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Notes -
Into the Spider-Verse was my favorite movie of 2018. I only found out this year that one of the film's directors was someone whose values are antithetical to everything I believe and as harmful to me as ideas can be. I knew he wasn't returning to direct the sequel, so I thought that meant I could go see it without feeling shame, but I just found out (again, surprisingly late) that he's an Executive Producer on it. This likely means he gets a share of the box office gross, though I don't know how big that share would be.
This presents an e̶t̶h̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ psychological dilemma that feels as though it's ethical for me. This is one of the few movies where seeing it in the theater is very important to me, and I do feel that I'd be missing out by seeing it on my tiny laptop screen several months after release. However, I would feel emasculated if I gave this person any more money than I already have. Is there a way I can have my cake and eat it too here?
I know it's unlikely that anyone here has a better idea "than stop giving a crap about what filmmakers believe," but I'm asking anyway, just in case. There's nobody else on the internet where I'd expect people to be sympathetic to my problem in a way that's more than superficial. Left-wing spaces (as I've experienced them) would say "you should only care about political violence and life ruination if you're the kind of person we'd be using it against," and right-wing spaces (as I've experienced them) would say "these tactics are actually good and we should use them against left-wingers when we're in power" after making fun of me for liking children's movies. I do not mean to imply all left-dominated or right-dominated spaces are like the ones I describe, but that's my expectation of them based on experience, and it's always demoralizing to get those kinds of reactions, so I don't want to go seek them out.
Aside from this and with the Hogwarts Legacy awareness campaign going on, I'm also reminded of two incidents when Chinese censorship collided with American entertainment corporations. The first was the Blitzchung controversy, when Blizzard acted out against a Hearthstone player who talked about the Hong Kong protests during an official stream. The second was when Chinese corporations withdrew their sponsorships for the NBA because the NBA didn't "sufficiently" punish someone in the NBA who tweeted support for the Hong Kong protesters. The NBA chose to accept the withdrawals and stand behind the free speech of the tweet.
Despite one action being pro-China and the other being anti, I think both decisions were correct under the principle that it's good for us to have "sanctuaries". There should be times and spaces where we can consciously ignore conflicts to do something enriching together, as a reminder of common humanity. Even if both sides return to war, even if they have incompatible values, we at least remember the cost of casualties.
Sports have a tradition of being such a sanctuary, and I feel like signal boosting a conflict-heavy cause during these spectator events is a violation of that. Signal boosting outside of the events, outside of the sacred spacetime, falls under the judgement of free speech principles in that context (or your equivalent principle). Public discussion spaces like The Motte pursue a similar sanctuary ideal, and that pursuit is likely more important than the sports sanctuary.
Should art be a sanctuary? I'm not confident enough to say that all "art" is eligible for sanctuary. Editorial cartoons and documentaries are closer to the conflict and are probably part of the culture war battlefield. But identifying art that's eligible for sanctuary is more of an I-know-it-when-I-see-it affair. Is it largely apolitical (distant from the hot points of conflict)? Is it well crafted? Is it heartfelt? Is it self-expression? Is it honest? At some point, yes, consuming, sharing, and discussing that art has the same function of connecting us through human commonalities, even as we're divided by our just as human differences.
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