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secretmellowblog · 2 years

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So much internet analysis of media feels like……. if people were trying to criticize Chick-Fil-A, but refused to talk about anything other than the quality of the sandwiches. All that mattered was whether the product was good. So people just debated endlessly over whether the products were Good or not, and no one discussed how Chick-Fil-A donated to conservative homophobic hate groups.

“Is this Disney product Good and does it have good gay representation?” Does Disney still donate to homophobic republican politicans!!!??? Do they still actively censor any queer content during production, cancelling gay projects and actively forcing their writers to cut gay content, to the point where every sad scrap that makes it onscreen is a miracle? Can you meaningfully make any statements about “gay rep at Disney” without bringing in that larger context?

It’s not a perfect analogy— because art shouldn’t be a product, and a movie is theoretically trying to Say something in a way that a sandwich is not. But Idk I feel like the reason we fixate so much on media analysis is because it is Fun. It is fun to talk about lord of the rings and the owl house and Steven universe. It is not fun to talk about the horror and exploitation that is baked into the “entertainment industry;” it’s not fun to research and analyze the systems that created the horrifically expensive movies you love.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because amazon is releasing the most expensive tv series ever made, a spin-off series based on lord of the rings. I have no interest in watching it despite my lifelong love of lotr but the thing is—

I have no doubt the series will be good! It will be fine. Lots of money has been thrown into it, and I have enough friends in the entertainment industry to know that on every massive corporate product there are hundreds of writers and artists sincerely trying their best to create good meaningful art. The Amazon series will be Fine. It will be good.

But my question is: Does it being good actually matter? Does it matter if a chick-Fil-a sandwich is good? Does it matter if this vile evil horrible media monopoly run by a villainous CEO that works its employees to death creates a good product?

I feel like I’m going crazy when most of the criticism of Amazon’s lotr is conservatives and people who act like conservatives ranting on about how “I can’t believe they gave Blorbo GenericElf a personality! That’s so out of character—he didn’t have a personality in the book! Tolkien, our lord and savior who we must worship as an authority, would be infuriated (because we still are bound to submit to this dead guy’s opinion apparently!) Everything would be better if everything stayed exactly as it was in the past, in the Sacred Original Canon. Any attempt to transform Tolkien’s work is morally reprehensible and a sign of the fall of the civilization.”

Sometimes I just want to shake those people and say “PEOPLE ARE DYING! people are dying in Amazon warehouses, and you’re treating your petty fandom opinion about blorbo genericelf’s personality as if it has this laughably enormous moral weight.”

I know that’s unkind, and that people can care about more than one thing; but I don’t know. I used to have this really naive idea that adaptations were a conversation with the original work, and every reinterpretation was a beautiful addition of meaning. I still believe that on some level. I think every author should be free to reinterpret stories however they want, should be able to argue with the original author and set their work on fire if they need to. there’s a lot about Tolkien’s work specifically that deserves to be disrespected, like his vicious racism and sexism. I LOVE transformative work—especially transformative work that meaningfully argues with the original author.

But like….you really can’t talk about these big media franchises without talking about the systems that created them.

Yes, people can sometimes create great beautiful sincere emotional art within these exploitative systems! I love the original lotr films and books. The new Amazon series is so expensive that it will be perfectly Fine.

But creating good art doesn’t change the fact that these giant media monopolies do so much real, constant, tangible harm. Warner Brothers caused massive harm to New Zealand while making the lotr/hobbit films, essentially strong arming the country’s government into changing their film industry laws to benefit massive foreign corporations. And Amazon is a vicious violent exploitative mega monopoly that is literally overworking its underpaid employees until it kills them.

It’s hard because I believe that good art can be very meaningful to people, and that media analysis can be important and valuable.

Its just that— not to swing a bat at a hornet’s nest— sometimes I wish people would stop hyperbolizing about how [petty fandom opinion] will cause lasting harm to the world, while not engaging with the things about the media property that are causing immediate tangible physical objective harm.

#idk if this is coherent but yee #;-;;;;#anyway thank you for reading! i know I haven’t been active here lately #i just wanted to throw this out there before anyone asked me about rings of power #I’ve just become so disillusioned by the entertainment industry and the active tangible harm these giant franchises cause #that I just . don’t #XD #like it’s probably good! it’s probably a good fine show #and lots of marvel movies are good!#and I found meaning in the original lotr trilogy #but I don’t know #i kinda just. am disgusted with the way these mega franchises work #and the way the entertainment industry works #it’s the ‘art school student with entertainment industry friends’ life lol #but yee #anyway I’ve been inactive here but I’m back to be sad about stuff again XD

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berrybears · 2 years

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just finished reading magical girl site. here’s my review!

i read the manga online, and it took me a little under two days.

i’d asked about it before and got mixed responses as to whether it was worth reading. some people said it was good and got too much hate, others said it was fun to read because of how bad it was, and some said it was just miserable to read.

i agree with the last statement. although i did enjoy it at the start, magical girl site quickly became something that was not enjoyable to read, even to make fun of.

READ TAGS FOR WARNINGS

characters:

the characters are either unrealistic or forgettable. i genuinely cannot remember half of the characters’ names, and i was always confused whenever i saw a character because i hardly remembered who they were.

the author did a great job at creating horrible characters. that’s not an insult: 90% of the characters are awful people. even yatsumura, who was aya’s best friend, kept a man in her house to torture.

it was hard to root for any of the characters, because almost all of them have done incredibly terrible things. not even in the usual villain way, these are morally reprehensible acts that are just… horrible.

art:

this is one of the things i actually enjoyed about site! the art is very cute, minus the incredibly gory parts. even those are well drawn and do nice to contrast the cutesy art style.

plot:

the plot, in theory, isn’t that bad honestly! it’s a super cool concept, but the execution was pretty bad. it started out good, but there was so much jumping around and weird deus-ex-machina moments.

there were so many times i had to go back and reread a few chapters to figure out what was going on, and i’d still end up confused.

there’s a lot of jumping between past and present with little to no warning that just makes keeping up impossible.

other thoughts:

i wasn’t sure how to categorize it but it felt important to add.

for some of this, i’m not sure if this was a translation thing or if it was written into the original story, so take it with a grain of salt.

there’s some major issues with homophobia, transphobia, and racism in this series.

one of the characters in site is a trans girl, who is constantly referred to as a man by the other characters and also called the t slur multiple times. the only time she’s actually treated well is a memory from her mother where she remembers her coming out. it was a sweet moment but does not override the casual transphobia.

the only black character in the series is portrayed as a caricature. he’s a pedophile and a rapist as well.

closing:

overall, this manga has a lot of problems. i would not recommend reading it, even to make fun of. it’s a series that’s angsty for the sake of angst. any disturbing or triggering content you can think of, i can assure you is featured in this manga. if you want a dark magical girl series, there are so many are other options.

#mahou shoujo #magical girls #mahou shoujo site #magical girl site #aya asagiri #anime #anime review #tw torture #tw transphobia #tw homophobia #tw racism #tw rape #tw t slur

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rorykillmore · 6 years

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do you have any plot ideas for sly?? or just, stuff you want him to get up in general

sly is... you know, sly. being a thief isn’t just what he does, it’s who he IS. so he’s not gonna be shy about it; he’s going to want to actively build up a reputation and piss people off and stir the pot on the criminal scene so... lots of potential for him to get into trouble! but also just to contribute to interesting plotting in general.

in that vein i’d like to create a lot of fun opportunities for heists and stuff, especially things that leave a lot of room for character reactions and involvement. some of that might be just him doing favors for people who need help but don’t have a way of getting it through legal means (like mike), and him building up a reputation of someone you can go to for that kind of thing could be cool. but even more likely than that, he’s definitely gonna tangle with some of denny’s like... nastier criminals and villains, people any cooper would just inherently want to mess with and steal from, and i feel like that could be interesting because it’s not quuuite the kind of opposition that most antagonists tend to be used to. like, people standing up them and wanting to stop them is one thing -- someone who just kinda wants to piss them off and bring them down a few pegs is another (although in more serious major cases sly would want to stop someone who is doing a lot of damage, i’ll get to that in a minute)

even though he’s well-intentioned and mostly only steals from other criminals, he’s still a thief himself, so obviously throwing him at vigilantes and law enforcement would be fun! the mld would prooobably fall under the category of “people sly thinks are morally reprehensible and thus wants to mess with” but other than them, he actually tends to respect officers of the law and vigilante types. he treats them more as playful rivals than actual enemies, and ultimately wants to see them keep doing good even if they get in his way sometimes, so him developing some kind of rapport with those types might be cool!

actually... originally i just kind of idly envisioned a plot like this if someone were to app carmelita, but it could probably work with any well-intentioned law enforcer, actually: if someone like that wanted to challenge the mld’s authority and/or reform it entirely, then sly would probably support that and want to work with them, and a teamup between him and someone a lot more lawful for that cause could be REALLY interesting...

also, another big thing: i want to see him establish a gang of likeminded thieves!! people who ultimately don’t want to hurt anyone innocent but still kind of revel in criminal activity for the chance at a reputation and to take down assholes. idk what kind of interest this will attract but i’m hoping it will be really accessible to people because i’m not even necessarily just looking for “other thieves”. the sly games are pretty good at demonstrating how well-rounded a gang of criminals needs to be, so like, sly would definitely be looking to recruit people with various skillsets like hacking/being really good with tech, or being a lot stronger and brawnier than he is for situations where brute force really is the best option, or people from other kinds of more specialized areas. they don’t even necessarily have to come from pre-established criminal backgrounds, just... be willing to have a little more flexible morals,

finally, i would eventually like to get him involved with something... big and dangerous. have him go up against a REALLY terrible villain who he has to kind of just drop all pretenses and get serious about. i feel that some of the strongest moments in the sly games are when you run into these really dire moments like with clockwerk, neyla/arpeggio, dr. m, etc. and sly has to take a hardline moral stance instead of just being his usual playful self and the stakes are really high and he has to band all his allies together to stop them. i’m not sure who on current denny would be good for such a large-scale rivalry but i’d love the chance to tackle that level of emotional situation with him.

(one more thing i’m actually vaaaguely considering is... although i’m taking him from before thieves in time, maybe bringing the van and bentley’s time machine to denny?? but i’m not totally sure where i’d go with that. maybe it could run as a fun parallel to the legends, like you have one chaotic group trying to protect time and another chaotic group testing the limits of what they can steal throughout time without breaking history. or maybe he should just hang out with the legends, idk,)

#thanks eps!!#im hoping to do some fun stuff with him #cuts dennys lvad wire #mikexxwheeler

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