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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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It occurred to me recently that while I've seen a great many shows/movies/etc about prejudice/tribalism/bigotry/etc, none of them reflect the kind of dynamics I've seen in the culture war. The closest things I've seen were The Hunt, a completely non-allegorical satire of current day social dynamics, and "The Great Divide," a filler episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's hard to identify what phenomena I want reflected in this kind of story, but one of the most distinct aspects of our current polarization is how the dominant tribe justifies its antipathy towards the opposing tribe by accusing it of bigotry. Dehumanization isn't unusual, but dehumanizing people by accusing them of dehumanization seems novel. Or at least, novel enough that I haven't seen it outside of a South Park episode (The Death Camp of Tolerance) that treated the concept as inherently absurd because, at the time the episode was made, it still seemed outside the realm of possibility.

Do you guys know any good works of fiction that depict bigotry similar to that we've seen in America over the past decade? I don't necessarily mean stories where one group accuses the other of being bigoted. Just anything that leaps out to you as similar.

Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” is famously about white supremacists who envy black bodies while denigrating black minds. A true horror delight, and definitely Culture War fodder. His “Us” and “Nope” are less on the nose for your request, both terrific filmmaking in and of themselves, but also worth watching for what they have to say about the black experience/The Struggle.

The rather confusing hextuple film “Cloud Atlas” is what drove home for me the concept of privilege, but also how much social justicers want to be The Ally Who Helps Oppressed Group Get Unoppressed.

I saw Get Out and loved it. I don't think what I got out of it is the same as what everyone else got out of it, judging by other peoples' reactions to it and even what other people have directly told me, but I did love it. I should see the other movies you've mentioned. Thank you.

I saw the symbolism in Get Out, but I got more out of it as a sci-fi horror film dealing with the nature of brains and minds. I’ve always loved body transformation stories, and fantastic tales about what nerve networks can actually do, and this scratched one itch while giving a delightful ick factor to the other. I enjoyed “Nope” even more.

Have you seen Being John Malkovich? The central plot device is the same as that in Get Out, but the themes of the film are different.

That was the film which gave me an appreciation for John Cusack; I think I’ve seen it thrice.

I see no correlation between these two life-extension films, even though apparently there are links such as one actress being in both films. One was a magical realism story where the mechanism is mystical and the multi-person possession target is apparently random; the other is barely squishy hard SF where the mechanism is bloody and the single-person possession targets are kidnapped for their physical attributes.

If anything, I see more in common with both in 2011’s In Time where the rich buy time to live and the poor have to beg or steal it.