Chris

Idle Thumbs 152: Piercing the Fourth Dimension

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Discussing and qualifying a person or group of people's "media literacy" (etc.)

 

No one in this thread or on the podcast took the tone of arrogance you've described. What you've done is reframe the discussion with rhetoric I would expect from a high school student. People are interested in having a conversation here about these topics and you've come in like this is debate club. Obviously you're free to take whatever tone you want, but know that the particular one you've chosen isn't one conducive to honest dialogue.

 

Apologies if this comes off as patronizing, but otherwise I have to assume you're willfully antagonizing, in which case that's not an attitude worth responding seriously too.

 

I am, in that it appears to me the end game is merely that shit be stirred rather than effects resulting from it.

 

As someone who started following Park on Twitter just a little before the Not Your Asian Sidekick hashtag, I would say that you have an incorrect impression.  Merus hit on a few vital points that few people talked about during the whole Cancel Colbert thing, but I would just suggest checking out Park's writing to find out more yourself.

 

Unless you already have, in which case I guess we'll just disagree. 

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Discussing and qualifying a person or group of people's "media literacy" treads on some pretty dangerous ground. It's rather arrogant to view a particular work of art and internalize it as "I can consume this responsibility because I have acheived a level of literacy, intelligence or understanding that most other people have not, and, as such, it is my responsibility to monitor the content of this atrist or medium to protect those who do not share my level of literacy from its harmful influences." Not only is such a view point loaded with self importance, but its also extremely condescending to other people.

The fact is that most people are able to see things like South Park and All in the Family for what they are. The core audience of South Park is the generation that is now in its mid 20s and early 30s. These are people who have been watching this show for over a decade. It didn't acheive success because a high number of these people are prejudiced and misunderstand its humor. It succeeded because so many people do see the point of its humor. It's unfair to suggest that there's some kind of sub intelligent sect of society out there who are susceptible to negative influences of contraversial media that only the enlightened can responsibly enjoy.

Archie Bunker didn't create an aging generation with antiquated social viewpoints. That group of people already existed and latched onto him, just as the more open minded audience did. Archie put both of those people in front of the same piece of art and got them to talk about it, which is a catalyst for change.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions. No one ever burned a book because "fuck freedom." It was only ever done by someone who was afraid that its content would influence the minds of those less capable of understanding it than they were.

I think this is mostly wrong. I don't think evaluating media literacy is elitist or self-important in any way (or, at the very least, doesn't have to be). It's an empirical question, in the same way that regular literacy is, even if it's harder to quantify. It doesn't make you more or less stupid or important. There are plenty of things I completely lack critical faculties for, and that's fine.

And furthermore, it's something that everyone responsible for a creative work should consider: if, purely theoretically, 75% of your audience fails to understand the meaning you had set out to convey, that's a problem that you should care about, because you presumably care about what you were trying to say and want people to grapple with it. If those same audience members start harassing people based on that misunderstanding, you should really fucking care about what went wrong. I don't think that's grounds for censorship, but if that sort of thing starts happening frequently or is sustained for a long time, I can't help but doubt the creators' integrity.

Now, I have no data whatsoever on South Park in particular (so I withhold judgment), on what percentage of people 'get' their satire, and I suspect that you may be right that most people understand what they're doing most of the time. But I absolutely disagree that "It's unfair to suggest that there's some kind of sub intelligent sect of society out there who are susceptible to negative influences of contraversial media that only the enlightened can responsibly enjoy." There is such a sect of society, and in the US it's made up probably mostly of children, because they often lack sophisticated media literacy. TONS of kids picked up using Jew as a slur uncritically from South Park when I was in middle school. And a disturbing number jumped on the "kick a ginger day", resulting in actual harassment.

Is that the majority of the audience? Probably not, but the important point is that this doesn't discount the overall value of media literacy, because it theoretically could be the majority for a given piece of media. If you're deploying a work of satire into an environment where 90% of the audience fails to grasp the point you're trying to make, and instead adopts the ideas you were critiquing, I think that's at least irresponsible.

Edit: Just for the record, I think your original conclusions are perfectly respectable and seem to have been arrived at and expressed in good faith.

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Continuing my trend of contributing nothing of importance to any of these discussions, hearing Chris talk about eating peas all I could think of was this

 

 

Carry on.

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Continuing my trend of contributing nothing of importance to any of these discussions, hearing Chris talk about eating peas all I could think of was this

Carry on.

Good I wasn't the only one

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I feel this old Cuteosphere comic is sort of relevant:

[big ass image]

 

I don't see how something that is entirely fictitious can be exploitative, at least in the way that comic uses the word. Insensitive? Sure, but I don't understand how you can claim that something that does not exist is immoral somehow.

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I just wanted to say Super Mario RPG was a great game and one of the larger GAMING REVELATIONS of my youth. Things I liked about it:

 

-- Minigames that felt like miniature games instead of like minigames.

-- Sympathetic / ridiculous Bowser as teammate.

-- Mario being a silent protagonist who expressed his feelings by deliberately faceplanting into the floor on multiple occasions.

-- Geno (I still think that space-puppet is super cool).

-- The best Yoshii.

-- The mentioned turn-based combat with GUI-free timing elements.

-- It's where I learned the word "bundt".

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I'll also add my voice to the "promote J Mintz to full time" crowd, if she even wants that. har har.

 

She's smart, funny, and a good talker, but more importantly as a pro reviewer she's guaranteed to bring something to the table each week besides Spelunky & Dota 2 (1 luv). Get some of that O.G. Thumb journalistic spirit back in the mix!

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I also heard Chris going on about those peas and thought the same thing. still can't believe that the Animaniacs writers were able to derive an entire Pinky and the Brain episode from that Orson Welles peas rant.

 

Apparently Maurice Lamarche does an amazing Orson Welles impression, and basically they wrote an episode around his impression of the peas rant.

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Yes, of course. Brain's entire persona was derived from his Orson Welles impression. He's even Orson Welles in that episode of the Critic. (He was ALSO Egon in the animated version of The Real Ghostbusters) I'm just flummoxed that people at Animaniacs were able to get that on the air. It's funny, but, according to Wikipedia, the cartoon was "described by writer Peter Hastings as 'a $250,000 inside joke'".

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With regard to media literacy and interpretation, I'm very strongly of the opinion that if a work is misinterpreted the onus is on the creator/presenter. Excluding things like willful misinterpretation or some sort of language/cultural divide, if someone didn't get it it's your fault not theirs. I have this problem where I have awesome obvious ideas or solutions and then when the words come tumbling out everyone gets all glassy-eyed. That's not their fault, it's mine.

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Apparently Maurice Lamarche does an amazing Orson Welles impression, and basically they wrote an episode around his impression of the peas rant.

Yes, of course. Brain's entire persona was derived from his Orson Welles impression. He's even Orson Welles in that episode of the Critic. (He was ALSO Egon in the animated version of The Real Ghostbusters) I'm just flummoxed that people at Animaniacs were able to get that on the air. It's funny, but, according to Wikipedia, the cartoon was "described by writer Peter Hastings as 'a $250,000 inside joke'".

 

He also played

 (or at least his voice).

 

(LaMarche's Orson Welles impression actually bugs me. It doesn't sound like Orson Welles, it sounds like a slowed-down Vincent Price)

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I'll also add my voice to the "promote J Mintz to full time" crowd, if she even wants that. har har.

 

She's smart, funny, and a good talker, but more importantly as a pro reviewer she's guaranteed to bring something to the table each week besides Spelunky & Dota 2 (1 luv). Get some of that O.G. Thumb journalistic spirit back in the mix!

 

Yes to this. I think her perspective on games would be an excellent complement to the Idle Thumbs podcast.

 

And crazy idea: what if they stole her from Polygon and hired her full time to play games and write about them on Idle Thumbs in addition to being a permanent cast member? Having some words on the site would be awesome. (I can dream right?)

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I don't see how something that is entirely fictitious can be exploitative, at least in the way that comic uses the word. Insensitive? Sure, but I don't understand how you can claim that something that does not exist is immoral somehow.

Fictitious things do exist, just in the realm of fiction. This realm is connected to reality via people's minds. A snarky example is religion.

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Discussing and qualifying a person or group of people's "media literacy" treads on some pretty dangerous ground.  It's rather arrogant to view a particular work of art and internalize it as "I can consume this responsibility because I have acheived a level of literacy, intelligence or understanding that most other people have not, and, as such, it is my responsibility to monitor the content of this atrist or medium to protect those who do not share my level of literacy from its harmful influences."  Not only is such a view point loaded with self importance, but its also extremely condescending to other people.

 

The fact is that most people are able to see things like South Park and All in the Family for what they are.  The core audience of South Park is the generation that is now in its mid 20s and early 30s.  These are people who have been watching this show for over a decade.  It didn't acheive success because a high number of these people are prejudiced and misunderstand its humor.  It succeeded because so many people do see the point of its humor.  It's unfair to suggest that there's some kind of sub intelligent sect of society out there who are susceptible to negative influences of contraversial media that only the enlightened can responsibly enjoy.

 

Archie Bunker didn't create an aging generation with antiquated social viewpoints.  That group of people already existed and latched onto him, just as the more open minded audience did.  Archie put both of those people in front of the same piece of art and got them to talk about it, which is a catalyst for change.

 

The path to hell is paved with good intentions.  No one ever burned a book because "fuck freedom."  It was only ever done by someone who was afraid that its content would influence the minds of those less capable of understanding it than they were.

 

I actually agree with a lot of what you say, although you mischaracterize the position of the Thumbs and this forum in the process. No one wants to ban South Park, but its influence is not wholly positive.

 

I think the real danger is creating fictional characters that serve as ideation for their audience. South Park didn't create racists, but it did make a lot of kids I knew when it first got popular think it was okay to act as racist as I guess they must have felt deep down. Sometimes the fact that it's satire doesn't matter when it comes to giving someone a figure to which they can attach their beliefs as legitimate. I think very strongly that we should have Walter Whites and Tony Sopranos in fiction, but I don't pretend we're not playing with fire. I see a lot of Heisenberg shirts around campus and I saw a lot of cheering on the internet when Walt went off on his misogynistic rant against Skyler. These people aren't idiots without the ability to understand a work. They just have a worldview that enables them to take away a different message than the author probably intended, which is on the author, as Badfinger says.

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Fictitious things do exist, just in the realm of fiction. This realm is connected to reality via people's minds. A snarky example is religion.

 

If you wanted to be pedantic then yes, you could make the argument that they exist inside the imagination. The point stands regardless as anything that happens in your imagination cannot be moral or immoral.

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If you wanted to be pedantic then yes, you could make the argument that they exist inside the imagination. The point stands regardless as anything that happens in your imagination cannot be moral or immoral.

 

I admit, I don't understand. So if I spend all day imagining mutilating children and then having sex with their corpses, I'm not committing an immoral act? I don't want to suggest thought crimes here, but there are definitely things in my head that transgress my sense of morality.

 

Not the "dead children" one, though.

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Imagining an immoral act does not have morality attached to it, no. Just as shooting fictional men in a video game all day is an amoral (Not immoral, it's an important distinction) act, so is imagining child killing followed by necrophila.

 

If you were imagining such things all day then that might be cause for concern for your mental well being, but the children in your head are not real, and neither are any of the acts the you in your head commits.

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Not the "dead children" one, though.

oh yeah... me too...

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If you wanted to be pedantic then yes, you could make the argument that they exist inside the imagination. The point stands regardless as anything that happens in your imagination cannot be moral or immoral.

The point under discussion is not the act of imagining which indeed is not inherently moral either way, but of expressing this imagination, communicating with others, for example through fiction. The act of communication is inherently concrete (it changes the perceiver) and thus subject to morality.

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Discussing and qualifying a person or group of people's "media literacy" treads on some pretty dangerous ground.  It's rather arrogant to view a particular work of art and internalize it as "I can consume this responsibility because I have acheived a level of literacy, intelligence or understanding that most other people have not, and, as such, it is my responsibility to monitor the content of this atrist or medium to protect those who do not share my level of literacy from its harmful influences."  Not only is such a view point loaded with self importance, but its also extremely condescending to other people.

 

I don’t think Danielle Riendeau or the Idle Thumbs crew meant to sound that way, but I had a similar reaction of frustration with the conversation. It did sound (unintentionally) elitist to me, too. I think dissecting humor is extremely difficult, and I don't think a candid podcast is the place to get honed arguments for any position.

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The point under discussion is not the act of imagining which indeed is not inherently moral either way, but of expressing this imagination, communicating with others, for example through fiction. The act of communication is inherently concrete (it changes the perceiver) and thus subject to morality.

 

I disagree, expression via non-forceful means can never be immoral, no matter the subject matter.

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Holy hell what an awesome cast and thread. So much food for thought. My brain is filled with thought peas. Dusted with media literacy.

 

The South Park/Sopranos/Heisenburg villain valorization is a HUGE stumbling block / interesting thread for me. It also came up recently in my reactions to watching Wolf of Wall Street. I understood that Scorcese was kind of winking at us throughout and implying "what an asshole, this guy eh?" At the same time there were actual theaters full of bankers cheering the lascivious, gluttonous excess that was happening on screen. It's just extremely conflicting.

 

I also had huge problems with the way Breaking Bad ended. Because villains are interesting and often moreso than heroes. But often it feels like popular media is addicted to riding this fine line dramatically. There are ever increasing examples of movie/series prime movers who are promoting messed up attitudes and are explicitly bad but are implicitly good guys or men of their time or whatever. It seems easier to write good stories that use this device or maybe it's just the current trend. I find it extremely problematic though (cue misandry klaxons)

 

Also the suey park/cancel colbert stuff is super complicated and a lot of what i thought about it has been said. i don't think it's as simple as misunderstanding satire. i do think it's about thinking about WHY you're laughing at a certain joke and whether satire is being used to allow for marginalizing attitudes, in some ways. but it's a whole other huge discussion.

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