Thinking About Molluscs

i think the idea that art cannot affect the world as an absolutism is not really accurate, it is an exaggerated version of the much truer, "you cannot make a movie that's so good that you singlehandedly transform the culture". but the superstructure--in aggregate--does of course influence the base, and totally denying that is an undialectical overcorrection in response to idealism. it would be wrong to suggest that chernyshevsky novels caused the russian revolution but you can't ascribe complete meaninglessness to the fact that lenin named his pamphlet that

"anti-war" is a nearly useless phrase for media criticism because it casts a wide trawler's net to group together works with entirely different aims, positions, and effects. is it "anti-war", in that it shows the consequences of violent invasions upon the peoples who are the victims of those invasions, is it anti-aggression, anti-empire? is it "anti-war" because it simply honestly depicts war, whatever the slant, as composed of its actual constituent substrate of human beings inflicting injuries on one another? or is it "anti-war" simply in that it laments how terribly difficult it is for those prosecuting these invasions that they get shot at by and feel bad about killing the people whom they are invading--which might be better termed anti-them-fighting-back? these are three very different things!

i know this has been said plenty of times before but i love when people are like “film snobs will seriously make fun of you because you’d rather watch Captain America than, i dunno, *proceeds to make up a movie that sounds fucking awesome and reveals that they just completely lack curiosity about the world around them*”

i think big franchises like star wars can have entries that have "required reading" so to speak that are still good but they cant be your money makers. the big budget blockbuster needs to be much more approachable than that. you can have your stories focused on obscure characters like jabba the hut's son but that needs to be some spin off novel or limited run comic or something. it wont even necessarily be good but it wont matter if its bad either. and if it is somehow good it would be seen as a hidden gem among fans.

pre disney star wars was always taking background characters from the movies with interesting designs and fleshing them. do you know how much watto got fleshed out in the old canon? geogre lucas's view of all the licensed media as basically a separate world was a great way to let people do whatever weird shit they wanted, but dave filoni wants that weird shit to be canon and front and center, so now you have rotta the hut in a big star wars movie. it should have been a comic or something

hey white people . if u dont know how to pronounce an ethnic persons name *google it* or if its someone ur talking directly to *ask them*. dont fucking do that "erm i dont know how to pronounce but __" or "im gonna butcher this haha" or "im not even gonna bother trying" . ur not funny. do u know what poc think when they hear u saying that ? u sound like a loser asshole and we dont want to spend time with u . im so fucking tired of watching youtube videos about media from my country and hearing those phrases. im tired of people saying that to my face . i respect someone who clearly looked it up and is tryong but says my name wrong over someone who just goes with whatever bad first guess they had without trying. u have too many resources at ur disposal to keep doing this. for the love of god just Fucking Try. if ur confused Just Try.

I highly recommend Forvo.com, the website where native speakers of a language contribute their time and voices to read words and names in their own language. It is a fantastic way to expand your world, open up your ears, and it's way more likely to nab a hit than just googling.

wow , I didn't know this existed, thanks so much for sharing the resource !! I will absolutely be using it now too 🖤

it's actually so crazy how much the simpsons would fucking suck if it didn't have any of the simpsons characters. just a bunch of shots of empty houses and streets for half an hour while nothing happens. that would be so badddd lol

yeah that tends to happen when you remove characters from media. without characters its all just background. i guess movies set in scenic locations would still land as kinda nature docs but even then

it only happens with the simpsons

this same criticism could be applied to nearly any media ever.

it's just the simpsons. are you a troll?

Dragon's right, if you remove all the Simpsons characters from Death Note it hardly changes anything

9 out of 10 times I see people on here celebrating a new "landmark piece of anti-AI legislation" the legislation in question is inevitably some variation of "we propose making IP laws more restrictive but presented through the language of opposing AI". But that one from germany about holding google liable for the words of its AI overview feature is legitimately good I think. If they actively choose to shove that thing in everyone's face as the first thing they're going to see when they make a google search then they shouldn't be able to dodge accountability for the information it provides with a little "gemini AI can be inaccurate, please remember to double-check information teeheehee" disclaimer.

very suspicious about any talk of needing to base your politics on empathy. like any emotion empathy is very easily manipulated, and even besides that that is a meaningless statement. im sure plenty of white supremacists feel pretty empathetic about the plight of the white man or whatever

the problem with fantasyposting on here is the amount of people who try to "um actually" you on the basis that your post doesn't comply with the rules/mechanics/worldbuilding of dungeons and dragons