Why does everyone think fiction is just fantasy wish fulfillment now and not like an exploration of themes and ideas
People will be like “this movie is evil and gross because it depicts a predatory relationship” and then you watch the movie in question and it’s about how preying on young women is bad and impacts their lives negatively
“Why would they do this instead of just making everyone in the movie nice and normal and good” so we would have this conversation….
"so we would have this conversation"
This. This is something I see people not understanding. Folks seem to increasingly want fiction to model correct behavior for them. Which, sure, can be something for fiction to do, but what fiction is really really good at is creating a model of a situation that allows you to experience a bad, messy, complicated thing, and see what people did, and how it turned out, and imagine what you would've done instead. Even more powerfully, it gives you something you can show someone else or point to and they'll have a shared understanding. Stories can give you stuff to think about so that you grow from experiences you didn't even have.
That's a real superpower of storytelling. Neutering it of that ability is just....a waste of potential.























