"2. Stop tossing social politics into everything... People even adult use cartoons as a form of escapism even from politics."
Impossible. Life informs art and there is no way to completely divorce the two. Usually when people say this, what they mean is, "Stop putting politics in that I disagree with."
"2. Stop tossing social politics into everything... People even adult use cartoons as a form of escapism even from politics."
Impossible. Life informs art and there is no way to completely divorce the two. Usually when people say this, what they mean is, "Stop putting politics in that I disagree with."
You don't understand. Using politics as a part of world building is okay. Using politics as a tool to create a plot is okay. Showing politics down to viewer's throat and telling him/her what to think is NOT (bonus points, blame viewers and call them trolls/russian bots/bigots/-ists if they don't like your bullcrap).
Sure, life informs art, but there is more than enough themes to explore to make an interesting story. Life is not limited to worthless politics propagated by even more worthless people.
"2. Stop tossing social politics into everything... People even adult use cartoons as a form of escapism even from politics."
Impossible. Life informs art and there is no way to completely divorce the two. Usually when people say this, what they mean is, "Stop putting politics in that I disagree with."
You don't understand. Using politics as a part of world building is okay. Using politics as a tool to create a plot is okay. Showing politics down to viewer's throat and telling him/her what to think is NOT (bonus points, blame viewers and call them trolls/russian bots/bigots/-ists if they don't like your bullcrap).
That is the quickest way to make people angry at your show, book or series, even if you agree with what is portrayed. Usually, people do not like to be patronized if you are just looking for entertainment. See Chicago law, Charmed reboot, Casualty, Designated survivor,Captain Planet, etc
I like the Law and order series because they often show both sides in the same episode.
The closest thing to a political agenda I've seen in modern cartoons is the monster/human conflict in Star vs. the Forces of Evil, an allegory for segregation. Even then, you never heard anyone directly castigate the racism of that environment; it was all subtle references poking holes in the characters' prejudices.
As for older shows, the Simpsons and South Park have been openly political for decades, and while folks disagree with the politics, it doesn't seem to break immersion. PC Principal from South Park is a parody of "my side," but that doesn't make him any less hilarious.
Yeah, because those are comedies. There are dozens of late night shows and stand-up comedies making jokes about current political affairs in lots of countries, in prime-time. And nobody really cares much about them. I am pretty sure people like Trump, Rajoy, Bolsonaro or Viktor Orbán will have their their buildings swarming with policemen otherwise.
In a drama series or newsfeed they will have the hate brigade storming the castle the next morning, advertisers leaving the tv channel and the showrunners sued to infinity and beyond.
I still remember some stupid social media backslash against when that Avatar chick dated another girl in the end series of Avatar: the legend of Korra. My eyes rolled so far back into my head that I could see my hypothalamus belching.
Usually when people say this, what they mean is, "Stop putting politics in that I disagree with."
Actually, not at all a lot of people including myself can read a comic or watch a cartoon that used politics we disagree with to help build the world, but as stated before when it shoved done our throats or things get changed for no real reason but for social politics. Say, a Harley Quinn comic where the writer basically attacked everything they didn't agree with or changing characters to be different ethnicity for " diversity sake" while ignoring the many characters they already had of that ethnicity that they could've used and not just toss out decades of history.
It's rarely "stop putting politics I don't agree with" and actually usually, "stop shoving your politics down my throat"
But I digress, this isn't a political topic but a cartoon.
What's really ironic is how they also proclaim themselves "liberals" and then go to war with actual liberals. Not particularly surprising though, seeing how authoritarian states like to call themselves "people's" and "democratic".
Which is why I recommend everyone to vote with their wallet and spend on Japanese products instead. Not that I especially liked Western cartoon/comic art style to begin with, though. Older Disney productions have been nice, but the superhero style just feels like caricature to me. And the more recent 3D... nope, just nope.
IMHO, the premise that you can create apolitical art is spurious, and the idea that you can make art that doesn't influence it's consumers is laughable. If you think what you watch doesn't affect you, think back to when you were a kid, and likely imitated all manner of things you watched, even stuff you definitely shouldn't.
Every story is naturally going to be somewhat open to interpretation, and there is certainly no guarantee that the exact message that the artist(s) meant to send gets received, but you will always get something out of it, for good or ill.
Now, there I do agree preachy art is about as painful as a root canal, but that's usually because it's actually bad art, because things like what actually works story-wise gets ignored in favour of what fits the desired message, and thus these are generally atrocious. It's one reason I think why more people ultimately like Star Wars, it's way less preachy than Star Trek.
I think the general quality of pop art has actually grown significantly during my life; tbh, most things are more polished, and are made with a better understanding of what is popular. Yet, at the same time, we have way more niche art products than ever before, and even very peculiar tastes can find things to enjoy at this point. I think cartoons have definitely improved more than most things, but even if you compare the pop of different eras, the 90s doesn't actually seem that strong. It's when I was growing up, so I have some serious nostalgia, but I think it's clear that lots of what I loved as a child was very problematic, and this is an area that has improved more than I would have really expected, our art is quite a bit more tolerant, and less hate-filled overall. We still get stupid, violent movies, but they are now pretty niche genre-wise, and usually the ones that aren't progressive are made by small studios with small budgets, rather than being the big tentpoles of the day like they were. It is kinda shocking to watch older movies sometimes, how literally baked into the culture the racism was sometimes.
Things like increased diversity in storytelling are really wonderful, such as companies finally making big projects based around non-white cis straight men, and I see this as a big improvement. Bits and pieces of other cultures are gradually showing up in American media, another big plus. I like diverse influences in my art, and if it's strictly from one culture, I'm not likely to love it.
So, for those saying 'don't shove YOUR politics down my throat', I must hold back from being impolite and simply say 'uh, have you not noticed that the opposite was being shoved down everyone's throat since art first started pretty much??' As in, almost everything has been part of the same patriarchal establishment culture (and indoctrinated pretty much everyone into it ffs), and it's finally starting to change, and you accuse people that are literally trying to make the world a better place of ruining art, because they don't want to put up with the same regressive garbage that's been spewed at us for thousands of years???? Not to be rude, but there is no such thing as a neutral piece of art, and as such, if something isn't progressive, it's pretty much regressive. I'm bloody tired of seeing the same patriarchal and racist tropes in every bit of art, so the 'wokening' of the world's art scene has been quite invigorating.
@O_Bruce "You don't understand. Using politics as a part of world building is okay. Using politics as a tool to create a plot is okay. Showing politics down to viewer's throat and telling him/her what to think is NOT (bonus points, blame viewers and call them trolls/russian bots/bigots/-ists if they don't like your bullcrap)."
This is a completely different argument. The previous claim was "Keep ALL politics out of art."
Woah, slow down and take a breath, pal, nobody here say anything about that. You are just assuming that he "politics we do not want in our cartoons" are only the progressive ones. Nobody said anything remotely regressive, patriarcal or homophobic, please correct me if I am wrong.
It am myself equally annoyed when ecologists are portrayed always in series as ecoterrorists and antisystem that had to be stopped at all costs, latino burglars, west-europe gangs; when Korra have a girlfriend and mums all over the world got angry and spew lot of media nonsense, saying "mi kids will not watch this cartoon", how the greenpeace-friendly "captain planet" was cancelled because "give the wrong message to our children", or when series like "Sailor moon" were chopped ( There were a lesbian couple in the series and because that was "innapropiate" they changed them to cousins in the english/spanish dubbing, turning a normal couple into incest )
As you said, yeah, over-political art works can be masterpieces: Fahrenheit 451, Brave new world, 1984, the comics Maus: a survivor´s tale or Animal farm( I loved the movie too), but you have to be a hell of an artist. It is like the mary sue and gary stu tropes, you have to be Patrick Rothfuss, Bukowski or Vargas Llosa. There is a high chance that you are going to create pure trash and also piss off plenty of people in the process if not.
Hmm... I don't think anyone has said that the politics being shoved are universally from one side (I said they used to be, and they really, really did), just that one side is wildly problematic. Every flipping cartoon I watched as a kid was a mix of good and bad tropes, as expected, but the baggage they through into literally everything kids watch was crazy. Some of it was very subtle, some of it was about as subtle as a nuclear bomb, such as GI Joe, which I loved. Boys were shaped to be one way, girls another, and anyone not fitting into either paradigm was ostracized/bullied, and this hasn't entirely gone away, but this brings me to my next point. Simply put, if you're pushing relatively appropriate behaviours on kids, I'm not likely to complain, but if you're teaching them to lie, cheat, steal, bully, etc, then we would all agree that's not okay, but to teach them that all boys have to be big strong He-men, and women lithe lingerie models, is seen as somehow acceptable. It's why we see so ****ing many shows about boys that have to 'learn to fight', because this is apparently their main purpose in life, yet we see bloody few of the same about girls. This stuff isn't healthy, and should be called out I think.
I think my problem with the politics issue is that frankly, one of the sides is actually objectively wrong, and that is the regressive side that always tries to manipulate the population into adopting patriarchal establishment views. Conservatism isn't inherently evil, but boy does it ever have a lot of 'evil adjacent' stuff associated with it, such as misogyny, racism, etc. As such, I really don't want the bulk of the art I consume to be that kind of art; I love fantasy, but I've not watched any GoT yet, and don't know if I'll bother, because it sounds really regressive, and apparently the ending was borked. Despite being problematic, it was a big hit, but so was Black Panther, and despite the foundation of Iron Man (which is hella problematic btw, despite being very entertaining), the MCU is pretty progressive, so there is proof that progressive ideas can actually help fill seats.
I think Captain Planet was probably canceled because it was a boring show, I only watched it if I had literally nothing else to do. It was world's better than The Smoggies, which might have made me into a conservative in my youth, it was such a painful show to watch. I think they secretly were trying to make environmentalism as uncool to kids as they possibly could, but this is just a conspiracy theory of mine. It does explain why those shows were all really bad, but there are other explanations for that I think.
I think if you made a 'Sue' character, even a decent idea can be made shitty, but this isn't because the idea itself of having a purpose for art is bad, it's because whomever was creating the art did a bad job, and made unpleasant art. Neither side has a monopoly on bad art, but I have more patience for bad art that's coming from a truly good place. Children however are not very forgiving of art that isn't 'fun', and they'll watch another show I'd expect. If I or my friends thought a show was preachy, we avoided it religiously. To manipulate children it seems a certain amount of subtlety is required, as well as quality (well, of a kind).
To sum up, I have big issues with bad politics in art (specifically if negative behaviours are either portrayed glamorously, or are rewarded in universe), and I also have a dislike for bad art in general. I still consume plenty of unhealthy art, I just tend to be more aware of it when I do. I don't think it's reasonable to expect art to not have an agenda, and what I perceive to be the agenda of a piece of art will impact whether or not I seek it out.
IMHO, the premise that you can create apolitical art is spurious, and the idea that you can make art that doesn't influence it's consumers is laughable. If you think what you watch doesn't affect you, think back to when you were a kid, and likely imitated all manner of things you watched, even stuff you definitely shouldn't.
Every story is naturally going to be somewhat open to interpretation, and there is certainly no guarantee that the exact message that the artist(s) meant to send gets received, but you will always get something out of it, for good or ill.
Now, there I do agree preachy art is about as painful as a root canal, but that's usually because it's actually bad art, because things like what actually works story-wise gets ignored in favour of what fits the desired message, and thus these are generally atrocious. It's one reason I think why more people ultimately like Star Wars, it's way less preachy than Star Trek.
IMHO, the premise that you can create apolitical art is spurious, and the idea that you can make art that doesn't influence it's consumers is laughable. If you think what you watch doesn't affect you, think back to when you were a kid, and likely imitated all manner of things you watched, even stuff you definitely shouldn't.
Every story is naturally going to be somewhat open to interpretation, and there is certainly no guarantee that the exact message that the artist(s) meant to send gets received, but you will always get something out of it, for good or ill.
Now, there I do agree preachy art is about as painful as a root canal, but that's usually because it's actually bad art, because things like what actually works story-wise gets ignored in favour of what fits the desired message, and thus these are generally atrocious. It's one reason I think why more people ultimately like Star Wars, it's way less preachy than Star Trek.
If you forbid someone to be something just because you do not like his/her race, sex, age, place of birth, social stratum, sexual orientation, etc, you are objectively wrong. Period.
I do knot know, I watched the GOT series´ first seasons. Not bad. I just knew what was going to happen because of the books and stopped; but they say GOT series are OK. Besides the last season that even the actors do not like. You seldom,if ever see so many actors be so vocal about some series that finished and have spinoffs ready.
Hmm... I don't think anyone has said that the politics being shoved are universally from one side (I said they used to be, and they really, really did), just that one side is wildly problematic. Every flipping cartoon I watched as a kid was a mix of good and bad tropes, as expected, but the baggage they through into literally everything kids watch was crazy. Some of it was very subtle, some of it was about as subtle as a nuclear bomb, such as GI Joe, which I loved. Boys were shaped to be one way, girls another, and anyone not fitting into either paradigm was ostracized/bullied, and this hasn't entirely gone away, but this brings me to my next point. Simply put, if you're pushing relatively appropriate behaviours on kids, I'm not likely to complain, but if you're teaching them to lie, cheat, steal, bully, etc, then we would all agree that's not okay, but to teach them that all boys have to be big strong He-men, and women lithe lingerie models, is seen as somehow acceptable. It's why we see so ****ing many shows about boys that have to 'learn to fight', because this is apparently their main purpose in life, yet we see bloody few of the same about girls. This stuff isn't healthy, and should be called out I think.
Fortunately in this century there are more strong female leads in cartoons and movies. Elena of Avalor, Kim Possible, Ladybug, Brave, Wonder woman...
Also many male characters that have the women fight for them. Many non-traditional familes or couples are also portrayed, something that was not possible before.
Funnily enough, many of them come from Disney, the company who was ( with mattel and barbies) the epitome of misoginia in the past century.
Not perfect but at least you have some healthy role models. At least better than the youtubers most teens are addicted to. Some of them are so awful that I do not know where to start.
IMHO, the premise that you can create apolitical art is spurious, and the idea that you can make art that doesn't influence it's consumers is laughable.
What political messages does Tetris provide? Thought so.
Political acitvists' inabillity to let go of their religion/ideology is their problem and it should stay within them. Also again, they don't understand that there is much more to life than politics, and thus much more viable sources of inspiration.
There is also difference between influencing people by art/creating reaction by art and creating propaganda. That's again something wannabe artists and political activists doesn't understand very well.
Things like increased diversity in storytelling are really wonderful, such as companies finally making big projects based around non-white cis straight men, and I see this as a big improvement. Bits and pieces of other cultures are gradually showing up in American media, another big plus. I like diverse influences in my art, and if it's strictly from one culture, I'm not likely to love it.
Diversity is okay in itself, but more often than not it is achieved at expense of quality. It is also often done as pandering for people who actively looking at things to get offended at due to lack of eustress (as in positive, motivating stress) in their life. When the worthless product inevitably fails, the general audience is often to blame. That's the state of American media.
So, for those saying 'don't shove YOUR politics down my throat', I must hold back from being impolite and simply say 'uh, have you not noticed that the opposite was being shoved down everyone's throat since art first started pretty much??' As in, almost everything has been part of the same patriarchal establishment culture (and indoctrinated pretty much everyone into it ffs), and it's finally starting to change, and you accuse people that are literally trying to make the world a better place of ruining art, because they don't want to put up with the same regressive garbage that's been spewed at us for thousands of years???? Not to be rude, but there is no such thing as a neutral piece of art, and as such, if something isn't progressive, it's pretty much regressive. I'm bloody tired of seeing the same patriarchal and racist tropes in every bit of art, so the 'wokening' of the world's art scene has been quite invigorating.
Let me repeat myself:
Political acitvists' inabillity to let go of their religion/ideology is their problem and it should stay within them. Also again, they don't understand that there is much more to life than politics, and thus much more viable sources of inspiration.
There is also difference between influencing people by art/creating reaction by art and creating propaganda. That's again something wannabe artists and political activists doesn't understand very well.
You are spewing some NPC nonsense right there. Now, not that there is no patriarchy in this world, but I think you're looking at wrong society and wrong culture.
Who I am kidding, that's useless. There is no convincing political ideologs.
@O_Bruce "You don't understand. Using politics as a part of world building is okay. Using politics as a tool to create a plot is okay. Showing politics down to viewer's throat and telling him/her what to think is NOT (bonus points, blame viewers and call them trolls/russian bots/bigots/-ists if they don't like your bullcrap)."
This is a completely different argument. The previous claim was "Keep ALL politics out of art."
Allow me to correct myself. When people are saying "keep politics out of entertaiment/art" they do mean stop making a propaganda. Stop showing it to me. Don't tell me what I should think and don't shame me for daring to think otherwise. Etc. Fair enough?
If you forbid someone to be something just because you do not like his/her race, sex, age, place of birth, social stratum, sexual orientation, etc, you are objectively wrong. Period.
I'll pretend I didn't see this, and you'll pretend you meant a society blessed with overabundance of resources and absence of war
If you forbid someone to be something just because you do not like his/her race, sex, age, place of birth, social stratum, sexual orientation, etc, you are objectively wrong. Period.
I'll pretend I didn't see this, and you'll pretend you meant a society blessed with overabundance of resources and absence of war
If a bunch of people with no food or threatened by others decide to change things and fight, I can understand.
if a bunch of people start a war because some men like to sleep with other men, they are wrong, and are a bunch of jerks. No matter what.
...Really, Tetris is your grand play? For one thing, it's not remotely settled whether or not games even qualify as art in and of themselves (as in, there is usually art making up a game, but it's not settled whether what you made from a pile of art is itself art), but we'll just assume that yes, they count as art for this discussion, which is already an accommodation on my part. Do you know very much about Tetris? It's actually a Soviet game, and that alone gives it political significance, since the political world was pretty pervasive in the USSR, even later on. The very making of Tetris was of political significance, being an act of sedition at the least, and I'm really just scratching the surface. If you wish, you could actually look at the game's core parts, and you see you a puzzle game in which you want to NOT build something with the blocks provided, which is rather peculiar, and obviously you are trying to accumulate score. Lots could be elaborated on the concept alone of 'score', and how that relates to life in general, but I think one could make a few assertions about Tetris's politics, such as they are. One, you are trying to not accumulate clutter, suggesting an environmentalist view perhaps, though the various blocks could easily be understood to represent some of the variance in people in the world, and it teaches a very key point: If we keep getting only the same exact pieces over and over, we'll not be getting very far, unless we're getting literally square blocks, and playing Tetris with nothing but the square block sounds less than enthralling.
Erm, political activists literally by definition must not 'let go of their ideology', and no, it's not by any means always 'their problem'. When gay people are murdered for being gay, it's everyone's problem. If you can't see that, you probably aren't someone I can have a reasonable discussion with.
ROFL, did you just call me an NPC? Were you born this way or did you suffer repeated head trauma?
Whenever I hear someone arguing a certain piece of art (and by art I will include films, television, music, and games under the umbrella) is "shoving an agenda down their throat", I have to ask who and what is FORCING that person to continue watching, listening to, or playing it. I don't turn off "Heat" or "Varsity Blues" because I know Jon Voight is conservative and I'm liberal. I don't make it a point not to listen to Rush despite many of their lyrics being libertarian. I am 100% pro-choice, and the song "Bodies" by the Sex Pistols is the most virulently anti-abortion message imaginable. Guess what?? Still pretty awesome as the second track on a seminal record. I don't skip it. If people can't separate their enjoyment of art from their politics, they are in for a rough, rough time.
And yet, that is all I hear about nowadays. I have literally watched 30 minute Youtube videos of grown men complaining about how the She-Ra reboot on Netflix was some sort of lesbian indoctrination (as opposed to the sole purpose of the original in the '80s, which was to sell as many action figures to as many kids as possible). You can't release a game without being accused of having a political agenda. There isn't a single Steam forum for individual games that doesn't have a post on the front page that says something to the effect of "I heard this game has SJW themes, and I don't want to support it if that's true". This usually (in reality) translates to any game that features women in any role other than sex objects and makes even cursory allusions to real-life events.
A whole internet culture has sprung up of actively searching for any single thing in these mediums that can be construed as progressive or liberal and then going on a crusade against it until the next Friday when the next patch of movies and games come out that they can (supposedly) blacklist. And the mantra is always that something is being "shoved down their throats". My advise is to either grow up or find something else to pass your time. Because this constant high-alert vigilance for some sort of subliminal political agenda that may or may not actually exist has turned what once have may been a movement that had some legitimate points (though not many) into an absolute parody of itself.
Whenever I hear someone arguing a certain piece of art (and by art I will include films, television, music, and games under the umbrella) is "shoving an agenda down their throat", I have to ask who and what is FORCING that person to continue watching, listening to, or playing it.
How dare people who had dedicate time that could lead all the way up into the decades and money which could've add up to the thousands into a franchise, and then complain when a franchise stars cramming things into it that the fandom doesn't want there.
I don't turn off "Heat" or "Varsity Blues" because I know Jon Voight is conservative and I'm liberal. I don't make it a point not to listen to Rush despite many of their lyrics being libertarian. I am 100% pro-choice, and the song "Bodies" by the Sex Pistols is the most virulently anti-abortion message imaginable. Guess what?? Still pretty awesome as the second track on a seminal record. I don't skip it.
All that says is at least to you, they aren't sacrificing the MUSIC to push a narrative. That isn't true for everything, we've seen plenty of times in comics that they sacrifice telling a compelling story or even GOOD ART *coughswuirrelgirlcough* to the agenda.
And yet, that is all I hear about nowadays. I have literally watched 30 minute Youtube videos of grown men complaining about how the She-Ra reboot on Netflix was some sort of lesbian indoctrination (as opposed to the sole purpose of the original in the '80s, which was to sell as many action figures to as many kids as possible).
I don't know about all that, what I do know is the she-ra reboot showed the high level of hypocrisy people had, they attack anyone who didn't like the show for being grown men mad about a show "not for you" even going as far as claiming they were mad that they couldn't now sexual she-ra because she was underaged (hahaha they don't know the internet!)
Then turn around and sexuality the living *beep* out of catra and she-ra because they are gay for each other.
Oh that doesn't even begin to point out they did the exact same crap when the buffy and charmed reboot were talked about. They complained instead of shutting up because it wasn't for them!
There isn't a single Steam forum for individual games that doesn't have a post on the front page that says something to the effect of "I heard this game has SJW themes, and I don't want to support it if that's true". This usually (in reality) translates to any game that features women in any role other than sex objects and makes even cursory allusions to real-life events.
No clue about the first, I don't bother with most forums, but I'm willing to bet there's more to the question than that
A whole internet culture has sprung up of actively searching for any single thing in these mediums that can be construed as progressive or liberal and then going on a crusade against it until the next Friday when the next patch of movies and games come out that they can (supposedly) blacklist.
Except liberal isn't synonymous with SJW despite how the left especially the extreme left likes to pretend it is. And again, same thing happens with the other side, they hint down and attack anything they claim is problematic, even going as far as to attack the very minorities and women they claim to defend if they don't fall in line. I've literally dealt with it personally
And the mantra is always that something is being "shoved down their throats". My advise is to either grow up or find something else to pass your time. Because this constant high-alert vigilance for some sort of subliminal political agenda that may or may not actually exist has turned what once have may been a movement that had some legitimate points (though not many) into an absolute parody of itself.
I gotta ask, what points did they have that you actually thought was legitimate.
I never really got the impression that Adora and Catra had romantic feelings for each other. It always seemed like an extremely strong sisterly bond to me--there wasn't anything particularly romantic about their relationship I could find.
The only gay part of that show I noticed was Bow's dads.
Comments
Impossible. Life informs art and there is no way to completely divorce the two. Usually when people say this, what they mean is, "Stop putting politics in that I disagree with."
You don't understand. Using politics as a part of world building is okay. Using politics as a tool to create a plot is okay. Showing politics down to viewer's throat and telling him/her what to think is NOT (bonus points, blame viewers and call them trolls/russian bots/bigots/-ists if they don't like your bullcrap).
Sure, life informs art, but there is more than enough themes to explore to make an interesting story. Life is not limited to worthless politics propagated by even more worthless people.
I like the Law and order series because they often show both sides in the same episode.
As for older shows, the Simpsons and South Park have been openly political for decades, and while folks disagree with the politics, it doesn't seem to break immersion. PC Principal from South Park is a parody of "my side," but that doesn't make him any less hilarious.
In a drama series or newsfeed they will have the hate brigade storming the castle the next morning, advertisers leaving the tv channel and the showrunners sued to infinity and beyond.
I still remember some stupid social media backslash against when that Avatar chick dated another girl in the end series of Avatar: the legend of Korra. My eyes rolled so far back into my head that I could see my hypothalamus belching.
It's rarely "stop putting politics I don't agree with" and actually usually, "stop shoving your politics down my throat"
But I digress, this isn't a political topic but a cartoon.
I want drawn together to return
Which is why I recommend everyone to vote with their wallet and spend on Japanese products instead. Not that I especially liked Western cartoon/comic art style to begin with, though. Older Disney productions have been nice, but the superhero style just feels like caricature to me. And the more recent 3D... nope, just nope.
I actually dislike anime are or more than super hero art.
Every story is naturally going to be somewhat open to interpretation, and there is certainly no guarantee that the exact message that the artist(s) meant to send gets received, but you will always get something out of it, for good or ill.
Now, there I do agree preachy art is about as painful as a root canal, but that's usually because it's actually bad art, because things like what actually works story-wise gets ignored in favour of what fits the desired message, and thus these are generally atrocious. It's one reason I think why more people ultimately like Star Wars, it's way less preachy than Star Trek.
I think the general quality of pop art has actually grown significantly during my life; tbh, most things are more polished, and are made with a better understanding of what is popular. Yet, at the same time, we have way more niche art products than ever before, and even very peculiar tastes can find things to enjoy at this point. I think cartoons have definitely improved more than most things, but even if you compare the pop of different eras, the 90s doesn't actually seem that strong. It's when I was growing up, so I have some serious nostalgia, but I think it's clear that lots of what I loved as a child was very problematic, and this is an area that has improved more than I would have really expected, our art is quite a bit more tolerant, and less hate-filled overall. We still get stupid, violent movies, but they are now pretty niche genre-wise, and usually the ones that aren't progressive are made by small studios with small budgets, rather than being the big tentpoles of the day like they were. It is kinda shocking to watch older movies sometimes, how literally baked into the culture the racism was sometimes.
Things like increased diversity in storytelling are really wonderful, such as companies finally making big projects based around non-white cis straight men, and I see this as a big improvement. Bits and pieces of other cultures are gradually showing up in American media, another big plus. I like diverse influences in my art, and if it's strictly from one culture, I'm not likely to love it.
So, for those saying 'don't shove YOUR politics down my throat', I must hold back from being impolite and simply say 'uh, have you not noticed that the opposite was being shoved down everyone's throat since art first started pretty much??' As in, almost everything has been part of the same patriarchal establishment culture (and indoctrinated pretty much everyone into it ffs), and it's finally starting to change, and you accuse people that are literally trying to make the world a better place of ruining art, because they don't want to put up with the same regressive garbage that's been spewed at us for thousands of years???? Not to be rude, but there is no such thing as a neutral piece of art, and as such, if something isn't progressive, it's pretty much regressive. I'm bloody tired of seeing the same patriarchal and racist tropes in every bit of art, so the 'wokening' of the world's art scene has been quite invigorating.
This is a completely different argument. The previous claim was "Keep ALL politics out of art."
It am myself equally annoyed when ecologists are portrayed always in series as ecoterrorists and antisystem that had to be stopped at all costs, latino burglars, west-europe gangs; when Korra have a girlfriend and mums all over the world got angry and spew lot of media nonsense, saying "mi kids will not watch this cartoon", how the greenpeace-friendly "captain planet" was cancelled because "give the wrong message to our children", or when series like "Sailor moon" were chopped ( There were a lesbian couple in the series and because that was "innapropiate" they changed them to cousins in the english/spanish dubbing, turning a normal couple into incest
As you said, yeah, over-political art works can be masterpieces: Fahrenheit 451, Brave new world, 1984, the comics Maus: a survivor´s tale or Animal farm( I loved the movie too), but you have to be a hell of an artist. It is like the mary sue and gary stu tropes, you have to be Patrick Rothfuss, Bukowski or Vargas Llosa. There is a high chance that you are going to create pure trash and also piss off plenty of people in the process if not.
I think my problem with the politics issue is that frankly, one of the sides is actually objectively wrong, and that is the regressive side that always tries to manipulate the population into adopting patriarchal establishment views. Conservatism isn't inherently evil, but boy does it ever have a lot of 'evil adjacent' stuff associated with it, such as misogyny, racism, etc. As such, I really don't want the bulk of the art I consume to be that kind of art; I love fantasy, but I've not watched any GoT yet, and don't know if I'll bother, because it sounds really regressive, and apparently the ending was borked. Despite being problematic, it was a big hit, but so was Black Panther, and despite the foundation of Iron Man (which is hella problematic btw, despite being very entertaining), the MCU is pretty progressive, so there is proof that progressive ideas can actually help fill seats.
I think Captain Planet was probably canceled because it was a boring show, I only watched it if I had literally nothing else to do. It was world's better than The Smoggies, which might have made me into a conservative in my youth, it was such a painful show to watch. I think they secretly were trying to make environmentalism as uncool to kids as they possibly could, but this is just a conspiracy theory of mine. It does explain why those shows were all really bad, but there are other explanations for that I think.
I think if you made a 'Sue' character, even a decent idea can be made shitty, but this isn't because the idea itself of having a purpose for art is bad, it's because whomever was creating the art did a bad job, and made unpleasant art. Neither side has a monopoly on bad art, but I have more patience for bad art that's coming from a truly good place. Children however are not very forgiving of art that isn't 'fun', and they'll watch another show I'd expect. If I or my friends thought a show was preachy, we avoided it religiously. To manipulate children it seems a certain amount of subtlety is required, as well as quality (well, of a kind).
To sum up, I have big issues with bad politics in art (specifically if negative behaviours are either portrayed glamorously, or are rewarded in universe), and I also have a dislike for bad art in general. I still consume plenty of unhealthy art, I just tend to be more aware of it when I do. I don't think it's reasonable to expect art to not have an agenda, and what I perceive to be the agenda of a piece of art will impact whether or not I seek it out.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I do knot know, I watched the GOT series´ first seasons. Not bad. I just knew what was going to happen because of the books and stopped; but they say GOT series are OK. Besides the last season that even the actors do not like. You seldom,if ever see so many actors be so vocal about some series that finished and have spinoffs ready.
Fortunately in this century there are more strong female leads in cartoons and movies. Elena of Avalor, Kim Possible, Ladybug, Brave, Wonder woman...
Also many male characters that have the women fight for them. Many non-traditional familes or couples are also portrayed, something that was not possible before.
Funnily enough, many of them come from Disney, the company who was ( with mattel and barbies) the epitome of misoginia in the past century.
Not perfect but at least you have some healthy role models. At least better than the youtubers most teens are addicted to. Some of them are so awful that I do not know where to start.
What political messages does Tetris provide? Thought so.
Political acitvists' inabillity to let go of their religion/ideology is their problem and it should stay within them. Also again, they don't understand that there is much more to life than politics, and thus much more viable sources of inspiration.
There is also difference between influencing people by art/creating reaction by art and creating propaganda. That's again something wannabe artists and political activists doesn't understand very well.
Diversity is okay in itself, but more often than not it is achieved at expense of quality. It is also often done as pandering for people who actively looking at things to get offended at due to lack of eustress (as in positive, motivating stress) in their life. When the worthless product inevitably fails, the general audience is often to blame. That's the state of American media.
Let me repeat myself:
You are spewing some NPC nonsense right there. Now, not that there is no patriarchy in this world, but I think you're looking at wrong society and wrong culture.
Who I am kidding, that's useless. There is no convincing political ideologs.
Allow me to correct myself. When people are saying "keep politics out of entertaiment/art" they do mean stop making a propaganda. Stop showing it to me. Don't tell me what I should think and don't shame me for daring to think otherwise. Etc. Fair enough?
What's especially hilarious is that its last messages were also about politics
I'll pretend I didn't see this, and you'll pretend you meant a society blessed with overabundance of resources and absence of war
@semiticgod don't blame me, I tried to pull it back.
if a bunch of people start a war because some men like to sleep with other men, they are wrong, and are a bunch of jerks. No matter what.
Erm, political activists literally by definition must not 'let go of their ideology', and no, it's not by any means always 'their problem'. When gay people are murdered for being gay, it's everyone's problem. If you can't see that, you probably aren't someone I can have a reasonable discussion with.
ROFL, did you just call me an NPC? Were you born this way or did you suffer repeated head trauma?
For the rest of people here, I apologize for getting it off-topic.
And yet, that is all I hear about nowadays. I have literally watched 30 minute Youtube videos of grown men complaining about how the She-Ra reboot on Netflix was some sort of lesbian indoctrination (as opposed to the sole purpose of the original in the '80s, which was to sell as many action figures to as many kids as possible). You can't release a game without being accused of having a political agenda. There isn't a single Steam forum for individual games that doesn't have a post on the front page that says something to the effect of "I heard this game has SJW themes, and I don't want to support it if that's true". This usually (in reality) translates to any game that features women in any role other than sex objects and makes even cursory allusions to real-life events.
A whole internet culture has sprung up of actively searching for any single thing in these mediums that can be construed as progressive or liberal and then going on a crusade against it until the next Friday when the next patch of movies and games come out that they can (supposedly) blacklist. And the mantra is always that something is being "shoved down their throats". My advise is to either grow up or find something else to pass your time. Because this constant high-alert vigilance for some sort of subliminal political agenda that may or may not actually exist has turned what once have may been a movement that had some legitimate points (though not many) into an absolute parody of itself.
All that says is at least to you, they aren't sacrificing the MUSIC to push a narrative. That isn't true for everything, we've seen plenty of times in comics that they sacrifice telling a compelling story or even GOOD ART *coughswuirrelgirlcough* to the agenda.
That statement works both ways, not just for the consumer.
I don't know about all that, what I do know is the she-ra reboot showed the high level of hypocrisy people had, they attack anyone who didn't like the show for being grown men mad about a show "not for you" even going as far as claiming they were mad that they couldn't now sexual she-ra because she was underaged (hahaha they don't know the internet!)
Then turn around and sexuality the living *beep* out of catra and she-ra because they are gay for each other.
Oh that doesn't even begin to point out they did the exact same crap when the buffy and charmed reboot were talked about. They complained instead of shutting up because it wasn't for them!
And you couldn't release a game without it being problematic in one way or another, that works against both groups.
No clue about the first, I don't bother with most forums, but I'm willing to bet there's more to the question than that
Except liberal isn't synonymous with SJW despite how the left especially the extreme left likes to pretend it is. And again, same thing happens with the other side, they hint down and attack anything they claim is problematic, even going as far as to attack the very minorities and women they claim to defend if they don't fall in line. I've literally dealt with it personally
I gotta ask, what points did they have that you actually thought was legitimate.
The only gay part of that show I noticed was Bow's dads.