Post B7ranSggY3mpkDKPQW by lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
(DIR) More posts by lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
(DIR) Post #B7raF0XcglMcbYf0ka by artemis@dice.camp
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The subtext/metanarrative that I believe is bothering me with Supergirl reviews is that if I like something, I have to spend lots of money on it & get all my friends to spend lots of money on it.As though I should be doing the marketing for the films I like because otherwise they will be a "failure" & I won't get any more films like that. And as though it is normal & natural to decide the value of a piece of art based on what "most people" are willing to spend money on.
(DIR) Post #B7raF0mVnPH1LjctxQ by artemis@dice.camp
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I feel like I'm being told we are all supposed to do a bunch of completely unpaid promotion for studios & movie theaters, & if people DON'T do that for a given film, it will be considered a "failure".The idea seems to be that if you like something, you need to tell 50 of your closest friends to go buy tickets TODAY. That's the underlying message I'm getting: "good" films are the ones which inspire people to do free labor for the mega corporations bankrolling them.
(DIR) Post #B7raF10gwgcG3iGE3k by artemis@dice.camp
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I'm tired of being asked to worry about how much money a corporation makes off of the art that I like.I find talk of box office numbers to be absolutely exhausting.I think it's twisted that my enthusiasm for films is supposed to translate into concern for a corporation's bottom line.
(DIR) Post #B7raF1Fw20oEozOOoq by artemis@dice.camp
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Studios have abused audiences with so much bullshit for so long that we have become their enablers. "If you don't make sure that this movie makes money, the studio is going to destroy something you were looking forward to, & it's going to be all YOUR fault because YOU should have supported that other thing."At some point it feels like extortion.
(DIR) Post #B7raF1RzJCRzQN21bc by artemis@dice.camp
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You can't send coherent messages to corporations by spending money or getting other people to spend money.Doing this will not get them to listen to what you want. It's actually more likely to get them to compile a bunch of data about what they think worked & then try to procedurally generate a bunch of products that align with that data, which usually results in the creation of a lot of garbage.You hand them money & then they make up a narrative about what you want. There's no "listening".
(DIR) Post #B7raF1ccfexPxM0WBM by ska@social.treehouse.systems
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@artemis The only information you send with money is "I like what you have done before and want more of the same". Which is a single bit of information, and "more of the same" is vague, because most people would like the same style of product but still with innovation; but corporations are free to ignore that.In particular, it's impossible to say "I support the workers who have made the product, but I do not support you, the corporation extracting profits from it" by sending money. Corporations know that, and they use it.Ever have had a technician, employed or contracted by a corporation, come to your house to solve a problem? The corporation has abysmal service and abysmal customer support, and provided wrong information to the technician, if any, but the technician was competent and friendly and solved your problem quickly?Then you get an e-mail by the corporation asking you to rate the technician. And if you don't give 5 stars, the technician will be punished; there is no way to hold the corporation accountable for its overall suck. It's entirely on purpose.The Hollywood machine functions the same way, it seems. It's late stage capitalism all the way down.
(DIR) Post #B7ranSggY3mpkDKPQW by lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
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@ska Great example, and reminds me of the technician in Brazil (movie).Where sometimes I wonder if it's Terry Gillian or related yearning for a rogue technician free from the corporate bullshit (and I so wish to see this happening with all tech jobs).
(DIR) Post #B7rcDl1B7Oja4x14Lo by ska@social.treehouse.systems
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@lanodan Things weren't that way in 1985, I don't think Gilliam had predicted that exact same situation - Brazil is a governmental dystopia, not a corporate one (otherwise it would be hailed as a staple of cyberpunk!)But yeah, Tuttle is one of the small guys doing good work despite a stifling, overbearing hierarchy, so there are parallels.
(DIR) Post #B7rd8nSkhXouAR71FY by lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
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@ska I kind of feel like it's extremely close to cyberpunk, like maybe proto-cyberpunk, so much of the problems in Brazil are technocratic problems. Although of course with the curse of both technocratic and bureaucratic, sometimes mixed, sometimes separated, that way it can be the worst of both.
(DIR) Post #B7rh8r43i4av9dqT2W by ska@social.treehouse.systems
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@lanodan To me, cyberpunk has to have an ancap world, where corporations have all the power, their own private militias, etc.The world of Brazil isn't ancap, it's a centralized bureaucratic government. The violence is state-inflicted, not corporation-inflicted; it's still a dystopia, but to me it doesn't classify as cyberpunk.
(DIR) Post #B7ri1zS0EQfB5hKqtk by lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
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@ska ancap might be a bit strong as I guess that would exclude japanese cyberpunk like Bubblegum Crisis and Ghost in the Shell (among many others), but putting it as "violence isn't just state monopoly but also megacorp/conglomerate monopoly" then yeah I would entirely agree.
(DIR) Post #B7rigtLHqa8c1FhIW0 by navi@social.vlhl.dev
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@ska @lanodan i keep forgetting there's a movie named Braziland go "what the fuck did we do now" lol
(DIR) Post #B7riwQnbjnzQ7xM0rA by lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
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@navi @ska haha, sometimes I wish Terry Gilliam would have named his movie in a less ambiguous way, like Aquarela do Brazil (where the movie takes it's name from AFAIK) doesn't have this issue.
(DIR) Post #B7riz5GgFKguDcDXwO by ska@social.treehouse.systems
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@navi @lanodan The world of Brazil is an awful place and you couldn't pay me enough to live there! 😁