XPost: talk.politics.misc, soc.culture, alt.hollywood
On 11/22/23 2:11 PM, cld wrote:
56d.1153 wrote:
No, not anything 'racial' ...
"Black"/"Dark"/"Horrible"/"Depressing"/"Psycho" ...
We kinda saw it first with the "Batman" movies.
The protagonist went from Moral/Ethical superman
to seriously brain-damaged nutter.
Didn't take long for others to follow.
Looking right now at a version of "RoboCop',
2014.
It's psychos and more psychos, all with a
Napolean complex. Nasty, dark, gross, no
humor, no insight, just loons and more loons.
The original Weller "RoboCop" was a great
comment on Modern Times. It managed to be
both serious and comic/cynical. A wonderful
indictment.
This 2014 version though - lunacy and more
lunacy ... all dark and evil and insane.
No "insight", no relevant "social commentary"
or implied solutions or Hope.
APPARENTLY we're supposed to think these "black"
movies are More Relevant, More True, because
they're More Gritty/Nasty/Horrible.
Um ... no.
-------------------
It's a good representation of where America has been going,
for years.
Everybody looks for ONE reason, ONE excuse.
They may say anti-heroes are the problem, but those
have been eternally popular. 'Robin Hood', aside from
the sugary Errol Flynn version, was a sort of anti-
hero. Bad stuff mixed with good. The "penny dreadfuls"
of the latter 1800s. Spaghetti Clint is an anti-hero.
Shelly's "creature" was an anti-hero.
But, the stories/films with anti-heroes generally turn
out BETTER at the end. The anti-hero may not be VERY
'moral', but the tilt is towards doing the right thing
and everyone lives (happier) ever-after.
Today's ... people are fucked at the beginning AND at
the end.
"Stories" can - at least used to before big $$$ got
involved - tell us a lot about a culture. It's dreams
and aspirations so to speak, not trying to be hokey.
Too many of today's products are a gun stuck in your
mouth ... misery and horror and madness.
Do the stories make the society or does the society
make the stories ? A bit of both I think ...
Anyway, just mentioning a trend I've noticed. Not 100%
sure what it MEANS, if anything, just that it's there.
Oddly, I suspect that "news" stories may be more potent.
The huge uptick in people who show up somewhere and kill
everyone in sight - then immortalized by the MSM. That
may promote copycat thinking.
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