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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Imagine the following hypothetical movie:
The protagonist is a middle aged white divorcee, whose ex-wife has unjustly poisoned his daughter against him, leaving him with very little to live for. He is very bitter about the state of the modern world, and believes America has gone down the tubes. Finally, he snaps, and with the help of a female accomplice, goes on a cross-country Natural Born Killers type murder spree, mowing down all the people he blames for the deterioration of society. And it's not a dark Oscar bait psychological drama, it's a light-hearted comedy that encourages the audience to cheer on the bloodshed.
First of all, such a movie would almost certainly never be made. Second of all, if by some miracle it was, it would be abundantly clear to everyone that it was shamelessly partisan wish-fulfillment produced by particularly bitter, particularly edgy right-wingers.
In fact, such a movie does exist. It's called God Bless America and it came out in 2011. But no one who saw it when it came out would have mistaken it for a right-wing manifesto; just the opposite, the Bush-era liberalism of the film's creators is so unabashedly on display that it feels like a screed from the other side.
I saw this movie back then when I was in middle school. Most of the politics went over my head, and I enjoyed it on the level that most teenage boys enjoy movies where a lot of people get shot. I rewatched it recently and found it fascinating what a political time capsule it is.
The protagonist, Frank, is exactly as I've described him above. While "middle-aged white man who thinks America sucks now" is a wholly and purely conservative caricature in 2023, the film is almost totally on his side. In the opening scenes, before Frank embarks on his killing spree, he gets to deliver a few author-insert monologues about how society has gone to hell. This scene is pretty interesting. "What happened to America?" is firmly right-coded, but the things Frank is angry about in particular are things that 2000s liberals didn't like. He's ranting about the vulgarity of "gay-bashing" and "xenophobic" radio shock jocks, which he views as emblematic of the decline.
What finally sets him off, is he gets a terminal cancer diagnosis. Since his life already sucks in every other way, he decides to commit suicide, but while he's about to shoot himself in front of his TV, one of those "Sweet 16" reality shows that were big a few years ago comes on, and he finds Chloe, the bratty, spoiled star so annoying that he decides to kill her first. So he tracks her down to her school and murders her, and then goes back home to commit suicide.
However, one of Chloe's classmates, Roxy, who also hated Chloe, witnesses the murder. She follows Frank home and ultimately convinces him that there are so many more people who need to die. So together they embark on their killing spree.
Not all of Roxy and Frank's targets are political (for example, people who won't shut up at the movies, and inconsiderate drivers), but filmmakers' politics come through pretty clearly when they mow down thinly-veiled stand-ins of the Westboro Baptist Church and a thinly-veiled stand-in for Limbaugh/Hannity type conservative commentators.. In the finale, they go down in a blaze of glory while shooting up a thinly-veiled 'American Idol' stand-in show.
This wasn't a monster hit or anything, and as far as I know it got pretty mixed reviews when it came out. But I think it's sort of fascinating in that filmmakers with the same politics, apparently mainstream US liberal, would never make a movie like this today.
The basic premise of likable spree shooters you're supposed to root just wouldn't fly now for one. Which is interesting on its own. Mass shooters have been present in the national consciousness for decades, but this sort of plot feels more taboo than it would have been even a decade ago. Nowadays "spree-shooter" is more likely to suggest in the popular imagination a political extremist, while back then it was more something that people just did because they were nuts or because they had personal grievances at work or school.
Frank's murderous hatred of modern American society and longing for the good old days, even if the specific things he calls out are things liberals think are bad, is much more firmly right-coded now. And some of the specifics, such as railing about consumerism and the shallowness of modern entertainment, have also become more common on the right over the past couple of years.
When Frank kills Chloe, we're supposed to get some cathartic enjoyment out of it, because who doesn't hate reality TV stars? Nowadays with sexual harassment having so much more salience in political discourse, I doubt any director would film a scene where a middle-aged man murders a teenage girl because she's just so vapid and annoying, and portray him as the good guy in the situation.
There are a bunch of jokes through the movie about how Roxy and Frank are totally not fucking, which would be unlikely now for the very same reason.
Watching this movie in the 2020s is a very bizarre experience for me. It was like a time machine. I don't have any more conclusions to draw from this, just that it's interesting how strongly art can reflect culture, and how strange those reflections can look a few years down the line.
A few years ago I finally got around to watching Falling Down, because I'd heard it was funny, disturbing and thought-provoking; and also because Michael Douglas always has a magnetic screen presence even in bad films (e.g. Basic Instinct and Wall St. Yes, the original Wall St., not the sequel with Shia LaBeouf. Fight me.).
Falling Down, huh. What a weird, insipid and unfunny movie. There's this spree killer who, after years of petty frustrations and disappointments, has snapped, gone postal and is plotting to murder his estranged wife, right? How do we get the audience to identify with him? Why, we'll just have him spout inane observational humour about the petty irritations of modern life in between vicious indiscriminate violence. "What's the deal with fast food chains, amirite guys?" This inane observational humour is never funny, never feels remotely in-character and essentially just feels like it's there to pad out the runtime, but - well, how else are we going to get the audience to sympathize with such an unpleasant character? What, explain his situation and motivations to such a degree that we can understand them even if we don't think his behaviour is justified? Bro, I'm a screenwriter, I'm not Cormac McCarthy.
The thriller parts aren't thrilling, the comedy parts aren't funny, the "satire" falls flat on its face, the plot and how it's depicted is so exaggerated, cartoonish and contrived that you could practically call it a preemptive adaptation of Grand Theft Auto V. Baffling how the filmmakers thought they were making some kind of profound statement about American society, masculinity, consumerism, whiteness etc. Even more baffling how so many critics apparently bought it.
Falling Down is a product of it's time. The kind of observational humor was novel, at that time.
It's been a while, the scene where he's complaining about fast food came at a time when fast food kind of changed (national brands and that kind of advertising were new, etc.). The violence was also (sort of) real; Which was in stark contrast to most action movies at the time...
It was before my time but globalization was kind of new and that type of Regan consumerism was strong back then.
Have you ever seen the movie Gung Ho? It's a comedy but it's cultural context, if that makes any sense.
Uh-huh. Bonus points for the top comment making the exact same GTA comparison I did.
Even Die Hard felt more grounded and believable than this. McClane is a bloody battered wreck by the end of his ordeal, while D-FENS hasn't a scratch on him until he actually gets brought down. And McClane is a cop who deals with hardened criminals every day, while D-FENS is an office drone who's never seen combat, and yet effortlessly mows down Compton gangbangers without a second's hesitation. Whatever Falling Down is, it's not "realistic". I don't even think it was really trying to be.
No I haven't. Does it have a similar plot?
Are you really going to ignore the rest of the sentence?
Right, and I contrasted it with an action movie which came out 5 years earlier which was, to my mind, far more grounded and realistic in its presentation. Likewise The Fugitive, which came out the same year.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
From what I’ve heard of the martial capabilities of gangbangers, this may be the least unrealistic part of a white collar office drone resorting to violence- it seems like an average 100+ IQ person less than 30 pounds overweight can significantly outperform even relatively hardened and experienced violent criminals by watching enough YouTube videos to avoid stupid mistakes and going to the range once or twice.
Sure, but YouTube didn't exist in 1993, and I don't think we're given any reason to believe that D-FENS has had any shooting practice prior to his rampage.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This isn't a great example; reality is just weird. Socially, muggers often expect victims to follow a script (for good reason! victims are almost never carrying anything worth enough to risk their lives to try and keep it!) and whenever someone doesn't follow the script it can leave assailants completely non-plussed. So, "when mugging a Dilbert-lookalike, pulling one knife is enough" isn't too unrealistic a mugging plan. Physically, many fights really are essentially over in seconds, because humans are squishy and weak and just one deep cut or bad impact can be quickly incapacitating. So when "Dilbert" gets in the first hit with an unexpected baseball bat to the skull, "run" isn't too unrealistic a plan B.
Yeah, the rocket launcher from a random military surplus store (and the random little boy who knows how to use it!) was a much better example of this. Not impossible; "gang bust seizes rocket launcher" seems to be a headline every few years, including in LA. But clearly this one existed in the service of plot escalation rather than plot consistency.
An office drone with no combat training managing to overcome a mugger or muggers through quick thinking and a stroke of good luck? I can swallow that.
But the same man then
over the course of a few hours, all without being injured in any way or intercepted by the police (despite making no effort to hide his appearance and exposing his face to dozens if not hundreds of eyewitnesses). Part of the reason he fails to get intercepted by the police is because he just so happened to walk into a military surplus store owned by a man who has heard about his exploits on the radio and arrived at the erroneous conclusion that the man's exploits were motivated by racial hatred, and hence decided to protect the man from the police even if doing so made him an accessory after the fact.
No part of this plot passes the smell test.
Individual parts do, but not together. That's my main objection to Falling Down - even at his most restrained and grounded, Joel Schumacher is still too over the top to make a believable film for me. That he went on to make Batman Forever and Batman and Robin should have surprised nobody.
I'll admit that Phone Booth is something of a guilty pleasure, in large part because I saw it when I was 11 or 12 and watching it feels nostalgic. The plot is rather contrived (even more so than Falling Down, arguably), but it has no pretensions to social commentary, the dialogue is funny, the real-time splitscreen gimmick is well-executed, the acting is solid across the board (pretty impressive that Kiefer Sutherland has to more or less carry the movie by himself without appearing onscreen for 90 minutes, and he pulls it off) and the pace never flags.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link