I'm going to challenge your point, not because I think you're wrong to feel that way, but because you inspired me to think more about my own post 😅 I'm sorry in advance, I hope you don't regret the stream of consciousness you inadvertently triggered.
Reading your response I realised that, no, people ARE capable of using their brains, and it's a slippery mistake verging on smugness to think of ourselves as a special subset of readers, uniquely equipped with the ability to think critically about media. If that were true, after all, what position does it put us in? If everyone's just too dang stupid to form and apply their own principles, then we must resign ourselves to living in a world where 90% of media consumption IS black and white, stripped of nuance to cater to a population unable to digest its themes and moral challenges. I don't believe that's the world we have to accept and I think it's imperative, in fact, to agitate against it.
This is a bit tangential but reading your response reminded me of a project I worked on recently. I was devising a play with a group of teenagers and they wanted to do a horror. When discussing literary influences, one of them mentioned Lovecraft and immediately the rest of the group all shouted some variation of "Noooo he's a racist!!" It was a collective shouting down of the suggestion. I told them that yeah, they're correct, but Lovecraft is still a pretty influential figure in the horror canon, and asked if they thought his blatant racism could help us dissect the type of horror he created - and by extension, if that can inform how we understand the horror WE are writing. What is scary to us, and why. What questions are we asking, and why. What answers do we want our audience to come to, and why.
The teenagers were... stuck. It became very clear that none of them had read Lovecraft or were even familiar with his work, which is completely fine I mean they are kids after all, but for this reason they could not tell me WHY he was racist, what he had written that might be harmful, what he had said that might validly discredit him, etc. Only that he WAS racist, and therefore acknowledging him with any degree of interest was in itself an immoral act.
And look, I wrote this interaction off because the group are literally teenagers, I don't expect them to have complex critical insights into long dead literary figures, and I'm not going to encourage them to read something they're uninterested in. I'm not their English teacher, lol.
But now you've got me thinking about it, and sometimes it feels like the internet (or large parts of it) are just that group of teenagers. They've been told x,y,z is bad, the badness in question is in no way unambiguous, and therefore xyz does not merit further interrogation. I don't think this instinct is founded in laziness or lack of brain power, but rather an intense exposure (via the internet) to the injustices of the real world and an earnest desire to correct those injustices, combined with a perception of powerlessness in the face of the true scale of the problem. So they redirect that moral quest to the parts of their lives they have actionable power over, and what is more accessible and universal than the media we consume? Its widespread (online), often free or cheap to find (online), and forever only a browser tab away from blogs and video essays and tagged posts discussing that media (online).
I genuinely think this is where the hyper-policing of media comes from: the want to effect change on a wide scale but the lack of avenue to do it. Access to public forums discussing contemporary media and fiction - itself unavoidably connected to real world contexts by virtue of being made by real world people - and a misplaced conviction that these discussions are an effective way to make actual change. In this way, all media becomes ammunition for political discourse, because all media IS, in fact, political, but now it's stripped bare of its complexity and uncomfortable conclusions so that it can squeeze down the barrel of an incredibly narrow, pre-determined conclusion. The criticism begins from the point of "I already know what's right and wrong, so what parts of this thing align with that" as opposed to "what questions am I being asked? How would I answer them through the prism of my own beliefs? How do I see characters who conflict with those beliefs?"
In this way, we never need to ask "why is xyz bad," we never need to understand it because understanding is not the point. The point is knowing you're right, and demanding the media agree with you, because of course, you're right! The point is not suspending disbelief and applying your principles to the fictional prerequisites of a world, not "how do I respond to a cannibalistic character when the world this character inhabits tells me that cannibalism is an immovable biological need for some people", and NEVER "can I enjoy what I disagree with? Can I, in the cradle of fiction, enjoy a moment where this world is not my own, and these people are not real, and I root for them anyway?"
And when this is not the point, so too is the valid conversation of "how do fictional stories interact with our real life behaviours, and can fiction be used as a tool of oppression" entirely neutered. Relegated to another black and white issue of "it's good or its bad", you're an anti or you're an anti-anti or whatever the kids are calling it these days. There are no degrees, no broader contexts to consider, no difference between insidious, underhanded propaganda quietly slipped in to mainstream media to re-enforce certain status quos, and the overt, high concept and fantastical moral failings of a character who belongs to a non-reality context. By necessity, this also strips media of the necessary nuance to challenge status quos in ways that are not obvious, spoonfed to the reader, or easily digestible.
The point is that we must already be right, and continue to be right about all things at all times. And that rightness must be a black and white thing, because to accept that it is not would be to accept that the terrifying problems in society that righteously abhor us are not solvable through the mere process of thought, through merely having the correct stance on each issue. That they are messy and complex and must always be approached from a perspective of human welfare, empathy, and dignity, and not a mere checking of boxes on our own moral lists would show plainly that this type of policing fictional media is actionably impotent, and I would argue, does more damage than good.
As a final aside, I think it's worth mentioning that this is partly why mainstream media often feels bland and formulaic these days. Big studios are trying to make Products, and so they're looking for marketable ideas rather than interesting stories (I'm generalising, but you get it). Thus we enter a feedback loop of powerful media makers producing the most inoffensive, creatively riskless narratives designed to appeal to the broadest metric of people, devoid of character flaws, ideological challenge, and often, I think, actively encouraging the viewer not to think too deeply about what they're being given. The answers are already on the surface level, you are being instantly gratified, you were right the whole time, and we made something that's also right, so you should give us your money fir these few hours of distraction and then go back to work.
So, we're all encouraged to become those teenagers. You don't need to think about it. You were already right, and that means you've done your part, you've made a difference. There's nothing worth saying outside of that. Go back to sleep.
