republic went back to the status quo that lead up to Palatine's rise by not having a military or cracking down on the crime syndicates. They also misinterpret the point of Luke vs Vader he saw the good man he used to be and refused to snuff him out. He rejected the Jedi and Sith Dogma to do the right thing. So in what world would Luke murder a sleeping child, his own flesh and blood, rather than talk it out?
The thing that frustrates me the most even as someone who's quite far left is the insincere pandering to popular political trends, they do truly annoy everyone.
I agree. For me, it is also the fact that they want us to agree with what they say despite all logic, facts, and moral reasoning goes against what they are preaching like the female admiral in last Jedi.
There is nothing she did, screams a good miliatry leader. She was arrogant, snippy, and a bad communicator. If she shared her plans earlier, people would have trusted her more.
@@hecticfunentertainment9373 The best way to provide inclusion is to not bring attention to it. Make the thing normal in society, that it is a given that the person is there. Of course that doesnt work for someone coming into their identity, but that is just a coming of age story, and that is rather the point. For example In ALTA the military forces are fully integrated gender wise, they just don't mention it. It provides a sense of belonging. specificly calling out the existance of a character, or making them stand out for that feature is counter to the point. It suggests that the character is weird and out of place, mentioning that a women being there is new pushes the idea that this is an outlier and shouldn't be counted with the rest.
TLDR: make the "difference" blend in, don't call attention to the point.
Great video, I'm subscribing. My favorite point was that doing the exact same thing on the right is just making the problem not worse, not a solution.
Nobody wants to see "Lady Ballers" (2023), they want to see "Dodgeball" (2004).
You hit the nail on the head. The frustrating part is that so many people, for the sake of protecting the political tribe they belong to, will deny that this sort of stuff is even happening and try to gaslight you as a conspiracy theorist. Or whatever ism is convenient for the subject matter. Despite giving you crap for probing the motivations of the creator, they cant disprove your opinion without assuming yours or at least thats the first place they go
The issue is that evil isn't specific to a particular "side" or movement because it can infiltrate any of those things, so it's more important to impart principles that expose what that looks like through art instead of pointing to something too specific
Just finished watching your GoW video back-to-back and was just wondering what to watch next. This solves my issue. Keep up the good work sir
Politics are not boring in shows, the thin is that it can only be as good as the writers can make it be, just like any other subject if the writers fail at it it's gonna be bad, if they don't it isn't, twitter mentality also doesn't help their case tho... 🎉
The difference is mainly if there's a discussion about the topic. Political messaging is only there to shove one's political view to the audience. It doesn't allow any questioning, any debate nor discussion.
This.
Great exampel is the new proud Family on disney+ i had the disspleasure of seeing last year. They bring up some interesting topics but the conclusions are all allready set in stone. You are only allowed to agree nothing else
Then by your definition almost every movie is bad. Ghostbusters, original Star Wars
Not really. Not everything needs nuance.
Schindler’s List has the message Nazis are bad, and I don’t think the story is made worse by the fact that it is trying to present this view to the audience.
A Christmas Carol very clearly shoves one’s political view to the audience, and no one complains about that being an awful story.
In Star Wars, they present the enslavement of species, the genocide of Geonosis and the destruction of Alderaan as something that needs discussing. They never go “Well maybe it’s a good thing that the Galactic Empire destroyed that planet of innocent people. Maybe we should think about whether this is for the best.” And guess what? People love Star Wars anyway.
Sometimes political discussion can add to a story. Nuance is definitely interesting and gives the audience something to think about. But it’s not a necessary part of adding politics into the story, in the same way that it’s ok for a villain to be pure evil and not have some sort of tragic motivation.
The problem isn’t presenting one’s political view to the audience, it just comes down to how something is written. If something is written well, the politics add to the story. If something is written poorly, the politics stand out and are just another symptom of the bad writing.
FreedomToons came out with the best "anti-woke" cartoon. Don't believe me, look up "Anti-Woke Dog".
I completely agree with why the Daily Wire's attempt failed completely. Instead of starting with a story and inserting some politics, they (like so many in Holleywood now) started with the politics and created a story around it.
Ahh, a True Man of Culture! 😎🫡
If you’re eager for more “anti-woke” content of that sort, you might enjoy something I’ve been working on! I have been writing a fan-series that crosses over my 2 favorite anime, those being OnePunchMan and MyHeroAcademia. It’s called MyHeroAssociation! Look it up if you’re interested! I’ve been putting A LOT of work into this series, and have already published the First 8-Chapters and yet I’ve still only just begun! No political propaganda, just focusing on the themes and character-arcs that already exist in both shows.
If you like OPM and/or MHA, then I think you’ll probably really enjoy this series I’m writing. I’ve been getting positive reviews so far, so I’m pretty sure I’m doing something right at least.
Eh, I think a show that deliberately tries to be Anti-Woke immediately loses the point, I’ve watched the video and it was funny, but it felt it’s objective was a little pretentious reading the comments. Like, it’s a good joke, and I love making fun of the left and how pretentious they can be, but trying to combat pretentiousness with pretentiousness, combating woke shows with anti-woke shows just serves to make you look like hypocrites fueling the problem even more. Just make good shows, movies, games, etc. Stop trying to be woke or anti-woke, I don’t give a flying fuck honestly about all that petty squabbling, so don’t put it in my media. Don’t force shit, you’ll only be compelling when you actually focus on the “story” and not on some message. Anti-Woke Dog doesn’t have a story, it’s a joke skit that focuses on a message, while great for a good joke, it isn’t able ground for a good show.
@@baron6588 Funny thing is, that's what they did. Instead of going into the amti-woke beliefs, they just had fun with the dog. They brought in the woke side but then showed the dog ignoring the debate and just having fun. He showed how the woke side tries to shove their politics into the show while also showing the best way to combat it by ignoring it and making a fun cartoon. The moral of the whole show is to stop obsessing over it and just enjoy your life.
@@Ironica82
Oh yeah, that’s a great moral to think about, makes for a great cartoon short in all honesty. Though, I don’t really vibe with the intention it was made for. It is called Anti-Woke Dog, why can’t it’s just be, well, just a dog? Why do we have to put Anti-Woke there? It’s just a good ol dog having fun. Nothing that woke or anti-woke about it. That’s the kind of thing I don’t like, what the creator’s intent was making it political by making it an anti-woke dog. It teaches to not care about the culture war yet still includes itself in it? A show with kind of premise would still be obviously pandered to the anti-woke crowd if it wasn’t satire, which goes back to my point about the hypocrisy of anti-woke shows. Making it political also makes any incoming viewer that isn’t of that same crowd dismiss the video thinking it will be about a preachy dog, when the video actually offers a very worthwhile moral. So what I am trying to say is, you need leave out your personal beliefs when you want to make something that properly expresses your personal beliefs, does that make sense? Probably not but eh, I should take the dog’s advice and not obsess over this like an idiot lol.
@@baron6588 He explains why he called it Anti-Woke in the first couple of seconds. When an "anti-woke" cartoon comes out and sucks, people keep asking him to make one since his cartoons are very well done. So, to fulfill their request so they would stop asking him, he called it "anti-woke". You can also go deeper in that the human represents the typical woke shows while the dog represents how the other side should make their shows instead of the crap that keeps coming out. All the other stuff you were saying about it was not in the creator's mind.
As for leaving politics out, I like to say that politics in shows are okay but activism is what ruins it. Fresh Prince Of Bel Air is a great example of how to show real life issue without them becoming the main point of the show. They had a range of issues from racist cops (one of Uncle Phil's best scenes), to racist blacks (one of Carlton's best scenes), to the impact of losing your innocence after seeing your cousin get shot (the hospital scene is very intense), to even absent fathers and those who take that role in your life (one of Will's best scenes).. However, those themes were sprinkled around a show that main focus was on the comedic antics of a brother from the hood moving into his rich uncles' house and the culture differences between them.
It is okay to put yourself into a show. However, make sure you actually put yourself and not some perfect ideological self. For example, if I put myself in a show as a follow of Christ who was raised in the church, I would not only show the hardships I have been through and show the grace of God, but I would also show the times where I was basically a Pharisee jerk to others and how God majorly humble me and shows me how much of a jerk I was. So, write yourself into shows, just make sure the character is actually you and not some fake ideological version of you.
Speaking as a Christian myself, I really hate it when movies preach to an audience. If i want to be preached to, I'll watch a sermon, not "God's Not Dead 4".
i also really like the position of J.R.R. Tolkien on this issue, where he says that he dislikes allegory and would rather tell a story that the audience can draw from, rather than a story that shoves its lesson down your throat.
Came for relateable experience in moderm media.
Stayed for helpful writing and political studies advice.
That's how you make a good video. A breath of fresh air, honestly.
You are slowly and surely becoming the most wise channel on UA-cam. Your insight is always thought provoking, and your high quality videos never cease to entertain. Please, keep up the phenomenal work Master Samwise!!!
I watched the CW version of Nancy Drew because I love all things ND, and it wasn't a masterpiece, but it was fine for entertainment.
But there was this one episode that could have been good, but I hated. The whole episode was about how this one woman was abused and mistreated by the police because she was black, but their fundamental mistake (to me) was to make it over an existing storyline. They ignored this black woman going missing because there was a white woman missing. WHO WAS 11 YEARS OLD.
I don't care who you are, I am always going to prioritize helping a missing child over a grown adult. Nothing else matters. The age of the person is important, not the gender, race, or social position. That was my biggest frustration with the episode. I'm automatically dismissing your argument of people of color being mistreated by the authorities (a position that I agree with, by the way) because you're telling me that a grown woman is just as important to find as a child who can't take care of themselves as well. Yes, both are important, but theoretically, the woman can take care of herself better than a child. Any child. Find the girl, then worry about the woman. Don't ignore the woman, obviously, but to me, a child is more important to help than an adult. Always.
Honestly, the police could work on both
But I totally agree with you. Anyone would want to save a child first. Big mistake by the writers
I can think of several reasons why prioritizing the adult first makes sense. However, just because of race doesn’t make a good story.
Options include:
A medical condition.
A smaller search area.
A harder to search area.
Worse climatic conditions.
Predators-human or not.
There are a lot of options to make that story more compelling. Even better if you can work a reminder of humanity for a character into the story.
_"My panda, my choice"_ is nowhere near what any sensible person would call political activism. If anything, the film was clearly poking fun at the slogan by making light of it. This video has pretty much lost me at this point. 🤦🏿♂️💯
Now what about the rest of the video? That was only 1 minor example compared to the others? I fail to see where anything this video says is false
@superlucci, I actually sat through the rest of the video and liked it overall. 👍🏿💯
One of the best essays discussing politics in media on UA-cam, you hit the nail on the head!
It's true that good writing can mask the feeling of being preached to. I just feel like it's worth mentioning one thing: it's generally easier for conservative messages to be masked than progressive messages, since conservative messages deal in the status quo and therefore FEEL normal by default.
SPOILERS for Dune and Turning Red
I would argue that Dune is a more overtly political movie than Turning Red, but Dune doesn't feel preachy because it depicts an alien world with these ideas already set in stone (same with Andor and the Star Wars prequels, in fact), where Turning Red is aimed at children and takes place in Toronto, and focuses on offsetting a tradition. Outside of a few cringey lines, the movie is mostly a metaphor for puberty and has a message about the importance of fighting for the right to be yourself, both of which are extremely common tropes found in innocuous movies like Frozen and Footloose. It mostly made headlines because it mentioned menstruation products a couple of times.
Dune, on the other hand, is a little harder to pinpoint, since it seems to simultaneously depict religion as a tool used to control the masses while also giving credence to the validity of faith itself, depicting the main character as legitimate messiah of another culture. Having seen both movies, it's not really clear whether it's glorifying the messiah or not, but whichever way you slice it, the fact that it's opening up these questions at all makes it way more political than when Turning Red said "pads!" It just doesn't feel like it, because Dune has the luxery of depicting a religious underclass uprising, and it feels normal to us because it's just like the story of Moses, and it also benefits from being based on a book that's 60 years old and therefore less topical/relatable to modern politics, while Turning Red is a Disney/Pixar movie during a time where Disney is on a decade-long hotstreak of producing heavily criticized corporate-driven stories with hamfisted feminist undertones, and is aimed at children, and tries to be a more personal story that hasn't been told before. There's nothing wrong with the writing (mostly), it's just way more under the microscope than any of these other movies.
Anyway, I kinda wish you talked about Dune and Turning Red, but I'm not in charge of the channel I guess. Good video overall. Gave me a lot to think about, clearly.
Yeah, that feels like an angle that's often left out of the conversation. There's a bit of a double standard when it comes to stories that deal in more conservative vs progressive/liberal topics. I think Turning Red was a pretty good movie overall, but many people wrote it off just because it has a few cringy, hamfisted feminist lines in it. Meanwhile, Dune is given a lot more grace. Even though it can be easily read as a scathing criticism of organized religion, magical thinking, and propping people up as messiah figures, it's given a pass because it doesn't call out real-world people or organizations, and therefore the audience can pretend that it isn't calling their beliefs out directly. It's preachy as hell, maybe even more than Turning Red, but people don't notice because the main character's journey is engaging and sympathetic to a very broad audience. Unlike a movie with feminist messaging that's mainly targeted towards tween girls.
The main problem that I see with the "Art vs Activism" arguement is that, at the end of the day, the line between those two things will always be subjective. Someone may see Dune as activism, and someone else might see Turning Red as art.
You didn’t explain how turning red was preachy. You only complained about the headlines sounds like bad criticism to me
@@damiantirado9616 Are you talking to me? I didn't mean to say that Turning Red is preachy, but rather that it may "feel" preachier to the general public because of the reasons I gave. I'm not even sure you can definitely say if a movie is either preachy or not preachy; most movies "preach" something. "Preachy" is just a feeling you get when you feel you're being lectured by the movie, which can be exacerbated if the movie tells you the message without exploring it through the narrative, but also masked if the movie takes place in a fantasy world.
I actually didn't feel like Turning Red was preachy at all. But my guess is that many people did, judging by the reaction I see in videos like this one.
In Dune, Paul's ascent to power unleashes a vicious jihad on the galaxy at large. If not for him, the Fremen would have minded their own business. Dune is most certainly NOT glorifying the Messiah.
I agree. I feel unsure of this creator because he apparently found Turning Red too preachy. It has a few suggestive lines, but it really wasn't a political movie. It was mostly about puberty and generational/cultural clashes. I thought it was a very well-told story, and despite not being a girl or Chinese, I felt very sympathetic, in that way that I could tell that it was a story that the writer put a lot of herself into, and I understood this in common humanity.
This is exactly what i wanted to say for a long time but didn't had the words to express it, thank you it is exactly what i was thinking
This Video needs more views. Finally a voice that's explains the issue.
It's like the "no politics in my xyz" and "everything is political" crowd talk past each other and worst of all don't really WANT to understand each other
I think a big part of the problem is how people define politics and how they interact with it. Its a common misconception that politics are a series of angry shouting matches and propaganda posters, so what do writers do when they have a political message? They write shouting matches and propaganda. But in their simplist form, politics are the basis of organized human interaction on a large scale. It's about how we organize ourselves and how we believe we should organize ourselves. When you look at it that way, almost every story has political aspects. Moana, Toy Story 3, Arcane, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse, Inside Out 2, the list goes on.
I think a useful video to round out this one is "Examining the Phrase "Everything is Political"" by ShortFatOtaku.
Short version: Everything is political (if you yourself are an activist) therefore everything MUST be viewed in a political lens, there is no middle-ground where stories can just be stories (or books, or video games, or movies etc)
Exactly
You CAN see everything as political just the same way you can see the math or physics in everything but the point Is you Choose to do so
I think another part of the issue isn't even so much people disgracefully jamming their political beliefs into whatever they create as it often is a half-hearted attempt at what sounds politically deep but not offering any opinion on it at all. The war proffiteering example from Last Jedi feels like a 'brownie points' moment rather than any attempt to say or even understand anything.
Excellent video, I’m happy to see someone tackle this subject in a pragmatic and logical way, and hopefully people will actually see and understand this.
The title alone had me shouting, YES, YES exactly this! YES!, enthusiastically.
In universe politics are fine. It's when they put modern day real world politics in fantasy worlds
Good art presents its theme organically to its audience , passively invites them to explore and question the thematic premise freely , and ultimately allows for the possibility of misinterpretation.
Bad art imposes its theme mechanically upon its audience , actively discourages them from exploring or questioning the thematic premise freely , and ultimately chastises those who come to alternative / contrary thoughts.
from the two Republic Commando helmets sitting in the back I knew I could trust this man
I am not so sure. He doesn’t have one of my boy Scorch.
Valid point. For the actual problem aren't only wokism, but also the neu anti-wokism. Lots, LOTS of stories have political messages inside, even the ones that seems to not have. Wizard of oZ, for example has. The huge problem is that artists become to live in bubbles, they more an more haven't any real connection with population, doesn't matter the political leaning, and is very hard create good art, political or not, with real connection with the public.
This is the exact point I've been trying to make about putting messaging in entertainment.
I also like to often mention the idea that TV/Movies are a way to _’escape reality’._
I don’t want to watch a show that’s basically my current life struggles. Especially if the show never resolves them… as often happens.
I feel compelled to defend Turning Red's inclusion here, possibly because I have a bias to support more telling of Asian character's stories in western media, but yeah I think that "my panda my choice, Mom" line was more of a joke than a serious political statement in an otherwise un-political teenager vs parent coming-of-age fantasy story.
Some of the best stories are also the ones that even teach the author something. An author who isn’t afraid to even challenge their own viewpoints will usually create better stories than one who just wants to create an echo chamber for themselves.
"turning red" was a deeppy personal story about the relationship between mother and daughter in a changing world. that's not activism, that's life.
5:36 that’s a funny quote considering off the top of my head, oil and drugs make waaaaaaay more money in our world than war…..
Try telling that to folks who constantly blame the Military Industrial Complex for supposedly starting wars… with media technology that the MIC literally invented.
Where does oil come from? Mostly the middle east and what did the west do to the middle east? Yeah u got ur answer
@@aravil2858The peninsula and Iran haven't been touched at all, those are the actual hotbeds for the sludge.
@@obligatoryusername7239 me when im historically illiterate
@@aravil2858 When was eye ran or the peninsula invaded? Eye ran was meddled with politically with the Shah, but only Eye Rack has been actually invaded in the region.
I had never heard the term “Mary Sue” before the Star Wars sequels came out. My UA-cam feed became way more conservative after RoP came out. Whatever social progress these franchises think they’re making, the opposite is true. They’re making good ideas like diversity and female characters in media look like mistakes and giving fodder to the anti-woke movement. It is very unfortunate.
If you ask me, to be woke is to be an obnoxious liberal who tries to appeal to minorities, while mocking the majority, and offending your minorities without knowing you are.
They are forcing in woke politics inturn making people hate woke politics,so instead of forcing it in,write them believably,instead of making everyone an idiot or unlikeable jerk
And this is why Arcane is as good as it is. It has pretty significant class themes with political corruption and bad people. But it WORKS because it actually benefits the characters and setting. Vi is a strong, punch first ask questions later character, and she’s a woman. But she’s so well liked because she had a very easy to understand backstory that led her to acting the way she does
This is the most concise explanation of the issue I've seen.
Yesss, this is all i am about. Some writers and directors put a veil on their intentions of critical points of view, that doesn't harm the narrative. But nowadays, people put the intention above the art, it the trancends the movie/show, making it superficial and meaningless.
I feel like this is someting Angel Studios does really well. Tuttle Twins and the Wingfeather Saga are great (though I absolutely like the former more than the latter) - one is educational, with fun storylines each episode, and amusing characters, while the other tells a much more complicated story with an interesting animation style and great characters to watch. Seriously, they're an awesome studio and I can't wait to see what else they put out into the world (fingers crossed for a Green Ember animated series!) over the next few years.
Damn Angel studios the most politically charged movies and badly written lol. Right wingers have shit taste
Amazing video. Couldn't have said better. Shocked to not see any attack on titan clips or mentions, because it is a perfect example of an art that has its own politics that force you to think, rather than tell. Good art with politics in it is so rare that it is kinda refreshing to be watching arcane now. Thanks for the video!
Andor is entirely activist.
But it's done well. There's no room for sympathy with the Empire...but the purity of the Rebellion is very thoroughly called into question. But throughout...the fact remains that the Empire are wholly and permanently in the wrong. It's not an opinion, it's objectively, clearly factually and logically true.
I disagree. Andor, to me, can be read politically any which way, and this is how Star Wars has always been. Yes, you can view the Empire as being a fascist allegory, but you can also read it, like George himself did, as the American Empire, with the Rebels being like the Viet Cong. It's the same thing in Andor, where we see the Empire destroy cultures to better suit their own purposes. This happened under Communist and Fascist countries as well as Democratic ones; the Cultural Revolution in China comes to mind, and so does the stamping out of many Native nations in the current-day United States. In interviews, Gilroy has always said that he did his utmost to use history, not politics, to write the show. I'm sure the writers have their own opinions and lenses which they view the politics of their show through, but I do not think they made the politics in their show their own.
I also disagree that there is no sympathy for the Empire; or, more specifically to say, those serving the Empire can find sympathy. The institution itself, on the broad scale, is assuredly "evil", but the people serving it are a different case. The Banality of Evil is a very prominent theme in Andor, and is seen in many characters. Andor is a nice departure from the more moustache-twirling villainy of the Originals, and gives more nuance to both protagonists and antagonists alike; there's a clear effort to differentiate the institution from those who make it up when it comes judging them. The prison itself is evil, but not all of the guards are irredeemable or inhuman, for instance.
@@pwh1981 Nothing you said disagrees with the original comment. They said “there’s no sympathy for the empire”, they didn’t say “everyone who works for the empire is evil”.
All they said was “the empire are wholly and permanently in the wrong”, which you agreed with by saying “the institution itself on a broad scale is assuredly ‘evil’” (and whilst the allegory of the empire is interesting, it doesn’t have much to do with the original comment and doesn’t change the fact that you agree the empire is evil)
@@BananaWasTakenBut there is no denying the writers did try a new angle in terms of portraying the Empire. They felt more human and relatable to a degree.
I watched this video on a whim and you just happened to explain perfectly what ive been try to explain for years. Well done.
Psychology Grad here.
Therapists are actually *_not_* supposed to give their clients answers or tell them what to do. Many do anyway, but that's because the field has been corrupted by activists and are technically violating their license. A therapist's job is to help their client see things they had overlooked and come to their own conclusions. They guide you to understanding, not to specific "facts".
A *Life Coach,* is the one that tells people how to think and what to do. Therapist and Life Coach are two separate professions. Life Coaches aren't licensed and don't actually have to know what they're talking about, which is why they can get away with the things they tell people. Licensed practitioners, meanwhile, are liable for any advice they give (just like doctors), which is why actual therapists are supposed to avoid giving advice. Self help gurus are Life Coaches, not therapists.
I find Nimona to be a good example of a movie made with a theme in mind, it explores the theme with its plot characters and world created around that theme and isn’t afraid to explore all aspects of that theme no matter how dark (I’m looking at you statue scene) and it’s one of my favourite movies not to mention how it’s real life journey of it being rejected by Disney then getting picked up by Netflix and becoming an Oscar nomination further plays off of the central themes of the movie greatly. Overall I recommend watching it to anyone that wants an example of a movie with a theme done well
13:17 Master Samwise this is getting too political for me
"Master Samwise this is getting too political for me, what are we going to do?"
*lightsaber ignites*
When you mentioned religious movies, I immediately thought of Prince of Egypt. That movie retells the biblical story of Exodus, but does so in such a way that many non-religious people love it because the writing is so phenomenal. Another UA-camr explained that even though the fundamental story is a religious one, God isn't the narrative focus on the movie, and that's what expanded the potential audience. The characters don't debate about the existence or morality or authority of God; He's a driving force for the narrative and is definitely present in the story portrayed by the movie, but the narrative focus is the relationship between Moses and Pharoah, and themes such as arrogance, pride, family dynamics, etc. Great video, Master Samwise. You said you hope to do your job here objectively and well, and you definitely reach that goal.
I think the biggest irony is that film made several changes to appease certain crowds. Specifically the Pharaoh in the Bible was basically a monster while the film makes Rhamses II a more complex and sympathetic antagonist. This was done because while Rhamses II is believed by some to the Pharaoh from the book of Exodus, in Egypt he is a beloved figure so they wanted to avoid getting the film banned there (it didn’t work).
Yesssss this, please don’t shove the politics down our throat if it there but done quietly it’s great 👍
Depends on the politics.
Manipulating a Senate to overthrow a Republic belongs in a franchise called "Star Wars".
A director shoehorning in their latest voting ballot choices about identity politics does not belong in a franchise called "Star Wars".