apparently according to people in x, if you don't support/disagree with something irl but don't mind it when it's fiction then you're fetishizing it. so by that logic if you hate abuse but you don't mind or even like adrienette then you're fetishizing abuse? if you hate rapist but don't mind or like reading story about it then you're fetishizing rape? how's that logic work actually? genuinely asking. idk if the math isn't mathing in my brain because english isn't my first language or because my brain keep saying fiction and reality are two different dimension and you shouldn't mixes it up.
Okay, so, like, what you're decribing is the result of people not understanding where the line between "fiction can influence reality" and "fiction doesn't change reality" goes. Like, media can reinforce existing biases if the one writing it has the same biases as you do. You believe something and watch a piece of media that depicts that thing as being the way you believe, so your belief is reinforced. Fiction can also invoke a sense of sympathy towards different groups by depicting them sympathetically.
But, like, that's not actually a HUGE impact. Not so that a single piece of media can be held under a microscope and claimed to have caused attitude X to be so prevalent. Or, god forbid, the dreaded "playing violent video games causes violent behavior" nonsense.
Like, when it comes to writing media, accidents happen more often than something being purposeful. That's why we need to look at patterns to clarify if something is part of a larger problem. Like, Miraculous repeatedly showcases the "violent urban thug" group as young people of color, so that's something that should be questioned. As should Miraculous repeatedly asking us to sympathize with child abusers over their child victims. Like, the writers don't realize they're including these things, which is why they deny it when it's pointed out, but it still HAPPENS, and the opposite happens never.
In addition, we need to take target audience into account. More questionable depictions of topics like rape and abuse are fully common and TO BE EXPECTED in media aimed at older audiences, because those pieces of works can expect their target audience to read the text with a degree of ANALYSIS. But, a piece of children's media like Miraculous always siding with child abusers, WHILE BEING AIMED AT CHILDREN, should raise eyebrows. Child audiences are not expected to analyze the pieces of work they read, because they often lack the experience to do so effectively.
That also plays a part in the whole "all media should be completely unquestionable and pure" discourse, the experience, or lack of, required to analyze a piece of media. A lot of audience members these days simply lack the ability to do so. Either they've always consumed pre-chewed media or they spend too much time asking ChatGPT what to think, but the end result is that they can't think critically, so we get people reading horror novels and then complaining on Twitter that it had incest in it.
TLDR; This kind of moralizing over media is slightly more appropriate when discussing media aimed at children. With media aimed at adults, we should expect the reader/viewer to be able to implement some critical thinking. Even so, blaming one piece of media for all of society's ills is not how this discourse works period.
