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Notes -
Moving this here (rather late) on suggestion of the mods, with some added expansion:
Does anyone else see the way various people on the American left, particularly left leaning media, have been doubling down on "Trump is Hitler," "Harris ran a flawless campaign," "the voters are just sexist, racist, stupid, and evil," and so on, and that they shouldn't change policies to win over voters, except maybe by moving even further leftward (again, I'm on Tumblr, so I get plenty of this from ordinary D voters coming across my dash; there's also the Youtubers seen in this video for one) as part of an overall "strategy" by the left that strongly parallels the behaviors in recent years of "woke Hollywood" and game studios? That is, use identity politics as a tool to paint critics and opponents as bigots ('you don't hate our all-female reboot because it's a soulless cash grab with lousy writing and acting, you're just a sexist', 'you didn't vote for Kamala only because you hate blacks and/or women,' etc). "Schrödinger's critics": your opposition is just a few unimportant bigots who don't represent the audience/electorate and don't really matter; but when your movie/game/candidate flops, it's because of the immense power those same opponents have over the viewers/players/voters. The problem is that too many people are listening to fringe voices (whether that's YouTube movie critics, video game reviewers on Twitch, or 'purveyors of right wing misinformation' like Fox News and x.com), instead of professional, establishment movie critics/game journalists/political commentators; and we need to figure out how to mute those fringe voices. Taking your established fanbase/demographics for granted, and excoriate them if their support starts to wane ('how can you call yourself a Tolkien fan and not watch Rings of Power?' 'Sure, the Democrat party's policies do nothing for you, but you have to vote blue no matter who anyway' [a position I've seen left-wing YouTubers state in response to the election]).
Sure, the idea that "the customer is always right" — even if you append the qualifier "…in matters of taste" — is one that the "creative industries" have always struggled with. The purity of one's artistic vision versus "selling out" in order to make a living is a perennial tension. And similarly with electoral politics. Parties abandoning all principles in naked pursuit of the median voter turns electoral politics into a modern spectator sport, with the parties reduced to different colored jerseys with different mascots, and all that matters is that "your" team win the next game. ("Who will win the trophy this year, Team Elephant, or Team Donkey?") But, on the other hand, if a party wants to actually accomplish things in line with those principles, they have to win elections. Movie studios need to have people pay to watch their movies, so they can afford to make more, or else they'll go out of business.
In short, that you, the filmmaker/game studio/Democratic party, don't answer to your audience/voters, the audience/voters answer to you. You do not have to earn their dollars/votes, you are entitled to them, and if they aren't buying what you're selling, then they're wrong, and the strategy is to lecture them on what horrible bigots they are until they start watching your movie/playing your game/voting Democrat. And calling anyone who disagrees with you a fascist. (That "Unfortunately, this decision affects the wrong people" bit is wild coming from those making the decision in question — as if they have no agency over this decision, but it is instead somehow just a natural consequence somehow emerging automatically.) As Jim put it: "Doing an audit of federal government expenditures is the death of democracy, and doing a customer survey is openly fascist."
Even shorter: it's treating that Simpsons bit with Principal Skinner that's become a meme — "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong." — as a marketing/campaign strategy.
I don't intend this to sound condescending, but this parallel has been so obvious to me for probably the better part of a decade by now, that I'm surprised that someone on TheMotte would only notice it now. Though perhaps it actually speaks ill of me and my hobby of paying attention to the culture wars around popular media that I noticed the parallels so early and found it so obvious.
The all-woman Ghostbusters remake came out in 2016, almost a full decade ago, and that was one of the earlier big examples of the whole "we didn't fail the audience; the sexist, misogynistic audience failed us by not giving us money to spend 2 hours watching our film" narrative being made. That was 2 years after Gamergate, which wasn't quite that specifically, but it was a major flashpoint in video game culture where major video game journalists, devs, and commentators were explicitly telling their customers that their tastes were wrong, and that they had a responsibility to submit to the enlightened, correct tastes of the then "social justice" (equivalent to "woke" today) crowd. This knocked over some dominoes that resulted in many video games designed to appeal to that SocJus crowd being released 5-10 years later, i.e. the last 5 years. Examples of these include failures like Concord or Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League from last year, as well as successes like The Last of Us: Part 2 and God of War: Ragnarok (I suspect that it's not a coincidence that these successes were both sequels to hugely popular games that built on a strong base).
In film, besides 2016's Ghostbusters, 2017's The Last Jedi, as well as most Star Wars works that followed, and 2019's Captain Marvel, as well as most Marvel movies that followed, were major examples of this phenomenon. And though many of these films did fine or even great in the box office, they had plenty of controversy around more old-school fans reacting negatively to various plot points and characterizations, and then being called bigots in return both by filmmakers and commentators. There were smaller examples as well, such as Terminator: Dark Fate or the Charlie's Angels remake-remake, both of which bombed in 2019.
A big part of it, I think, is that SocJus mentality, of all of reality being dominated by power differentials, and as such, each individual of [demographic] is necessarily disadvantaged compared to each individual of [some other demographic]. This means that if that individual of [demographic] fails or just doesn't succeed as much as they imagine an individual of [some other demographic] would have, then their failure is due to the bigoted society that created these power dynamics that made them disadvantaged, rather than due to that individual's own flaws. This, of course, is how millionaire stars can claim to be lacking in "privilege" - the claim isn't that they're not wildly successful, but rather that they aren't as wildly successful as an equivalent person of [some other demographic] would have been. Also of course, this is completely unfalsifiable.
And if you approach things with that mindset, that belonging to [demographic] means that any failure is due to the structural bigotry that reinforces the power dynamics of society, then naturally, when your film/video game/electoral candidate fails, you're going to blame structural bigotry. I.e. your audience, the gamers, the voters.
Also of course, if you just blame external factors, it hampers your ability to self-improve. But you can still succeed as long as all those external factors submit to your demands; if calling someone racist can get them to buy your game, then that's just as good as just making a better game. In practice, this doesn't really work. But the people making these decisions seem to be in echo chambers where calling people racist does get them to submit to their demands. And while everyone lives in echo chambers to some extent, the left/progressive/Democratic crowd has been very openly and very explicitly calling for strengthening the boundaries of their own echo chambers through censorship of opposing voices. Which leads them to model the general audience very poorly. Which costs you money. If you have a big bankroll, you can keep going with that for a while, but eventually, that money runs out. I think 2024 was a big year for when many of these decision makers finally recognized that they were able to see the bottom of the barrel of money they've been feeding their projects. In video games, we might see an actual closure of Ubisoft this year, depending on how their next Assassin's Creed game - one that had direct inspiration from the BLM riots of 2020 according to a developer, IIRC - does, after the mediocre reception of their Star Wars game last year.
I wonder if the Democrats will eventually have a moment when the stark reality of their failures simply can't be tolerated anymore, resulting in a change in tact. I was hopeful right after the election last year, but most signs since then have made me pessimistic. I just hope it comes sooner than later, because, as bad as SocJus is, I fully expect Republicans to be just as bad if they find that they have nearly unchecked power without a strong opposition party.
Probably not coincidence that both are also substantially weaker than their part ones.
It is understandably shocking to sexists and racists that one cannot, in fact, make successful media based solely on those hatreds.
Most sexists/racists have seen [classical] liberal media built on spewing hate at them and be overwhelmingly popular, and they think they can do the same thing by spewing hate back at the liberals. (Progressives have a larger blind spot here because some of them think they really are liberals- they're not, they just borrow the name.)
The problem is that the reason liberal media works and progressive media doesn't is that the hatred isn't made core to the experience. Contrast Alien (or to a point, Terminator), where it isn't played or intended as subversive to have a woman in those roles, to Ghostbusters 3 or Star Wars 7-9, where it is.
It would be just as unsatisfying if it were a man in those roles- so the only reason to cast a woman in those roles, and people watching pick this up pretty quickly- is to rely on the hatred (a subset of subversiveness) to carry it.
I've made this point before for "child vs. adult media", but most of the same points apply. If you have a strong skeleton with your views painted onto it- and liberal views have an advantage because having liberal views tends to make it easier to build a strong skeleton- you'll succeed; but if you start with the views you'll generally fail unless your views are actually correct. And in the progressive case, they're not.
Compare Far Cry 5 (that understood how to do a conservative-coded villain group correctly) with Far Cry 6 (that took "conservative coded = bad" for granted)- in both cases, you're attacking a conservative-coded group, but 5 is "defend the innocents directly from insanity" where 6 is "abstract Cuba revolution cosplay, also wheelchair dog, the meme ending is the most engaging way to play the game (rather than in 4 and 5 where it's merely the most realistic option)".
I have been meaning to make a post about this on the Friday Fun Thread for a while, but I will just make it here. I don’t think Far Cry 5 meant to make a commentary about America or American politics, I think that was something it accidentally stumbled into by virtue of releasing around the time Trump started to become a controversial figure. Video games have long development cycles of around three to five years.
I think Far Cry 5 was about Syria and ISIS, and attempting to put the conflict in terms and visuals Americans can understand. It’s about a radical group with a bespoke, radical eschatological interpretation of an already existing religion that seizes an area by force and tries to impose that vision.
There are a lot of parallels between Eden’s Gate and the events of Far Cry 5 that parallel ISIS and Syria. Notice:
-Eden’s Gate’s black flag with white lettering, like the ISIS battle flag
-The white Toyota technicals they both use as their primary combat vehicle
-The bizarre inhuman torture and execution methods that seem weirdly sadistic and lurid for a group claiming to be faith based
-The mandatory politically correct disclaimer by the developers that this group does not represent the religion as a whole: the multiple scenes where the Catholic priest is obviously disgusted by Eden’s Gate, and the scene where the cult members literally knock a Bible out of his hands and force him to hold the cult leader’s manifesto instead. Odd for a game made by liberals that is supposed to be dunking on conservative Christians but perfect sense for a game that is supposed to an allegory for ISIS and it’s questionable relation with mainline Islam.
-The government’s complete lack of interest in dealing with the cult despite its violent insurgent behavior, with government intervention limited to a few special forces troops dropped in by helicopter and one CIA agent to assist. The lack of ATF involvement or the national guard showing up in force makes no sense for a game that’s supposed to be set in America but it makes perfect sense as a commentary about Western governments initially giving very little help in fighting ISIS. The CIA officer even specifically says the American government isn’t interested in helping much because it’s too busy with domestic political squabbles like verifying the authenticity of Trump’s alleged pee tape.
-The uniforms and Soviet era weaponry of the friendly militia that helps you fight the cult look strikingly like the Kurdish paramilitary units that were holding back ISIS in Northern Syria. The fact that there even is a “friendly paramilitary militia” that’s unambiguously played as good guys would seem extremely odd for a liberal critique of rural America.
-SPOILERS: The fact that this cult in the middle of some Montana county is somehow (at least metaphorically) destabilizing world geopolitics to the point of a potential world ending nuclear war.
You’re right though, Far Cry 6 is just politically and narrative schizophrenic garbage.
It’s interesting, this is similar to my impression of the 2024 film Civil War. A lot of ink was spilled speculating about the degree to which it was an anti-Trump or anti-right-wing film, and criticizing the implausibility of the different coalitions in the civil war. (“Why are Texas and California allied? Don’t these dummies know that California and Texas are politically opposed to each other?”) When to me the film clearly seemed to want to capture the sense of fish-out-of-water befuddlement that journalists experience covering foreign war zones.
Some American journalist covering a civil war in some random African country is sure to have the same sense of “What the fuck is even happening here? Why is the Kibunda tribe allied with the Yojinga tribe, when all my research says these two groups have longstanding enmity toward each other? Why do any of these groups care about these obscure disputes, and why are they willing to kill each other (and innocents) and wreck their countries over something that, to an outsider, seems petty and incomprehensible?” I think the screenwriter wanted to get Americans to consider that their own country’s internal politics aren’t immune to being seen in this same way. To put it in terms Americans can relate to. Just like with that movie though, it sounds like Far Cry 5 hit a little too close to home and people weren’t able to view if with any sort of distance or detachment from current hot-button issues.
My impression on Civil War was that the director understood, quite wisely, that most people wanted a movie that flattered their partisan identity, where what he wanted to show was what an actual civil war would mean for America on a concrete, day-to-day level. He makes the factions a nonsense hodgepodge because he doesn't want people to frame every single thing he depicts as "their wretched villainy/our righteous triumph." By invalidating everything we know or suspect about America's actual geographical fault-lines, he throws people into a limbo where, while groping around for some sense of what's going on, they might actually view the events he depicts with something approaching objectivity.
If that was the plan, though, it didn't seem to work for most people I've seem commentating, who were mostly upset that they didn't get the partisan propaganda they were looking for.
Also, the conventional wisdom about American geographic fault lines is wrong- ideological conflict would be a window dressing for realpolitik interests in an actual federal state failure condition. There’s some baked i with the inter mountain west getting oppressed by the coast, but no inherent reason that the heartland would side with one or the other.
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