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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35417 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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I'm still wondering what got Amazon hooked to a billion dollar disaster. After all initial (imo misplaced) optimism, analysts are finally coming out and saying the quiet part out loud: it is not the ground breaking masterpiece they need it to be. Even HoD is performing better and is better received. Both are prequels to very popular IPs, but Rings of Power should be pulling enormous numbers given how expensive it is, and how extensive its marketing was. Despite worsening performance with every episode, they just renewed it for season 2. This wasn't a small and calculated risk, they literally staked the future of their whole studio on this show. What made them think hiring subpar writers, rewriting lore, rewriting characters of one of the most popular fantasy IPs while simultaneously drafting off of the brand was a good idea? It feels like the motive isn't even to make money but solely to push an agenda, but who would do that? Given the sheer scale of the project, I just cannot believe any studio would be so careless as to commit such a serious misfire.

What made them think hiring subpar writers, rewriting lore, rewriting characters of one of the most popular fantasy IPs while simultaneously drafting off of the brand was a good idea? It feels like the motive isn't even to make money but solely to push an agenda, but who would do that?

I don't think they thought they were hiring subpar writers. I think they just have a different measure of what a quality writer is compared to the general public. When people who push this sort of agenda say that having representation of people of certain races/genders/sexualities makes a piece of fiction better, I think they actually believe it. They really do believe that if you take an existing successful franchise and tack on a story that appeals to such sensibilities with diverse characters or allegorical plot threads, it makes the work, in some real meaningful way, better. And thus hopefully more successful. And so they prioritize doing just that.

But, of course, there's no such thing as prioritizing everything at once. If you prioritize the messaging, you necessarily put less priority on the actual quality of the work in terms of things like world building, character development, interesting plot, etc. And making a good TV show isn't easy; you can't just de-prioritize those things and expect to end up with good results. But, again, the people making this stuff genuinely believe that the messaging is what makes the TV show good. There's much to be skeptical about when it comes to the narrative of Hollywood/filmmaking leftists being too far in their own echo chambers to understand what appeals to the general public, but the more I observe the leftist echo chambers in my own environments, the more I can believe in such a narrative.

Of course, such delusional beliefs do have to encounter the stark reality of revenue and watch numbers, but culture like this tends to turn slowly, and there's enough money to keep them afloat and going. And the always-dependable narrative that "we didn't fail the audience; the bigoted audience failed us by refusing to watch our show" (examples abound, but the recent Billy Eichner movie comes to mind, as well as the Charlie's Angels reboot-reboot from a couple years back), followed by "but next time, as the march of progress continues on and our side gets more and more vindicated as being the right side of history, the audience will be receptive to our correct notion of what constitutes quality."

I've never much been swayed by the argument that my enemies aren't evil, they're just stupid. But you gave it a real effort, so bravo.

User has received 7 day temp ban for this post. Personal attacks aren't acceptable.

Edit: My bad, I misread this post. User has been unbanned.

The post implied "you gave a real effort towards calling your enemies stupid". You seem to have read it as "you gave a real effort towards demonstrating your stupidity", which is not what it was saying.

Ya this is how I misread it, decision reversed. Thanks for pointing out the mistake.

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