• BanMeFromPosting [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    5 days ago

    Do you think Les Miserables is .about how prisons are cool because one of the main characters is a prison guard?

    Edit:
    One battle after another has a guard of a concentration camp in it, so I hope you didn’t watch that.
    Fifth element has a charismatic depiction of an evil capitalist, that’s bad.
    Sinners shows the Clan and I remember it as if one of the Clan guys seems kind of chill on the first meeting, that’s too bad.
    Lolita isn’t about how cool it is to be a pedophile.
    Frankenstein isn’t about how awesome it is to be a shitty dad.
    Richard the III isn’t about how cool it is to lie and cheat and kill your friends and family.

    Engaging on a surface-level with text of “what profession does this character have?” isn’t a good way of going about the world, your politics or sharpening your mind.

      • BanMeFromPosting [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        5 days ago

        No no no, that’s not how we do critique of art. You have to look at wether or not something like a capitalist is depicted with any positive qualities. For example Wonder Woman is bad because it has a CIA agent in it.

        More seriously I do think there is a discussion about art and artist being separate, but it’s not one I feel competent enough to have. Harry Potter isn’t bad because J. K Rowling sucks. The Louis CK tv series isn’t bad because Louis is a piece of shit who assaults women (though that knowledge has made the series shift from comedy to a horror in a lot of scenes).
        Fifth element has a lot that can be critiqued, like the whole “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope.
        But art and artist is connected, so even though the art itself might be fine enough, there can still be reason to avoid it because of the artist - Fifth Element because of who directed it (though I disagree with this one, I feel like there has to be some consequence of “supporting” said artist. Like how Rowling considers people lining Harry Potter to be tacit support of her transphobia); whatever ZA/UM shits out because of what they did; a third example that makes you think I’m really smart; a fourth example that makes you think I didn’t get it at all; and so on.

        Was this just a whole lot of nothing, or did I say something?

      • BanMeFromPosting [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        5 days ago

        Anything is possible, chuds love starship troopers and jarhead. I’m personally a bit of a Richard III was misunderstood-weirdo.

        Edit: I seriously dream of seeing a version of Richard III that focuses in on his body dysmorphia, his weird misogyny and how his mother has hated him from birth (maybe, there’s so many ways to read their relationship. The way she talks to him at the end, the way she mistrusts him… Was it always like this, or is it a result of his actions? What came first?)
        There’s some cool Norman Bates story there. The guy is physically capable enough to be a great warrior, he can seduce the widow of a man he killed, yet he’s apparently so ugly that no woman could ever love him - even just physically. Despite the fact he’s rich as fuck and brother to the king.
        He’s charming as hell, but says noone could be his friend. He’s a great administrator, but talks about how he couldn’t be. There’s such an interesting thing going on with him, and I’ve never seen it dealt with in a way that scratched the itch. The Ian McKellen movie is great, but he’s a villain there, not some sad creature or abandoned kid, which I think he could be. That play is so good.

        • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          5 days ago

          I mean, Richard the 3rd the real guy was slandered fucking hard by the play. Shakespeare was motivated in many was to shit talk the ancestors of non-Tudor royalty

          • BanMeFromPosting [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            5 days ago

            It being propaganda is part of what makes him so fascinating to me. Especially if you also take his character in Henry VI into account as well.

            What was the intention with him? Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers of all time, his characters have so much depth and each line has 17 different ways to be read.
            So when he makes a character open up the play with a monologue that basically can be read as “hello, I am an evil piece of shit and I suck so fucking much that I have nothing to do in peacetime. So I’m going to kill my brothers and usurp the throne. I will do this because I am ugly and unloveable.” Then I get intrigued. Was this just an attempt at sloppy propaganda where there is no deeper reading? Or was it Shakespeare’s intention to have the depth that is available where you can see someone who absolutely loathes themselves and you get hints of why.
            When his mother hates him, is that then because “he’s evil so of course she hates him” propaganda, or is it because of a deeper psychological aspect. I honestly don’t know and that’s really cool in my eyes. This might have been one of the only times Willy was just phoning it in and being literal - yeah he’s a piece of shit bad guy, here’s a monologue where he admits it himself.

            Compare Richard to Iago. Both evil assholes, both charismatic monsters. Iago still gets some weird psychosexual depth and motivation that makes him more than a charicature. That same depth is available to Richard, but only if we choose to read it like such - and that might be a “wrong” reading. The intention might have been to just make him a literal cartoon villain.
            The current climate can’t do this well, but I would love to see a version of Richard III where he’s a repressed trans person. I wish there was a big time trans director that could make that.

            Also Romeo and Juliet is a comedy and practically every director misses that even though it’s a common take