This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Last year, a new film adaptation of The Three Musketeers came out. (French, Part 1, Part 2)
I watched Part 1 first; the fight scenes are amazing. The scene of the arranged duel between D'Artagnan and the three musketeers that turns into a brawl with the Cardinal's men is particularly fantastic. The style has a flavor of Cinéma vérité in that it's a continuous and somewhat shaky take from a point of view of an unseen witness who keeps turning to catch the action while ducking away from danger, but it deviates from Cinéma vérité in that everyone fighting is super-competent. In this seemingly-continuous shot, one catches glimpse of feats of martial arts moves, all geared towards dispatching the enemy, none are for show. It's very cool and impressive, and worth watching for that scene alone.
Every film adaptation makes decisions about how much of the original material to use, and how closely to stick to the plot. When it does, that's a deliberate choice on the part of those who made the film. Sometimes it's a little change: Porthos is bi; Constance is not married and yet runs a hostel while working in the queen's chambers. It's annoying to have such present-day sensibilities undermine the portrayal of a society very different from mine, but I figured that at least these changes didn't utterly contradict an essential part of the story.
And then I watched Part 2.
Milady from the book is one of my favorite villains. She is smart, adaptable, ruthless, resourceful, flawed, vicious, and above all feminine. She wields femininity as a weapon far more effective then mere swords and muskets. Why dirty your hands, when you can manipulate men to do it for you?
In this adaptation, Milady is a sword-wielding girl-boss.
When an otherwise-good adaptation takes an awesome feminine villain and replaces her with someone who might as well be a man, that's a deliberate choice. That choice dismisses the idea that femininity can be dangerous to one's enemies or efficacious for achieving one's goals. It's therefore ironic that the people who made this choice consider it a feminist move.
Fiction is not associative: strong (female character) != (strong female) character.
From my understanding, currently feminist deny there is anything female-coded women are better at. Not that femininity can be used for good or bad, rather they demand be erased. I think this is why cultural products from the more feminists countries, such as the US, feature mannish-looking women, acting in a masculine manner.
If they were to admit that women posses certain strengths which men lack, it would naturally to the question of existence of male strengths which women lack.
I don't want to get too bogged down in the object level discussion of Aloy, but I think her having peach fuzz is a defensible choice. In our world, there are products to remove such hair. But Aloy is living in a post-apocalyptic world in 3040, isn't she? It's not hard to believe at all that grooming habits have changed, and women with peach fuzz just leave it as is.
Honestly, this kind of thing is something that takes me out of a lot of media. While we know that the Romans were big about hair removal, we also know plenty of ancient societies that weren't, and it's always strange to see "cave man" media where the women look like they stepped out of a modern Instagram photo, with shaved legs and armpits. I think a lot of creators across time have been cowards, unwilling to contend with the fact that humans are all, men and women, hairy apes.
At the risk of sounding like a pervert, I associate that peach fuzz with some pretty good memories. In particular, a couple of my more innocent exes had some light fuzz, but because they were relative ingenues they hadn’t absorbed the cultural messaging around hair removal. So I associate it with a certain kind of wholesome unaffected young womanhood.
When I read the first sentence I thought you were going an entirely different direction with that. Either way it’s based
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link