fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5898 ]

[ SECRET POST #5898 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5898 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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Are there movies that are really well-done but have really stupid or really bad messages?

Disney's Hercules is just so much fun. But the message is rather crap. It isn't heroic to save strangers, it is only heroic to save people you love? Uh, no.

I thought the message of Hercules was more along the lines of he only became a true hero when he was willing to make a huge personal sacrifice, whereas his earlier heroics didn't cost him anything

Maybe. But the way it was phrased made it sound like it was because he loved her that he was a hero. Which is weird. It would have been a little hero if he made a sacrifice for someone else.

Like the above commenter, I didn't get that message at all from Hercules. His previous victories were done to show off for an audience and earn his place in a society that had previously rejected him. His sacrifice for Meg was wholly ego free, he didn't care then about being a hero in the eyes of others which in turn ironically made him a hero.

Speaking of Disney, Kingdom Hearts 3 is pretty fucked up in the moral department.

Expanding a bit philosophically, Hercules surrendered his humanity/mortality (ego) for enlightenment/godhood (and became a true hero).

This. The point was that all of his previous heroics had been something he was doing for himself and his own personal gain, whereas he was willing to give something up for Meg's sake and THAT was what made him a hero.

I love Fight Club (both the movie and the book), but I have to admit the changes from the book definitely make it much less of a critique of modern masculinity, male insecurity, the drive for hierarchical structures, and the nihilistic impulse. I think you can argue that it glorifies those things instead, or I think you can argue that the message is complicated, muddy, and often contradictory. But the movie definitely hews a lot closer to glorification than the book does, that's for sure.

Insofar as the movie version of Fight Club has a message, I wouldn't say I agree with, or like, what that message is.

Still a hell of a movie, though.

Anyone who looks at the movie as a whole and thinks that it agrees with or glorifies Tyler Durden is analyzing the movie badly. Flat-out. They're just wrong about the movie. The movie is not contradictory about this.

The only reason that the movie appears to glorify Durden more is because it's easier to strip scenes from the movie out of context. People can completely ignore what they're actually saying and just look at them in isolation. And they very much do that, and they're compelling scenes in isolation. But it's still a misreading.

I disagree. I would agree with you if we were speaking about the book but when it comes to the movie, yeah, no, sorry. And since we're making arrogant and overly simplistic statements here, I would say that anyone who doesn't acknowledge that the movie's message is at the very least muddled and often self-contradictory is analyzing the movie badly. Flat out.

eeeeeh, this is a case where i do actually think it's on the audience/cultural reputation and not so much the material itself?? like, i know that personal yardsticks aren't the best measure of this kind of thing, but if i could figure out that tyler isn't really being glorified when i was like 15 then i expect most adults to have a basic understanding of character point of view and the fact that the narrator thinks this guy is the best thing to ever happen to him right up until he doesn't.

I don't see how it's muddled or self-contradictory.

The end of the movie is that Tyler's the villain, his methods don't work, they're a dead end, and the narrator conclusively rejects that viewpoint and that persona. Instead he holds hands with a girl.

Not to mention all the heinous shit that Tyler does before that point.

I just don't know how you look at that and say that the movie is anything but clear in ultimately condemning male insecurity / drive for hierarchy / Nietzschean nihilism.

The fact that conversations like this exist makes me weep for dead media literacy.

The fact that the author of Fight Club himself praised the Chinese version of the book because it was changed *DUE TO CENSORSHIP LAWS* (you know, the same laws that make the authors of gay romance novels have to post them online and hide their identities) to be much more handholdy about its message and he was in turn praised by "leftists" for his praise of censorship makes me weep for the future of literature.

Re: DA

(Anonymous) - 2023-03-01 07:04 (UTC) - Expand

the problem is always going to be that it's simply not what happens on screen that involves interpretation, it's what it looks like. sure the narrators holds hands with a girl...in front of what is basically a fireworks display. that reads triumphant in a very real way, and your audience who is already prone to valorization of certain types of characters, isn't going to necessarily feel that's an irony. part of movie creation is understanding your audience.

also fincher sorta admires assholes and imo that comes through his work.

Re: Good movies with messages you don't like

(Anonymous) - 2023-03-01 18:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Good movies with messages you don't like

meadowphoenix - 2023-03-02 07:15 (UTC) - Expand

The plot is doing that, but a movie is not a simple telling of the plot. You have to look at what the camera is doing, the framing, the costuming, the make up, everything happening visually.

If your plot says "this guy is the villain" but almost everyone watching the movie comes out thinking "this guy is really cool", it's everything else that makes up the movie doing that. The movie glorifies Tyler Durden, not with the plot, but with the visuals.

Re: Good movies with messages you don't like

(Anonymous) - 2023-03-01 18:14 (UTC) - Expand

Ghostbusters. I love that movie and still watch it, but they made the EPA the villain, (and government, and universities/academia). Yay private business with no regulation...

But you have to understand, that man had no dick!

I feel like the villain was less the EPA and the decrepit system that refused to change, or moved too slow with change, when new information was available.

AYRT

But they had no actual data. The one time we see any of them actually getting data that would prove something, he fucks it up to get a date....

After that, it's straight into business.

they weren't all villains - lenny at least was a pragmatist

and peck/epa... yes, he has no dick, but his villainy came from the fact that he had absolutely no comprehension of what he was dealing with; the government and epa and universities and academia aren't bad, it's ignorance that's bad

Look at it this way: They went with the EPA instead of a state or municipal regulatory agency (of which there are a lot in NYS/NYC), so really it’s the Ghostbusters vs the Reagan Administration.

Otherwise, it would have made more sense to send the Public Service Commission after them.

Agreed with everyone else who said that's not the message of Hercules. Although I also think there's nothing wrong with helping people for only selfish reasons as long as you aren't an asshole about it or being fake and pretending you're doing it because you care.

I still think The Wizard of Oz is a fun and very well-made movie for its time, but the message that you shouldn't wish for anything past your home is pretty dumb and sad. Ok, so "There's no place like home" but that shouldn't mean home is all you'll ever need.

I know the book is different. I read the book and thought it was boring. But at least it doesn't have that message at the end!

Considering that version of the Heraculean myth is so heavily Christianised, is it any wonder the message is crap?

I love a lot of action/fantasy adventure movies but I hate the message that you can just jump into a complex situation and know what's right and wrong. Just because one side has a pretty girl who says her side was wronged doesn't mean you should automatically help annihilate the other side. I get why movies, especially movies for kids, do this. The bad guys are sickly white and wear black spikes so we don't have to waste time determining if the Bad Guys are actually worse than the instability caused by their downfall.

I didn't love Ant Man And The Wasp And Cassie but (spoilers) it really frustrated me that Cassie Lang was down to fight after 5 minutes. Girl, you don't know shit about fuck. You haven't seen Loki. You don't know what life was like before Kang. Chill the fuck out and spend a minute learning your surroundings. Outsiders jumping into a fight they don't understand rarely goes well.

I wouldn't say that's a message, though. It's more just a trope. It happens that way because it's the most efficient way to get the action started, as you acknowledge, not to send a message.

There are a lot of people in this world who think they can jump in with an easy solution to a complex problem. People who feel free expressing opinions on military strategy for countries whose geography they don't even know. Friendships dissolve with no conflict resolution skills. Silicon Valley wastes time and effort rebuilding things they don't understand. People join extreme political movements because the more moderate stuff is too bloated/complicated/slow moving and blowing up an abortion clinic is simple and fast. Elon Musk's whole career. Take your pick.

I guess I could boil my problematic theme down to "Conflicts are very easy to understand, you only need to hear one side, and if you don't take immediate (and extreme) action you are not a hero."

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