Some video about logos (essentially espousing “natural order” or “the way things oughta be”) makes the all too common claim that politics is downstream from culture. Is it really that simple?
A common topic of complaint from the right-wing – mostly from the professional wrestling/comic book/gamer nerd camps – involve the insidious influence of feminism/SJW culture in Hollywood, especially as it affects their precious corners of geekdom. And, in the latest installment of the ‘net’s most popular genre, Pissing and Moaning Over Nothing, we’ve got the release of Captain Marvel, hailed by CNN as the savior of the 2019 box office. But butthurt neckbearded crybabies, primed for complaint, have been predictably triggered – this time by the film’s star Brie Larson’s silly comments about white men reviewing her film. Adding insult to injury, the film, by objective financial measures ($500 million in the first week of release), has proven again that pussy and tits under spandex can rack up just as much coin as any of the traditional cock and balls in spandex funnybook fare.
This is where shit gets weird, when something like Hollywood gets negatively politicized by the double-chinned dweebs who still salivate over some, if not a lot, of what Hollywood does. There seems to be a contradiction there, somewhere. But what could it be? If we’re truly curious, we might wanna back away from things a bit. Consider things from an alternative perspective. And maybe doing so allows us to consider the whole politics being downstream from culture argument in light of the female-lead action/comic book genre of films.
A Hollywood studio and a film producer’s jobs are to make money by entertaining us. They decide on stories and actors and directors to invest in. They make reasoned/calculated decision whether altering a trope will lead to a better return on investment than sticking with the same old script. This sounds like the epitome of our beloved Capitalism.
I’ve never seen Hunger Games but I heard or read that one of the things the studio executives and producers learned from the movie was that, with Jennifer Lawrence in the lead – they learned that, by bucking the stereotype (obviously, this isn’t the first time it’s happened), what they lost in the traditionally testosterone-centric audience was more than made up for with girlfriends and wives who were more willing to go along with a action film with a female lead than the typical bang and blow-up sausagefest. Additionally, Hunger Games may have been a really good movie.
*One psychoanalytic theory (espoused only by mrobins71) is the nerd-boy backlash against hot-girl actions films is: the few of these guys with girlfriends would love to jack-off in the darkened theater to Wonder Woman’s ass and tits but can’t when the GF or gal-pal who’s relegated him to the friend zone is in the next seat sharing the popcorn. Geekboys are losing the argument (“all these movies are just SJF shit but I gotta go see it since I’m a lifelong fan”) against the females who increasingly want to see these films due to good reviews and box office success.
And when Hollywood strikes gold, they milk it for all it’s worth. See the long histories of war, cowboy, slasher, screwball tits and ass comedies, baseball and now comic book films having their heydays until getting milked by Hollywood into oblivion. But that’s economics, not the product of some SJW conspiracy.
Similarly with Black Panther. Capitalize on the popularity and momentum of comic book films by explicitly appealing to a black audience. What’s lost of the butthurt white demographic is more than made up for by bringing black folks into the universe of silly comic book films. And once you got ’em hooked, maybe they’ll stay along for the ride through the next iteration ofAvengers. And it seemed to work. BP was the highest grossing film of 2018. Worldwide – squishy, white, neckbeared boys and men laid down their XBox controllers and vape cannons for a few minutes to acknowledge defeat. Or did they? Could they find a scapegoat? Well sure, there’s always liberal old Hollywood or a conspiracy about ticket sales.
The insipid criticisms of such banal shit – such idiotic subcultures that most people over the age of 15 should be embarrassed to take so seriously – these dorks get triggered by a movie designed for people with IQ’s of somewhere between complete idiot on the low end and the low end of average on the other. They get triggered by these films’ lack of purity. They make videos decrying the corruption of their beloved universes that were designed for twelve-year-old’s. But it’s worth fighting for- or at least throwing a fit over. It’s worth boycotting whatever kiddie cereal or processed pasta product (either boxed or canned) the film associates with in order to make Disney and Chef Boyadee more money. It’s capitalist synergy at is processed food and film best. Again, Kraft Foods figures they’ll make more money with Wonder Woman or Star Wars or Madagascar 3 than the traditional graphic of a spoonful of processed cheesy goodness on their box. It’s about making money. It’s about giving the public what it wants. It’s not coercion. The public can reject Wonder Woman mac ‘n cheese for the store brand or Annie’s. Let that be your badge of honor, sacrificing the culinary delight of Kraft for the Kroger brand.
But, if it’s obvious that Wonder Woman on a can of Spaghetti-O‘s is a talisman of postermodernist/neo-Marxists cultural decay, where does that leave The Avengers on Pizza Hut boxes or bags of Pop Secret popcorn or as themes on credit cards? Is it fascist or neo-Marxist? Are these signs of the SJW or alt-right apocalypses? Or just Iron Man on a pizza box? Well, for me, “just Iron Man on a pizza box” is too boring. I want more. I need more. I need to see it as a sign of things to come and a cause to fight for and I won’t be denied!!!!
As theoretical proponents of free will, let’s assume people watch Captain Marvel because they want to, not cause it’s coerced. Counter logic would suggest the female Ghostbusters, by forcibly prying our minds and wallets open, should have been a hit, but it wasn’t. It was a flop that the public rejected just as they rejected some piece of shit like Vin Deisel’s XXX cause it was a piece of shit movie, not because it was too male-centric or toxically masculine. Cause Vin Deisel can turn around and make a better movie (Fast and the Furious Part Whatever) and it’ll sell.
But the argument for market forces playing into the success of films that conservatives don’t like – that just doesn’t jive very well. Cause without free markets we got socialism and with socialism we got limited or no choice. We tear down the market forces that let us decide this week between Captain Marvel and the latest Medea and How to Train Your Dragon films. Without Capitalism, we got the shitty Soviet or Chinese film industries, which nobody wants.
Back to the original thesis: is politics necessarily downstream from culture? In the case of pop-culture films of the action/comic book genre, it sure as shit appears the culture is downstream from economics – a capitalist economics. So specific critiques of culture would seem to be critiques of our economics. But that’s a hard one for the anti-SJW crowd to square. It’s much easier to simply swim downstream instead of up.**
**I am no defender or promoter of social or communism. But, if we accept capitalism, we gotta accept it with the smooth skin of our smartphones as well as the blemishes of the success of Captain Marvel – if the latter’s the moronic hill you wanna plant your grievance flag on.
Ultra-feminists may hate male-centic action/hero films for promoting the trope of male as hero and female as the one needing savior. Or for the toxically masculine solutions to major problems through violence. Feminists may hate female-lead action films for their promotion of mostly unattainable norms of feminine beauty via the heroin (neither Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, nor Angelina Jolie deviate far from traditional standards of female beauty). The feminists could bitch and whine about these, but they don’t. Either that or we don’t hear about it cause their voice isn’t nearly as loud as the neckbeared gamer boys would have us believe.
In essence, it’s a matter of pissing and moaning over not getting your way – all this coming from the same crowds that rightfully scorn the SJW. It’s the trick of wrapping bellyaching with cheap virtue – like claiming you condemn people who abuse bigfoots (bigfeet?) when neither bigfoot nor his abusers exist. It’s like claiming to like something, for example, democracy, until the majority vote for what you don’t like. Then it’s fucked. Then it’s corrupt. It’s the Jews in the media or, conversely, Russian hackers who are fucking everything up. These aren’t expressions of logos. These are the expressions of bedwetters and no-chinned 4Chan warriors. These are the culture warriors who protest in comment sections on YouTube videos and take a heroic, gallant social stance by not going to a movie theater. How heroic, not unlike Thor. I guess the red pill overdose is paying off.
Perhaps this is the conundrum of adult men living within pubescent worlds of fantasy (pro wrestling, video games, comic books) – it becomes harder and harder to distinguish their own worlds of fantasy from any other.
mrobins71 