coloneltigh replied to your post “keep seeing a lot of posts about how now is the time, more than ever,...”
Heard about this director who would make these incredibly frustrating for the audience movies where the issues don't get resolved, and when asked why he said basically that if you show a problem (oppression, unfairness) and solve it then the audience will leave with the sense of satisfaction and peace, and will do absolutely nothing about applying this metaphor to the real world whereas if you leave them frustrated and angry they will take that frustration into the world and recognize the issue
I thought it was really interesting because honestly I always was kind of opinion that art inspires so if a movie shows a bunch of people coming together and defeating the dictators etc etc THAT should expire, but I've come to believe his point is more accurate tbh
hmmm. i don’t necessarily agree with all of this theory, but i actually agree with most of this. i think one crucial part of the problem he’s missing out on is the fact that people tend to get so immersed in the story they don’t actually generally draw parallels to the real world - especially when these are allegorical and occurring in an SFF context. and again part of this problem is that a lot of these allegories completely refuse to actually grapple with the stuff they are built on e.g. the ramifications and expressions and origins and consequences of white supremacy. and that is part of why people like, completely fail to see the parallels with the real world. it gives them a kind of distancing mechanism that allows them to point blank refuse to accept when and where fiction intersects with a very real reality. they’re only looking at the problem within the context of the story and failing to make broader connections with our social contexts - or sometimes even point blank refusing to make the connections in the text by claiming that their readings are more subversive or counter-cultural.
and i think that while showing people fighting and triumphing is important as a fantasy i think its also doing us a disservice right now exactly for the reason you express. i mean these fantasies are linear and simplistic - if you want to engage with stories of oppression - i mean the stories are incredibly complex and frequently disheartening and i don’t think we’re doing anyone any good by refusing to look at the frustrating parts of the fight against oppression. look, by all means read the news - the news is very very important and ideally should be something people follow every day - BUT i think the thing here is also to recognize that stories do allow people to approach issues at a certain level of emotional distance (especially allegorical fiction) and to have complex if frustrating discussions about political realities. i don’t think the plague works because it ends with a triumphant message. it doesn’t - the reason that makes it a hard-hitting story about fascism is the fact that a) camus makes it very clear that it doesn’t go away; its just waiting for a moment to come back and b) there are no simple and easy answers and everyone suffers in some way or the other under the plague.
so like, yes, lets have triumphant stories but they’re not the most important stories we can have right now, because now more than ever we need stories that are incisive and angry and maybe even a little accusatory (ionesco’s rhinoceros, for example) to make us look at ourselves and ask ourselves whether or not we’re feeding the problem we claim to fight.
like. if we can’t tell stories about our rage without compulsorily making it triumphant - without being truthful about the realities of our experiences - what is the point? its like a form of self-censorship and gagging: only tell these particular kinds of feel-good stories because anything else is too terrible to handle in this world. i know. my god i know. but i don’t think we’re really helping anyone by peddling these fantasies. it feels like a farce.
