site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   38163 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

In more "get woke, go broke?" news, the entertaining if incredible rumours circulating about Disney.

Disney, like all the other companies with streaming services, is facing the sharp decline since the days of the pandemic and having many subscribers cancel so they are losing revenue. It's not necessarily "get woke go broke" at work here, but Disney have been shooting themselves in the foot with the forced diversity remakes and mishandling the Star Wars franchise which should have been a reliable cash cow. Meanwhile, Universal Studios is coining it with the Super Mario movie and theme parks rides.

They're also, apparently, in a bind with Comcast, their co-owners of Hulu, who are gearing up to demand Disney buy them out. Comcast is valuing it at around $70 billion, Disney values it way lower (around $20 billion by one report).

The Little Mermaid is not earning the overseas profits it needed to do, and seemingly on the second domestic weekend it also fell back (this is being blamed on the usual "racist backlash" but oh dear those racist East Asians who aren't going to see it, tsk tsk!). The fifth Indiana Jones movie is being re-cut, re-shot, scrapbooked and everything including the kitchen sink thrown at it because of the bad reception at Cannes and the vital need for it to make at least a billion when finally released.

Now the rumours begin:

(1) Disney only has $200 million in liquidity. Comcast is looking for way more, so they're looking at more layoffs, cancellation of projects, and even selling off IP and - rumoured - some of the parks?

(2) George Lucas rumoured to want to buy back Lucas Films?

It is all rumour and insider gossip at the moment and who knows how much is true at all, if any of it, but it's fun to watch in the context of Disney's fight with DeSantis and all the progressive chatter online about how DeathSantis is an idiot for taking on a company with such high-class expensive lawyers and deep pockets to fight court cases.

Looks like those pockets may not be so deep after all!

Can You Guess Why The Little Mermaid Is a Huge Hit But Not In China?

The backlash is due to Halle Bailey being chosen to portray main character Ariel.

...

According to Box Office Mojo, Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid has only grossed $3.6 million in mainland China since it opened there on May 26. The Chinese box office tracker Endata confirmed that the film made 19.5 million yuan ($2.7 million) in its first five days. In comparison, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse made 142 million yuan (nearly $20 million) in the first five days after its release.

Now I may be a simple country hyperchicken, but it seems to me that Spider-Verse also featured a black main character. Seems like an odd comparison to make, given their narrative.

Now I may be a simple country hyperchicken, but it seems to me that Spider-Verse also featured a black main character. Seems like an odd comparison to make, given their narrative.

Spider-Verse's black protagonist is a character who has always been black starting with his original incarnation, AFAIK. Ariel in the original adaptation in 1989 was a ginger, and in the remake is black. So possibly Chinese audiences are rejecting the race-swapping of existing non-black characters to be black, rather than rejecting black characters in themselves. This rejection of such race-swapping is considered anti-black racism just as much as rejection of black characters in themselves by the "woke" ideology.

Spider-Verse's black protagonist is a character who has always been black starting with his original incarnation, AFAIK.

This is disingenuous. Miles Morales is a race-swapped Spider Man, exactly like Ariel. The paper-thin excuse of "Umm ackshually we've not retconned him, he's, err, an alternate universe version" is obviously just that: a paper-thin excuse, to remove white heroes from their stories.

Miles Morales was developed by writer Brian Michael Bendis. No prizes for guessing what I found oh his Early Life section of Wikipedia.

Yeah, I think Miles Morales was definitely an early example of wokewashing, although not quite as blatant as in recent years. But when we're talking about movies there is one, rather important, distinction: Into The Spider-Verse was really, really, really, REALLY, REALLY good. (I haven't seen Across yet, but I have high hopes.) Frankly, if all these woke race swaps and girlboss Mary Sues and deconstructions of white male privilege were accompanied by movies that were even close to the quality of Into The Spider-Verse, I don't think I'd have such a problem with them!

This is disingenuous. Miles Morales is a race-swapped Spider Man, exactly like Ariel. The paper-thin excuse of "Umm ackshually we've not retconned him, he's, err, an alternate universe version" is obviously just that: a paper-thin excuse, to remove white heroes from their stories.

It's a lot more acceptable when Spiderman's comics history is absolutely littered with clones and alternate-universe spider-men.

I'm not all that familiar with the Spider-Man lore, but given how common alternate universes are in comic books, I would think it'd be normal to consider an alternate universe version who's black as a separate character unto himself. IIRC from the Into the Spider-Verse film from a few years back, the white Peter Parker was there as a character, along with many other versions of Spider-Man including a female one and a cartoon pig one. This is in contrast to The Little Mermaid remake which is presented as a straight-up remake showing a reimagined version of the characters from Disney's original adaptation. Halle Bailey's Ariel running into the original ginger one from the 1989 animated film while being separate characters like in Into the Spider-Verse isn't something that'd be within the realm of possibility in The Little Mermaid universe, I think.

A quick peek confirmed my suspicious: Chinese movie posters (and probably much of the advertsing) show Miles prominently mostly while masked.

https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2Bu6z6asFL.SL500_AC_SS350.jpg

The film also has a big cast, including some Asian spider-people iirc.

Chinese Little Mermaid posters don't prominently feature Halle Bailey's ethnicity, though (which some on Twitter and elsewhere complained about).

the image link is broken, copypasting the whole thing works

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats