Why modern movies suck - they teach us awful lessons

[Blue Orange]

It's not that he's hyper-competent, it's that you know he will always make it out in the end, brooding the whole way, and everyone else saying how awesome he is. For the record I don't blame Salvatore for this; I think that's been pretty much dictated to him since Drizz't became super popular

Remember how much hate mail Doyle got when he got sick of writing Holmes and killed him off?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It's not that he's hyper-competent, it's that you know he will always make it out in the end, brooding the whole way, and everyone else saying how awesome he is. For the record I don't blame Salvatore for this; I think that's been pretty much dictated to him since Drizz't became super popular

Never really read much of Drizz't beyond the Icewind Dale trilogy

 

[Blue Orange]

I dunno all art has politics embedded in it.

A lot of things we don't think of as political now were at the time (Michelangelo's David was an anti-Medici statement, Macbeth had a subtext about the Gunpowder Plot), but I'd say there is art that isn't political, or at least not intended to be.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think you can say anything is "not political". Saying nothing is a political act.

I fundamentally disagree and do not buy this claim at all. Plenty of things are not political. And even those things that are, vary to the degree that they are political.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

..... But I think the issue with politics in art gets more thorny when it is so ever-present, or when there is an orthodoxy that must be adhered to in the art community. And while political movies can be great, especially if they are well crafted and strike the right emotional resonance, they can also be preachy, overly simplistic and propagandistic.

Which is a failure in storytelling, or artistic expression on the part of the creator(s) not a reason not to have politics in the piece of art.

 

[Mallus]

Out of curiosity, how many people here with an opinion about politics in Hollywood movies know what the Hays Office and the Motion Picture Production Code are?

(or have a favorite Pre-Code movie - some of them are wild!)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I fundamentally disagree and do not buy this claim at all. Plenty of things are not political. And even those things that are, vary to the degree that they are political.

It's the politics we don't notice that has the biggest influence.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Which is a failure in storytelling, or artistic expression on the part of the creator(s) not a reason not to have politics in the piece of art.

I am not saying you can't have politics in art. There is plenty of art with political messaging I like. Plenty of political movies I enjoy. But the point is it doesn't have to always be the priority of every work of art or of every movie, and sometimes when you try to force it into every film, then you end up with a propaganda machine rather than a healthy artistic community

The point being made wasn't art shouldn't have politics, But that the movie's politics shouldn't' be our primary measure of its quality

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's the politics we don't notice that has the biggest influence.

There can be that, but there can also be finding a political pattern where there isn't one because you are using a lens that is always looking for it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

A lot of things we don't think of as political now were at the time (Michelangelo's David was an anti-Medici statement, Macbeth had a subtext about the Gunpowder Plot), but I'd say there is art that isn't political, or at least not intended to be.

It can be political with out taking obvious sides or the politics are not relevant to you. As pointed out above by the comments on Michelangelo or Shakespeare's History plays.