![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(Inspired by the inestimable ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
neowiccan, who chortles over people who haven't seen Brokeback Mountain but feel compelled to have a tizzy over it nonetheless.)
I think that for the most part, the tizzifying has been by people who use the concept behind the movie to springboard into a discussion of their own beliefs, which naturally aren't at all affected by a movie they haven't even seen. More about this later.
Leaving aside that tempest and the teapot it rode in on, I think that there *are* things you could say about a movie without ever having seen it. For instance, if all you knew about a movie was its title and what genre it was, you could say that it was a pretty stupid (or misleading) title. "Gee, I think The Cartoon Adventures of Sammie and Her Magical Dog is a really dumb name for an R-rated romance, because people might get the wrong idea."
Going to the other extreme of the spectrum, what about people who actually went to see a movie, paid for tickets, sat down, bought their popcorn, and walked out partway through it? I think that those people, even if they may have missed the last half of the film or more, probably have a lot to say! Do they have less right (i.e. knowledge) to talk about the movie than someone who sat through the whole thing without really paying attention? (The example I'm thinking of, and I'm going to be vague cause I don't remember if it was an unlocked post, was someone who took his little girl to see a kids' movie, but she was so upset by the events of the first few minutes that they left.)
I think there are a lot of facets of a movie that you could talk about without having actually seen it, but what you say is going to be highly affected by what you know about it, and people should take that into account. You don't know if "a movie about a little girl whose mom died" shows the event, or the little girl at the funeral, or just the wacky misadventures of the girl's dad trying to adjust to having to live with his child by himself. You might find out, from reading one review or another, but what you say about the movie is still filtered through that (in other words, you have to take the reviewer's word for how it's handled on screen, and you can't decide for yourself if it's tasteful or not.)
But back to the original statement-- people will talk about the subject of a movie, because it's relevant to current society. There will always be people who see a movie and proclaim, "This movie changed my life!!" I think the people who talk about the subject of a movie (without taking the movie's treatment into account) are just trying to exert some normative force on media-induced societal change.
For example, the Disney-produced "Dalmatian" movies, when released, caused surges in people wanting to buy Dalmatians, usually for their kids, because they're presented as such friendly, smart, wonderful dogs. (By the way, in the original book by Smith, it's made very clear that the owners of the dogs have no children, and spend a good portion of their day caring for their dogs, walking them, and paying lots of attention to them, which IS realistic.) Legitimate animal breeders, rescue workers, vets, and many other people who know a lot about real live Dalmatians spoke out in numbers AGAINST this trend. My point is that they didn't have to have seen the movies to know that in real life people wanted dogs for their kids that weren't good children's dogs.
So, is it really so silly that, given a movie that gets everyone talking about gay people, or spotty dogs, or cloning, or whatever-- that people will want to make sure that others know what the facts are? Or, if something is a moral issue, that people know what the "right" viewpoint is and how they ought to feel about it-- especially if it's something we as a society haven't talked about much before, or something where opinions have changed drastically?
One final thing I've thought about in the context of media and religion-- the well-known Jehovah's Witnesses have spoken out frequently about a lot of popular entertainment. Those of you of a certain age may recall when they criticized the Smurfs. Now, when you stop giggling, let me remind you why-- because they felt that, in real life, when "magical" or "miraculous" things happen, they are miracles from God. If you take the miracle but don't give credit, you are ignoring God, and if you try to create the miracle, you are trying to go against God, or in other words you are being like Satan. So, the only acceptable story that includes magic or miracles or any such thing that seems to be "impossible" will make it clear Who the source is of that happening.
Now, this may seem far-fetched for them to be tizzifying about, but our darling Ravenlet has gotten a fairly standard Sunday School religious education and an excelled popular-culture TV education, and when asked to explain who Jesus Christ is, will explain that He "has special powers like Wonder Woman."
I betcha the JW kids don't say stuff like that, you know?
Corr
neowiccan, who chortles over people who haven't seen Brokeback Mountain but feel compelled to have a tizzy over it nonetheless.)I think that for the most part, the tizzifying has been by people who use the concept behind the movie to springboard into a discussion of their own beliefs, which naturally aren't at all affected by a movie they haven't even seen. More about this later.
Leaving aside that tempest and the teapot it rode in on, I think that there *are* things you could say about a movie without ever having seen it. For instance, if all you knew about a movie was its title and what genre it was, you could say that it was a pretty stupid (or misleading) title. "Gee, I think The Cartoon Adventures of Sammie and Her Magical Dog is a really dumb name for an R-rated romance, because people might get the wrong idea."
Going to the other extreme of the spectrum, what about people who actually went to see a movie, paid for tickets, sat down, bought their popcorn, and walked out partway through it? I think that those people, even if they may have missed the last half of the film or more, probably have a lot to say! Do they have less right (i.e. knowledge) to talk about the movie than someone who sat through the whole thing without really paying attention? (The example I'm thinking of, and I'm going to be vague cause I don't remember if it was an unlocked post, was someone who took his little girl to see a kids' movie, but she was so upset by the events of the first few minutes that they left.)
I think there are a lot of facets of a movie that you could talk about without having actually seen it, but what you say is going to be highly affected by what you know about it, and people should take that into account. You don't know if "a movie about a little girl whose mom died" shows the event, or the little girl at the funeral, or just the wacky misadventures of the girl's dad trying to adjust to having to live with his child by himself. You might find out, from reading one review or another, but what you say about the movie is still filtered through that (in other words, you have to take the reviewer's word for how it's handled on screen, and you can't decide for yourself if it's tasteful or not.)
But back to the original statement-- people will talk about the subject of a movie, because it's relevant to current society. There will always be people who see a movie and proclaim, "This movie changed my life!!" I think the people who talk about the subject of a movie (without taking the movie's treatment into account) are just trying to exert some normative force on media-induced societal change.
For example, the Disney-produced "Dalmatian" movies, when released, caused surges in people wanting to buy Dalmatians, usually for their kids, because they're presented as such friendly, smart, wonderful dogs. (By the way, in the original book by Smith, it's made very clear that the owners of the dogs have no children, and spend a good portion of their day caring for their dogs, walking them, and paying lots of attention to them, which IS realistic.) Legitimate animal breeders, rescue workers, vets, and many other people who know a lot about real live Dalmatians spoke out in numbers AGAINST this trend. My point is that they didn't have to have seen the movies to know that in real life people wanted dogs for their kids that weren't good children's dogs.
So, is it really so silly that, given a movie that gets everyone talking about gay people, or spotty dogs, or cloning, or whatever-- that people will want to make sure that others know what the facts are? Or, if something is a moral issue, that people know what the "right" viewpoint is and how they ought to feel about it-- especially if it's something we as a society haven't talked about much before, or something where opinions have changed drastically?
One final thing I've thought about in the context of media and religion-- the well-known Jehovah's Witnesses have spoken out frequently about a lot of popular entertainment. Those of you of a certain age may recall when they criticized the Smurfs. Now, when you stop giggling, let me remind you why-- because they felt that, in real life, when "magical" or "miraculous" things happen, they are miracles from God. If you take the miracle but don't give credit, you are ignoring God, and if you try to create the miracle, you are trying to go against God, or in other words you are being like Satan. So, the only acceptable story that includes magic or miracles or any such thing that seems to be "impossible" will make it clear Who the source is of that happening.
Now, this may seem far-fetched for them to be tizzifying about, but our darling Ravenlet has gotten a fairly standard Sunday School religious education and an excelled popular-culture TV education, and when asked to explain who Jesus Christ is, will explain that He "has special powers like Wonder Woman."
I betcha the JW kids don't say stuff like that, you know?
Corr
