I think the resulting discussion has been really good and I wouldn’t consider one participant saying “fine but it’s still not good enough for me” a bad outcome unless it’s a one on one discussion that the other party is obviously not enjoying or a pattern of behaviour &c. neither of which apply in this case so I think “but don’t fucking do this shit ok?” is uncalled for
anyway boots should frankly know better that if you’re going to make a work of popular fiction that’s really vocally agitating for support from the left in a way that few do, the left will always find a way to be dissatisfied and provide structural critiques because that’s their job, and trying to explain away political gaps in your work of popular fiction is an embarrassingly bad move, that’s not what fiction is for
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I don’t know, saying that Detroit doesn’t exist outside being a girlfriend and a wall for Cash to bounce off of doesn’t seem like a crazy criticism to me, even ignoring that she’s the only named female character
definitely don’t take it from the guy who loves malkmus and fellini and knausgaard but it would really be a bummer if the reason he’s now trying to do this MFA seminar twitter dialogue is because he thought it was gonna make people take to the streets
it’s a male perspective, that scene where cash is unable to listen to her talk about her art because he’s so wiped from the day and just wants to get high isn’t somehow tanking the film from any greater intersectional heights it could’ve hit, it can just only be sympathetic to so many characters at a time
in other words, yes, it’s a fine criticism, but a criticism is not a failure
I’m not saying it’s a failure, just a fair thing to point out and ultimately hold the work accountable for
Honestly, ultimately I’m glad that it was pointed out and this discussion happened because I honestly hadn’t given it too much thought (perhaps from the high of seeing and the immediate reaction of enjoying it) and for that I thank @Bee and her perspective
Hooray for criticism never being final
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watched deadpool 2 for the first time just now and enjoyed it a little more than I was expecting to.
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vancouver didn’t really deserve its top billing but that’s very typically vancouver anyhow
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I didn’t even realize zazie beetz was in this movie and she pretty much carries the whole second half
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the meta gags were obviously somewhat deliberately annoying but they still should’ve cut a couple
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the central plot with cable and the kid didn’t really work but I genuinely liked the way it dealt with grief otherwise
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the soundtrack rules
I also tried to make it through annihilation last night for new projector’s sake and gave up halfway, it kept clumsily announcing itself as a book adaptation
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She had a domino effect on the rest of the action.
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Saw it recently too and really enjoyed the whole thing as much as the first. Agreed on pretty much everything: First half is definitely better than the second half, Domino was the movie highlight. Great Colossus. Loved Juggernaut. Fights were a lot of fun, particularly the one where Wade is using his own flopping broken arm to keep Cable held in place.
I really like how these movies manage to have a pretty decent dramatic streak through the center. The whole thing is absurd, but they play Deadpool’s character straight as an actual superhero.
Sorry to bother you update: boots Riley is now searching his own name and getting into Twitter arguments w black women who didn’t like his movie (eg replying to tweets he’s not even tagged in) so fuck him I guess
I still liked the movie but Lord the guy needs to chill
oh dear
the revolution is going great thanks
It 100% is. I had two criticisms of the movie. ‘It’s not funny’ and ‘Fuck the wacky girlfriend artist trope.’ Guess which got a handful of ‘oh, I didn’t think that but ok’ and which one had a bunch of people telling me about how the wacky girlfriend shit was really important to the movie and how it was actually super cool? I wonder why that is? Hell, I’ll give you 5 minutes to find the last time someone wanted to argue like this in the movie thread.
TBH, I thought about actually discussing the gender stuff in the movie and I was like, ‘I bet no one is interested in that, they’ve all seen the movie, but I’m sure everyone else is sick of lolgirl artists too.’ I had picked out a bunch of jokes from the movie that I thought were illustrative of its failures in case anyone wanted to discuss that because I thought it might be a point of contention but lol looks like I got owned again.
Like, ok, come on. All I said was, ‘I am never watching a movie with a girlfriend’s wacky art show ever again.’ What’s my reaction? How do you know what my reaction is? You certainly didn’t ask me, or say like, ‘Hey Claire, why did you have such a reaction to that scene?’
Why am I unhappy , what is the underlying cause? I don’t think that’s what you were interested at all.
You did the same thing everyone does (and Boots is doing the writer’s version of this), which is you watched a movie and Tessa Thompson is cool and her character had lolfunny earrings and you said ‘Oh, I like her’ and that was all the thought you put into it and so, later, when someone’s like, ‘Fuck this misogynistic shit,’ your reaction is, ‘I don’t hate women, and I like this movie/character, so how can it be misogynistic?’ And, honestly, if you had read any criticism of the movie’s gender politics before hand, you’d probably be fine with all of this, but you went and got invested.
Like, our conversation goes like this:
-‘Fuck this stupid wacky female artist shit’
-‘Actually, that scene is super important to the movie’
Like, what? I’m about to go, ‘Wow Bust’mech, I’m glad you provided an alternate perspective. I rescind my earlier resolution regarding wacky art girl characters.’ Or like, ‘Jeeze, although the wacky female artist stock character still bothers me, I now see that there was literally no other way. This movie is telling a story that can only be told by having a wacky artist girlfriend stock character. My resolution is now to never see another movie with a girlfriend’s wacky art show ever again, UNLESS it’s important to the plot.’?
-‘So what? It sucks and it sets up the real regressive shit’
-‘Actually, the movie think that’s regressive too! It’s a commentary!’
Which, you know, ok, this is genuinely a new perspective because no, I never think that a movie is being sexist on purpose to teach me a lesson about how sexism is bad. Because that’s fucking dumb.
-‘You know what a sexist-on-purpose movie looks like? Just a regular-ass movie.’
And then you started lecturing about how representation is hard. It’s just shifting goalposts where I’m not allowed to just say, ‘This movie is misogynistic,’ it has to turn into this series of challenges where I’m supposed to accept that, fuck I don’t know? There’s no possible other way the movie could have said, ‘The struggle continues,’ than having something that there have been multiple scenes implying it won’t happen (and therefore, it will 100% happen) happen? That there’s no possible other way to show Detroit having her own shit going on (in a movie where she’s the only other POV character and has been shown explicitly having her own shit going on) than to have her doing wacky performance art?
I’m skeptical you’re taking anything out of this. You’re never like, ‘oh hey Claire, you have a good point.’ You’re never like, ‘Wow, Boots literally said that my interpretation that the movie’s misogyny is intentional is wrong; I guess I fucked that up.’ I know none of my points have come across because you somehow think this is some minor failure of representation.
I’m certainly not learning anything, because I can’t parse how you think movies are made at all. If taking some dumb bullshit out of a movie makes it collapse like a Jenga tower, you should just make a new, better Jenga tower that doesn’t have dumb bullshit in it.
Like, I think I’ve made it clear that I find the way you’ve been speaking to me insulting, but I find it particularly insulting that you think you can talk me into a perspective where I would accept this much misogyny for a movie that isn’t some once-in-a-decade masterpiece or very specifically keyed into my interests.
Like, fuck, I could have seen multiple other indie projects by female directors that are out now instead. I don’t have some incredibly high standards. I just want to watch a movie that meets the very low standards of a blockbuster: the female co-lead looks cool, isn’t the butt of some sexist joke, and her sexuality isn’t some kind of marketplace. Oh, and I guess since Boots felt the need to point this out, isn’t sexually assaulted.
Oh, I should certainly point out that I like you in general and I’m not mad outside of this specific topic.
What I’m taking out of this is that the way I talk and discuss in everyday life is inappropriate online, does that sound right? I haven’t gotten this vibe from people in conversations but I am this monomaniacally focused on picking things apart in real life.
I’m sorry I jumped on the female representation in the movie, but I was excited because I think it’s actually very clever and well done in a way that required discussion (and it’s separate from the aesthetic aspects of her character, give me more credit than that). I learned how much it hurt some people, but what I don’t know is how it could be fixed while preserving the interesting, limited-perspective aspects of it. Pointing out that it’s similar to ironic racism jokes is a good point, though I don’t think that’s the level of indirection it’s operating on. I was hoping to get to ideas to how it could work better, but there’s not necessarily a fix and that’s ok.
p.s. I like you too!
I mean it’s certainly true that no matter how good the storyteller and the story, your character’s well-conceived and necessary flaws can still be totally undermined by sheer cultural overexposure and sometimes that means you’re not going to get the credit you think you deserve for telling the story the way you wanted to
Well, obviously context matters and things that may be appropriate for some things won’t be fore everything, but more importantly I don’t think you’re accurately gauging how you’re coming off here.
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Uh, I glanced at the Games you played today thread for some counter-examples because I was going to say that you’re acting differently in this topic buuuuuut, uh, you don’t get a lot of pushback do you? Looking around I can’t find any other discussion with a single user than went on for more than two posts so actually I don’t know what to tell you.
Yeah, I’m genuinely asking because I’m not used to creating this response. My self-aim is to discuss passionately, stridently, and towards the goal of understanding and synthesis, so I believe in presenting my points as cleanly as possible but giving ground easily, as well, and in not reiterating but finding new arguments to support if the point isn’t made but absolutely stopping if I’ve presented it all.
I do this 8-12 hours a day and I’m the same socially and I look for it in the people I want to work with and hang out with, but I may have self-selected. There’s also a vibe of ‘chill’ that I can identify and pose in but generally don’t find interesting for very long periods.
The risk is that this comes off as domineering and argumentative and I’m always conscious of that (again, it’s why I keep asking you these questions).
The other risk in the hell year of 2018 is that, well, everyone’s had far too much experience with divebombed conversations by random domineering and argumentative men. It’s unpleasant enough to me that I haven’t used twitter in a few years despite it being a career necessity if I want to go indie again.
Anyways, I forgot to make the joke about how Boots doesn’t know anything about feminism and implied that whenever Detroit is off-screen she’s telling a 14 year old on twitter to kill themself for calling Chun-Li trans or whatever
I ignored interstellar when it came out but now that I’m watching it, I’m finding it bizarrely good-natured. Like it’s got Matthew McConaughey and his kids and Anne Hathaway and they’re all doing science and empathizing with each other in closeup and it has a very hopeful and wide eyed perspective on ecosystem collapse to the point where it effortlessly sells a bunch of ridiculous plot coincidences in the first half hour alone
It feels like it comes from an era of filmmaking that did not actually exist
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