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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28124 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 2025

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Good Fortune? Or Bad Omens

The next great survey is about to begin. As with all meaningful social opinions, it will be measured in money. The film Good Fortune will be on us tomorrow and soon we shall know if America is ready to be willing to be seen with Aziz Ansari publicly after finding out how bad he is at sex.

My leaning was weak financial performance but decent enough, even at a net loss to the studio, to let Ansari continue awkwardly sidling back into our homes. After the Riyadh Comedy Festival, I've downgraded my forecast to a bomb.

I also predict that Ansari is going to be the last of the non-incarcerated tranche of MeToo celebrities to be fully acceptable in far blue society. People involved in worse will do better. Women won't like getting close enough to risk touching the ick field Ansari is coated in and, while funny and obviously well connected, he can't make something essential enough to overcome that reaction.

What say you, entertainment industry financial forecast specialists?

I had the misfortune of seeing it yesterday. I went in largely blind, after my cousin's fiancée got us free tickets.

It was so bad I'd have paid money not to watch it. I settled for using my phone through most of the movie, and taking a long toilet break.

It was creatively bankrupt, further reinforced that Keanu has the emotional range of the plank from Ed, Edd and Eddie, and that I was right not to watch anything else with Ansari in it. The movie is best summarized as distilled cringe, and the anti-capitalist message is laid on so thick you don't need any toast.

Based on reviews I've seen Good Fortune is also very tired anti-capitalist drivel, and I'd wager the kind of person still going to movies is not exactly receptive to that. But simultaneously that is a tried & trusted approach to rehabilitation in leftist circles, so even a bomb might still be worth it for him.

I barely remember who this guy is, does it really mean anything if his project tanks?

I barely remember who this guy is, does it really mean anything if his project tanks?

I argue yes. This is the Culture War and who gets to make cultural artifacts with massive amounts of money involved is a major front.

It's my assertion that Ansari is a good measuring stick precisely because his offense was relatively trivial. If the film succeeds, MeToo in the mainstream narrative is effectively dead. If it fails, at a minimum Ansari is the new line. The film itself is allegedly around average, underperformance is likely a strong signal from the distributed voting mechanism that is ticket sales that doing as Aziz does is still verboten. Doing better than bad would also be a signal. Producers and distributors react accordingly. The media environment changes.

See, even in the Culture War thread hardly anyone remembers this guy.

I just don't think the guy was ever relevant enough to be this kind of barometer, and I question whether anyone who doesn't partake in threads like this even remembers this story.

Aziz Ansari was always a confusing pelt on the MeToo wall. Firstly, is he even good? I haven't been entertained by him in a long time, if ever. His Parks and Rec character was easily one of the blandest and most boring on a decent but not great show. What else is even his claim to fame? Next his creepy thing was just kinda odd IIRC, but I never really dove into it, him being quite irrelevant to me at the time.

Perhaps someone who was once an Ansari fan can enlighten us as to what we have lost without him for a few years?

He was briefly one of the most prominent Indian people in American showbiz, which was important because the actual most prominent Indian guy was Raj from the Big Bang Theory.

What's wrong with the Raj actor?

TBBT is declasse slop playing to tired stereotypes, unlike the heckin' progressive and intellectual Parks and Rec.

Master of None was a solid early Netflix original even if the later seasons went off the rails in an attempt to atone for his sin by centering random POC lesbians.

IMO the episode with the parents in the first season one of the better affective.

He's got a sufficient force of minorities in this that he probably won't have lingering cancellation effects here, but also not expecting it to sweep the box office and win an Oscar. Probably does okay?

What

What exactly are you asking? Are you confused? Are you not sure what the OP is asking? Do you not know any of the referenced details? Are you just trying to express disdain for the topic in the lowest effort way possible?

The comment lacked a lot of background information that would be necessary to have a decent conversation without many people googling around. Which isn't against the rules, but we get used to Top Level Comments providing/linking to background information.

It was also phrased weirdly and I had to do a double take to see that Good Fortune wasn't a ship but a movie.

I believe I speak for much of the community here when I say the answer to every one of your questions is: ”Yes”.

Something something building consensus, but, uh, +1.

My best guess is that OP is referencing some old CW battle (about a media personality who got cancelled?) and thinks that the personality's imminent comeback will "separate the goats from the sheep"/reveal people's true sentiments on something (hence "survey"), but yeah, I would like to see less of that sort of iykyk posting. The style seems be more in line with rDrama or Kiwifarms, that is, places where encyclopedically keeping track of obscure beefs conveys status.

I have literally no idea what anything in the OP is about.

Novel information? On my internet?

I, too, have literally no idea what I just read

I think he should have spelled it "wut" for maximum effect.

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