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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   3076 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 16, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Before the valentine's day post massacre (never forget) I was having a conversation about Fight Club which made me want to watch it again, so two nights ago I watched it with my brother and his teenage son. My brother and I discussed if it was appropriate for my nephew to watch, given its mature content and themes, some of which would go straight over the head of teens, but I convinced him by pointing out that I watched fight club as a teen.

But I must have been arguing about it with myself in my sleep last night, because I woke up this morning with a burning conviction that I had convinced my brother to fuck up his son - does he want him to turn out to be a ridiculous nihilist misanthrope like me?!

So here's my question - can anyone think of movies with the opposite philosophy and message to fight club? I think I'll need a few of them - I imagine if there was a movie like that that did as good a job presenting its philosophy as fight club did I'd have heard of it already, but maybe we could brute force him back into sanity by inundating him with them.

Your nephew is probably too old, but honestly, the best and most effective positive propaganda I ever consumed was Duck Tales. It's a whole show about how hard work, thrift, entrepreneurship, and relentless curiosity are the path to success. The protagonist is an absurdly wealthy capitalist who never apologizes for his wealth and spends his days going on awesome adventures, sometimes hunting for treasure and sometimes just because he can. He's an immigrant who worked his way up from nothing in an emblematic example of the American Dream, and is almost always portrayed sympathetically.

Scrooge McDuck is a combination of Dale Carnegie and Alan Quartermain (and also a cartoon duck), and I will never understand why this feathered Ayn Rand protagonist doesn't get both more love and more hate.

There's actually a long tradition of leftist/anticolonialist academic readings of Duck Tales and related works.

Should be added to Kulak's index of actually banned books, it never got a proper publishing run in the USA because of Disney's perceived litigiousness.

I realized today what a good anti-Fight Club movie was. It's Chief of Chukotka. The protagonist is a young clerk accompanying a Bolshevik commissar sent to establish Soviet rule in the eponymous region. The commissar dies enroute, and the clerk assumes the leadership role until communication with the capital can be reestablished. He is painfully naïve and optimistic, but despite that (or maybe because of that) he bests every challenge thrown at him, I won't spoil the plot further.

Sounds like it would be good for a cold war double feature with Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

because I woke up this morning with a burning conviction that I had convinced my brother to fuck his son

The way I read it the first time it sounded much more schizo.

I don't think it's that easy to fuck someone up by having them watch Fight Club.

If I'd gone in that direction would it have been more obvious that I don't actually take advice from my dreams about ridiculous shit and that the set up for the op was a joke about me dreaming about fight club?

Edit: because it's funnier than my op I mean

Somehow I still haven't watched Fight Club myself and as a result can't comment entirely on what would be its antithesis, but regarding general nihilism-antidote movies: It's Such A Beautiful Day very deeply delves into nihilism and in fact fully accepts every single one of its premises, yet still somehow manages to come out the other end presenting a worldview that's incredibly life-affirming. It's probably my favourite animated movie of all time.

I suppose it is less about Making A Point About Society and more to do with dealing with one's mortality, lack of agency and other such topics, but it is a great movie that's hugely concerned with how to find meaning and beauty in the chaos.

I haven't even heard of It's Such A Beautiful Day, but you have definitely piqued my interest so I will check it out tonight. But you should definitely watch or read fight club man, it has insights into some of the things you have talked about in previous posts that I think you would appreciate even if you disagree with the conclusions.

You have already successfully inoculated him. If he had found Nihilism on his own, it might have intrigued him. But now it's just 'that boring movie my uncle made me watch'.

On a more serious note, the hero's journey is inherently life-affirming, so there's plenty of media to go around. Most Shounen, for example. Lord of the Rings also manages to be quite dark and somber at times while still fundamentally being about hope and progress.

This probably sounds pretentious, but if he was still at that "adults are dumb assholes with terrible taste" stage we wouldn't consider him mature enough to watch movies like fight club. He watches movies with us because whether they are good or bad we have fun watching them (we were watching fight club that night, the conversation was whether my nephew was allowed in the room.)

The cute thing about it is that I'm pretty sure the movie that convinced him adults weren't dumb assholes with terrible taste was The Shawshank Redemption, which you could definitely say my dad (his granddad) made him watch (he sat all the grandchildren down in front of it and told them they could watch it or go to bed - at 3 in the afternoon.) The thing is though, when we watched the Shawshank Redemption the first time, my brother was a little younger than his son is now - and before that film, convinced that adults were dumb assholes with terrible taste. I don't know if that movie will cure any developing teen of that issue, but it's batting 1000 in my experience.

On the more serious note, you might be right and he's already inoculated against it anyway - he spent years pretending to be Aragorn and about the only tv he watches are shounen anime.

Sounds good, just continue what you're doing honestly. In general I wouldn't worry too much about this. Aside from probably overestimating the effect of a single movie, Nihilism is not only not very appealing to begin with for the great majority of people, the larger current media landscape just doesn't lend itself very well to Nihilism. I'd be more worried about Idealism, Escapism, Hedonism and Moralism given both people's natural inclinations and the general contemporary climate.

Spirited Away is a film about a young person finding their place in an alien world. It's also beautifully animated and teaches lessons in loyalty, the rewards of hard work, and having hope.

That's a great suggestion. I almost sneered myself out of seeing Spirited Away when it first came out. It was not long after I'd first watched Neon Genesis Evangelion and then Cowboy Bebop, and then had that epiphany that anime was this untapped wonderland of entertainment where everything is gold. And then I discovered that I had already watched the best of the best and 95% of the rest was the dumbest, most generic pabulum imaginable. So when my gf at the time bought tickets, I tried very hard to get out of it, but she pointed out I was being a tool and she went to terrible ska and punk concerts for me so I should suck it up. I did, and I am glad, because it's a beautiful film.

Of recent movies, the Dune adaptations would fit the bill while being entertaining. Later books muddle the message, but the first one (and its adaptations) showcases legitimate, virtuous leadership in a righteous struggle against decadent, and in the case of the Harkonnens outright degenerate, adversaries. It makes very clear why Leto and Paul are inspiring leaders and why they are a threat to the Emperor. It makes a great case in favor of virtue.

Master and Commander obviously.

A very good suggestion, but I'm afraid the case laid out by the movie would have eluded me when I was a teen, because it's not as clear it's making a general point about leadership and the nature of society rather than a narrow one purely in the service of a (truly excellent) action movie. Fight Club meanwhile beats you over the head with the fact it's making an argument about society.

Obviously the point was always choose the lesser of two weevils.

Yeah, I'm not sure there's a lot of movies like that, but maybe some other commenters will deliver.

Maybe if OP or his brother has a talk with the teen afterwards about the movie they could highlight the philosophy. Maybe I was just thick, but when I was younger it eluded me how Hollum was a weak leader, I accepted the crew's stated reason for their dislike of him.

I think you are overestimating your ability to affect the kid

You are probably right, but dream-me could make my dick disappear until I agreed with him, and that was a very compelling argument at the time.

You're looking for the classics

It's a Wonderful Life

The Liz Taylor Richard Burton Faust

White Christmas

On the Waterfront

Casablanca

ROCKY

Really like, 90% of John Wayne's movies

Btaveheart

ETA: I thought of Pride of the Yankees and then realized the perfect answer: spring training is starting up, watch all of Ken Burns Baseball. Fight Club is the classic pessimistic End of History, Baseball is the optimistic. We've solved the big problems, it's only up from here! Everything is beautiful. The human spirit! Achievement!

Baseball is a great idea, but the kid was born and raised here in Australia, I don't know if he'll sit through anything about baseball. It's worth a shot though (plus it would be nice to have one more person in my Dunbar group who doesn't roll their eyes when I mention the sport). Also I didn't know Taylor and Burton had done a Faust movie! The reviews aren't kind, but critics used to have a real hate-on for anything supernatural that wasn't a goofy rubber mask farce, you reckon it's worth a watch?

It's straight Marlowe's play. I enjoyed it but I was also on a very strong edible. Obviously open to interpretation.

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