Media Mania

Movies, Books, Video Games, Music, Other

[agarthanguide]

Link to the article

We regret to inform you that the sunshine and friendship app is actually a children killing app.

[sarazanmai]

[byrdiboo]

Imagine losing a game you rigged

[wanderingcoasties]

“The LEGO Movie was my favorite movie of 2014, but it strikes me that the main character was male, because I feel like in our current culture, he HAD to be. The whole point of Emmett is that he’s the most boring average person in the world. It’s impossible to imagine a female character playing that role, because according to our pop culture, if she’s female she’s already SOMEthing, because she’s not male. The baseline is male. The average person is male. You can see this all over but it’s weirdly prevalent in children’s entertainment. Why are almost all of the muppets dudes, except for Miss Piggy, who’s a parody of femininity? Why do all of the Despicable Me minions, genderless blobs, have boy names? I love the story (which I read on Wikipedia) that when the director of The Brave Little Toaster cast a woman to play the toaster, one of the guys on the crew was so mad he stormed out of the room. Because he thought the toaster was a man. A TOASTER. The character is a toaster. I try to think about that when writing new characters— is there anything inherently gendered about what this character is doing? Or is it a toaster?”

— Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg commenting on how weird gendered defaults in entertainment are, and why we should think twice about them. Excerpted from this longer original post. (via 360degreesasthecrowflies)

[sotrias-labyrinth-deactivated20]

I feel like when I say ‘relatable’ what I really mean is ‘resonant.’ I don’t want characters who I feel are like me, I want characters who have emotions so strong I can feel them through the page.

[secretlyatargaryen]

I think this is important because a lot of us forget the power of stories to make us feel things about characters who are not like us, who have experienced things that we never will. The purpose of listening to someone else's story should not necessarily be identification, but understanding.

[autisticlittleguy]

"Grace Ryland is Rocky's dog" is such a funny fucking dynamic when you think about it

Eridians are further behind than humans technologically right? They dont have computers, relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. In fact, Eridians probably dont even know about the Big Bang because their atmosphere would filter out most of the cosmic microwave background radiation we use to detect it. On a human timeline, theyre anywhere between like early-mid 20th century. Rocky's basically a cosmonaut.

So the human civilization is pretty advanced from Rocky's perspective. Rationally he understands this. On a conceptual level he knows this to be true.

But at the same time... imagine youre one of the first ever cosmonauts to make it into space. Then you meet a 10 year old alien dog who cant do 2+2 without pulling out its calculator. It forgets everything constantly and has to keep notes everywhere, like it basically lives in Memento (2000). Also if it doesnt nap constantly it gets even stupider. And you somehow has to reconcile this with the fact that this dog has a better understanding of physics than your entire civilization does. Like the dog knows how the universe started.

[slitherpunk]

but do you play shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less 🤨

[slitherpunk]

the thing about "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding" is that these games exist and are out there and you have to make the conscious choice to seek them out instead of just expecting the big companies to deliver this, because they will not

[drop-of-infinity]

I don’t think we talk enough about how the entirety of Wicked is built on the irony of No One Mourns the Wicked. The musical exists because Glinda feels the need to tell Elphaba’s story, because she is in mourning and entirely alone in that. Glinda’s love is what creates the musical because no one mourns Elphaba except her, and that is an incredibly lonely place to be. She’s just lost two of the most important people to her, and all she’s trying to do is make someone, anyone else see how important they were.

[tunemyart]

Wicked is a frame story. This often gets lost in the stuff that happens inside the frame. But it's wildly important who's doing the framing - Glinda - and why - because she's grieving.

But! It's not just grief! It's a decision. It's a character point! It's very much akin to the moment where a young Galinda stepped onto the floor of the Ozdust and started to dance opposite a young Elphaba... and just as delicate a moment.

Because what we definitely don't talk about enough is that Glinda is telling this story in a way that explicitly breaks a promise she's just made to Elphaba near the end of the story. Glinda, panicked and distraught at realizing what's about to happen and her own inability to stop it, cries, "I'll tell them, I'll tell everyone the truth!"

To which Elphaba immediately says, "No. They'll only turn against you."

"I don't care!" Glinda says.

"Well, I do!" Elphaba retorts. "Promise me you won't try to clear my name."

Overcome, Glinda promises in the face of Elphaba's fervor for her safety... and then turns around and immediately breaks that promise.

The thing I also love about this is that we don't see the reprecussions of her decision. We have no idea how it goes for her - if in fact "they" turn against Glinda. Chronologically, the last we see of Glinda in the show is her hovering on the decision to tell the story. "Yes, I was her friend. Yes, I loved her. This is how it happened, and this is what it meant."

Whether or not they turn against her is irrelevant. The fact that Glinda's telling the story at all is her final triumph over her character, her absolute culmination of self. That it's also a testament to Elphaba and their friendship - ultimately the final and most important thing to her - is beautiful. Here, whatever else comes, she's found not only strength, but peace.

[elusivemellifluence]

#god you are so right #because after all – she already lived that! she already had power & acclaim for the small price of lying #lying about the wizard. lying about her best friend. lying and lying and lying and lying and-- #'I couldn't be happier!' she chirps at the opening of act 2 and it's a desperate cry for help #she has stifled the truth and had the life she always dreamed of and it's been choking her #and elphaba doesn't know that. how can she? they don't exactly correspond #all she sees is that her friend is safe and beloved #and on the news she's always smiling #so elphie begs – demands – 'don't tell the truth about me. don't stop lying.' #what she's really asking is 'don't sacrifice your happiness for the idea of me. I'm lost anyway.' #but glinda isn't sacrificing her happiness for elphie #she's doing this for herself #maybe she couldn't be happier. maybe she can't. maybe this is as good as it gets and all other options are worse. #but if they turn on her and her life is ruined--well. at least it will be HER life #and not this paper-doll facsimile she's let herself be turned into (via aethersea)

[1shadowhole]

I was wondering if Bradley would make a memorial post.

Sharing this for any one of you who might not be on instagram

[rockytheeridian]

PROJECT HAIL MARY + the petrova line

[buffycaps]

Rest in peace to the incredible Anthony Stewart Head (20th February 1954 - 1st June 2026)

RUPERT GILES in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003)

[ghostychocoreal]

Happy Pride Month, according to Google AI Achilles is a lesbian 💖😭

[baejax-the-great]

[audible-smiles]

My memory of The Birdcage (1996) is always that it's more dated and more difficult to watch than it actually is. You hear "drag-themed comedy from the 90s based on a musical from the 80s based on a play from the 70s" and you brace yourself just a little, right? But the film has a strong gay perspective, so the fruity fag jokes mostly come off as warmly affectionate. There is a surprising amount of poignancy in Robin Williams' portrayal of Armand, grudgingly agreeing to his beloved son's request that he go back into the closet for an evening ("do me a favor and don't talk to me for a while"). The drag club's staff attempting to redecorate the apartment with stuff straight people might like (a taxidermy moose head, an enormous crucifix, and Playboy magazine) is extremely funny. Albert's histrionics are a point of tension because he does often come off as a stereotypically pathetic/comic figure, but towards the end of the movie he makes it very clear that he's aware of how people see him, and asserts that trying to copy a stoic masculinity he doesn't possess for the sake of social approval would be more pathetic. In the 1983 musical adaptation, they give "Albert" (Albin) the only good song in the whole show, "I Am What I Am", which Gloria Gaynor covered to the delight of gays everywhere. Apparently Nathan Lane wasn't (publicly) out yet in 1996, which is amazing because it means that at one point in this movie you're watching a gay man playing a straight man playing a gay man playing a straight man, in a movie about how it's important to be yourself, an absurdity that does seem to encapsulate the state of gay America in the 90s.

[silverhand]

I'm seeing a couple of posts circulating about the gay 90s and this movie. The above is a very good summary, and I think it's worth adding a few other points.

This movie got made because Robin Williams said yes to it (and it's important that Gene Hackman did as well). Williams in the 90s was a mega-star of a type that's not present in the current media environment (maybe Tom Cruise, but I personally think that's echo from his salad days). Even his flops made money on the back end in the video rental market, which also doesn't exist anymore (streaming is different). Hackman was on the other side of his A-list career but still Hollywood nobility if not full royalty.

Playing gay was considered career suicide in the 90s. There had been a number of actors who put lie to that belief stretching back decades, but this was Williams and Hackman (yes, being on screen next to a gay character was enough to get you blacklisted) saying "screw that" and doing it anyway.

Being gay and out was career suicide in the 90s.

Nathan Lane had a really nice gig going for himself. The Lion King put him into the Disney rep company with people like Williams, Bette Midler, and Whoopie Goldberg (check their IMBD list from the 90s--they were making bank at Disney).

Lane didn't come out until several years later (nice summary: https://deadline.com/2024/06/nathan-lane-robin-williams-advice-coming-out-birdcage-1235975010/).

I don't want to imply that this was a Sorkinized moment where everything changed because of one thing, but this was a very important movie that caused real movement in the needle on queer acceptance.

It also proved that there was a market for films with gay characters, which had the knock-on effect of gay filmmakers being able to find distributors of their gay-themed films. Which meant that more people than ever (queer and non-queer) got to see representation on-screen.

[katestewartt]

PROJECT HAIL MARY + parallels

[paintedimagery]

Just a silly thought I had

[hylianengineer]

I haven't seen Project Hail Mary yet but I am now reading the book and oh my God, does Andy Weir ever understand scientists. I'm at the point where Grace just figured out that he is one despite not knowing his own name, and everything about his thought process right now screams scientist.

He's puzzling out his own identity via trial and error. He's very, very observant and using every little thing as a clue. He thinks in miles, the tape measure is metric. He took the time to figure out stopwatch controls before an experiment, in the midst of an identity crisis. He knows how to improvise an experiment from really basic supplies.

As Mark Watney would say, he's sciencing the shit out of this. But Grace wouldn't say that because he has like the polar opposite of Watney's swear word vocabulary.

[specialagentartemis]

After the beetle probes come back (honestly, probably even before), plenty of things get (re)named after Ryland Grace - Grover Cleveland Middle School becomes Ryland Grace Middle School, obviously, and astronomy/astrobiology buildings on college campuses and STEM scholarships in his name. Astrophage almost certainly gets the scientific name Astrophagus gracei.

Eva Stratt, meanwhile, gets the Eva Stratt Memorial Library (tagline: "she's not dead we just like remembering her") which is not, in fact, a library, it's the predominant hub for internet media piracy. The creators think they're hilarious.

[big-smiling-monkey]