Is media literacy in crisis?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มี.ค. 2024
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#media #movies #books - บันเทิง
“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” ― Cesar A. Cruz
Amazing quote, thank you!!
Yes! Love that quote.
best quote
I think the biggest issue is that people have ceased to treat books, movies, TV as art. It’s all become content.
I think the word 'art' is slowly dying; it's been replaced by 'media' and 'content'. I think for a while now capitalist vocabulary has become a mainstay in the common person's vocabulary. Words that existed mainly for use in an industry, with industry definitions, have been adopted by common people to describe art the way a company sees art.
I remember reading a book on grammar that had a section where the author pointed out the trend of words used in board meetings escaping into the common lexicon through advertisement or reporting. This was an old book, published around the 80's, but I think as a society we don't understand the subliminal insinuations behind words and their origins.
It’s always been content though…. That’s the point. In my experience it’s those complaining the loudest about a lack of media literacy that lack it the most. Many of the complaints about movies and tv are directly from personal dislike for the content and therefore people who don’t consume it or care or people who full well know the messaging and simply disagree.
Piggy backing off the example of the matrix in video….. the modern usage of the terms red vs blue pill arent a distortion of that film. It’s a direct usage of the scene where Neo is given the choice between waking up and being free or staying asleep and being manipulated. Now people may dislike what the terms represent in the real world when it comes to the alpha male beta BS but the terms are being used correctly in direct homage. Also to look at a 30yr old film and apply the terms “queer coded” and assert that people that don’t view it as a gay film are therefore not understanding the film is highly disturbing. It’s a film about rampant technology that takes over the world and the fight for humanity that ensues. That’s the surface yes, but within the story as we go various ideas are presented on what humanity is and what it means and the ways he fails and triumphs. The main character is a heterosexual male Jesus like figure with super powers who falls in love with a strong biological woman. There’s nothing gay about that. To make such an assertion and then state that because the creators are trans it stand to reason that all their work must therefore be gay in foundation is imbecilic. It pushes the idea that an artist can’t create art without inserting themselves into it and asserts that essentially everything is gay. Was it the clothes? The hairstyles? The music choices? What about the matrix story is “queer coded”….. people love to forget the beauty of art is that it’s subjective. Almost entirely and therefore it’s hard to objectively send messages within it. Unless the artist explains the meaning it’s open to interpretation completely. So while some looked and saw a strong woman at the center of the matrix who goes on to become even more powerful and equal to the male counterpart many simply saw another woman standing on the sidelines to a man. The audience perception has a direct impact on art without intervention.
The lack of media literacy is when people ignore political and social messaging and influence in media. Which has been on the rise in the last 10 yrs from a very specific sociopolitical ideological camp. That are openly stating that they don’t care if people hate it they’ll do it anyway. Even at the detriment of the stories and products.
@@vikkidonn it hasn't always been content, the word content only existed in its present use for past 20 years, before that what were the things that encompass content called? Content is a new capitalist idea, a new conception of art, which emphasizes the 'product' part of art first. It's the way art exists inside capitalism, that's what content is. That's why this word exists.
@@ThePortjumper art has always been content though. The term itself isn’t as new as people think it’s only been used more widely due to the current environment. And it has nothing to do with capitalism itself. Art has been a commodity in all societies predating capitalism. In fact the idea of “Art” as we formally perceive it was for the longest a past time of luxury only accessible by the wealthy. Art as a collective term has always been subject and that trickles into the mind of the audience. So once again not every thing is for everyone it doesn’t mean someone lacks understanding of the art but rather they disagree with the message it’s sending or rather the perceived message it sends in the broader world it takes place in
@@vikkidonn No, it's not a commodity by definition it's not wheat, copper, coal, something of fungible value that is immediately interchangeable.
That's like saying a philosophical treatise is a commodity because you can buy it as a book
The book is the commodity not the philosophical treatise inside of it. Yes, art was long associated with the elite up until recently, someone like Francisco Goya had royal patrons and most of his work was painting mundane portraits of royal, inbred assholes (made fun of subtly in his portraits) which he despised doing but he was a working artist in a feudal system. However, if you read anything written by an artist, fine art or otherwise you'll see someone who treats their work idealistically with an aim to capture something in culture/society/themselves. You know, read any collection of essays by a poet about their craft - they are not speaking about their work in a 'trade' sense.
No, the word content hasn't been around in its current form for very long and has never been this pervasive. I'm a bit on the older side and trust me it was never, probably outside of exec board meetings.
'Media' has, but not so pervasively and in the same sense. I understand that word because it has a lot to do with the tech industry and the advent of the internet where art is in digital form.
I think the media literacy debate has always been a thing but now people just talk about in an online space. You used to only talk about media with friends or engage with it with professional criticism in magazines or in a classroom. I personally think it's not a big big deal; the percentage of people who have pretty good media literacy is perhaps higher than it's ever been.
I also think people should just enjoy whatever they like. I enjoy reading hard dense prose in novels with a lot of thematic substance, but I'll also read like a book about a cat running a library, and you'd be surprised about how art of any kind can impact the individual. I know some people work out and are adult gym rats just because they saw DBZ as a kid and it influenced them positively.
No, like some of these words do EXPLICITLY have capitalist origins or industrial origins and are tied directly to a neoliberalist ideology where everything is commodity including human beings, which it is under capitalism. It's the same reason the word 'human capital' is gaining traction right now publically, although it's existed since forever in economics.
I just think people literally grow up with this as common sense, from birth they are tied to capitalist rhetoric/world view because they've been in it all their lives and are oblivious to it's bias influences. Just take your own standpoint and tell me where it's origins lie, where'd you get these ideas?
"Dorian grey was soooo bad, like, Dorian was such an awful guy! Oscar wilde was a terrible author, i couldnt relate at all!" - somebody online, probably.
Fantastic point about privilege! The best thing we can do is seek out discomfort! I think that privilege on top of short form content and short attention spans, as well as contemporary reactionary discourse, has led to a stigmatisation of critical thought.
On top of that(and as an aside), you have people literally saying higher education institutions are "lefty loony/woke brainwashing" ripoffs, because keeping a population uneducated is how idiots hold power in a deathgrip (see class/race/gender divides historically). Once discourse is shredded by telling people that their discomfort is unfair, then all of a sudden, there are a bunch of people screaming vile stuff with a complete lack of emotional regulation. It's just awful.
I could rant about this stuff forever - makes me angry af. But again, you're right. It 100% comes down to the barbaric annihilation of "comfort within discomfort".
Or maybe we're just lefty shills, and the real answer is to just yell "based and redpilled" at everything with no braincells 🤔 sometimes I wonder how much of a blessing such ignorance would be 😅
Great video! 🎉
Beautifully worded!
I really look forward to your comments. You always make fantastic points and express them so damn well! 💜
@@WillowTalksBooks what a coincidence! I always look forward to your videos! 😁
great points as always 💡
1. privilege blinds people
2. art doesn't have to agree
with anybody to be great art:
thank you for the insight you
often promote by kicking the
hornet's nest so bravely!
Media literacy has never been prevalent.
Right now, more people are engaging with more art in many forms than ever in history. And I'd actually guess that there are also more people engaging with that art in complex, literate ways than ever. But that leaves a tremendous number who simply don't have those skills.
People need to learn to be more able to recognize, sit with, and analyze their discomfort. Not only in relation to art, but art is an excellent path for intentional exploration.
I've seen a lot of poor media literacy regarding TV as well. I try to stay away from House Of The Dragon content because my god people really hate nuance 😅
YES. it’s actually nauseating.
Movies, tv, books, video games it's truly effecting how people interact with any kind of media.
I recently watched Monster directed by Kore eda (great film btw) and the straight people I watched it with didn't realise the relationship between the boys was romantic? They genuinely thought they were just friends.
So yes, there is definitely something to be said about ppl being completely unable (or unwilling) to understand perspectives that they cannot relate to.
Great video Willow - on the point of hyper sexualisation of girls and infantilisation of women I recently had an argument with a man (of course) at work who could not see why I took issue with him referring to the England Women's team as the England Girls team - and the ick I feel in general when women are referred to as girls (I always challenge this) - I ended up having to forcefully tell him that I was concerned he wanted to refer to full grown women as girls and how men who seem to want blur those lines are troubling
I had no idea there was discourse about media literacy until I saw the Patreon post. Then out of curiousity I read an article about Poor Things and claims people have made about it, and became very depressed. I'm too sensitive. lol Anyway brilliant video as usual, good job 💚
I love everything about this video. Media Literacy is a topic I have been talking about so much lately.
I hated reading The Great Gatsby for school because everyone was so horrible and I had (and still was at the time!!) suffered too much childhood abuse by awful people - but I at no point thought the book was bad, just that the characters in themselves were too unpleasant to read about because that was just rubbing more awful people in my face. It was a me thing. Many years later, I loved watching Breaking Bad even though basically everyone except Flynn were different levels of bloody awful and I loathed Walter White from his first arrogant prideful moment because of how many red flags that raised for me.
Great video and insight as always ❤Every time there is a discussion about media literacy I always remember that stupid meme about blue curtains and metaphorical meaning within the text (or lack of thereof) and it makes my blood boil. And rn the social media is full of people that refuse to interact with fictional text on more than shallow literal level, be it a book, a manga, or a video game. And like you said, many of it is done out of privilage and the idea that "discomfort" is something to be avoided at all cost when it comes to interacting with art.
I actually made a whole video based on that meme a few months ago :)
One thing I remember from reading Wuthering Heights a few years ago was hating every single character but loving the book because the character's behaviours and flaws said so much and that was the whole point.
A friend sent me this video. Probably because I am always going off about how people don't understand a book and "don't know how to read'. I am not going to argue with you about people bringing their privilege to the table - or in this case the book. This is only part of the problem. I am currently getting my MA in English Literature and upon graduation this spring to get my MFA. I think I'm qualified to talk about this. The majority of my professors have been saying that things are getting worse and worse with each incoming group of students. They don't know how to critically think, they don't know how to engage, they don't know how to write a basic paper. And it's been worse since the pandemic when we were all on Zoom. It's this lack of thinking critically, it's this banning of books, and so much more along with privledge.
That's an excellent point, that the increasing trends in book bans - and political pendulum swinging right again - contributes greatly toward students not knowing how to analyze or engage with media that makes them uncomfortable, or isn't a clear-cut good vs. evil allegory. Textbooks, lesson plans, and hamstrung school libraries can be just as much a form of control as redlining and voter disenfranchisement.
Thank you for this video essay! Excellent connections between discomfort, inescapable privilege, and media literacy. I also love how you opened the video talking about responses to Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights. I don’t think media literacy is dead, but your message makes it clear that it can require empathy and uncomfortable self-reflection.
I was so pleased to see this Willow. Also an ex English teacher, similarly dismayed by the current lack of media literacy, lack of understanding of privilege, bias and the fact that well-written characters sre not necessarily likeable characters. 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Frankenstein' are up there among my favourite novels too and I am heartily sick of listening to friends who don't understand why that is.
Love your videos, keep them coming ❤
Yes!!!!! Some of my good friends have surprised me by their reaction to Poor Things! I’m like, how can you not understand that this is a feminist work?
I really appreciate this video, and I want to understand more. I'm having a hard time seeing my discomfort with Poor Things as privilege. I am a 30-something white woman. I consider myself very sex-positive. And the movie itself mI found brilliant and troubling in the best way. But going into it, being told it was "empowering" and "feminist" is where I get lost. I didn't feel empowered at all watching that movie. If anything, I felt like "empowerment" was being reduced to a high sex drive and conventionally attractive body which was almost always displayed as still benefiting the patriarchy, or the men around her. Again, if this is the point, brilliant movie. But I felt like 90% of the movie was about her value coming from what she looked like, and what she could offer with her body. We got a short scene where she learns more about suffering in the world, and then it's back to more sex. I read a review that referred to a type of "manic pixie bride of Frankenstein" and I agree. I know I'm privileged. I know I have a lot to learn about media literacy. But I push back on the point that anyone who has a critique is just not literate enough to understand.
TL;DR: I loved the movie, but I disagree with the reception that it's empowering for women and feminism. I found it to be a powerful statement, but not a positive one.
I'm genuinely curious, if anyone has the time or interest in sharing their thoughts! I want to see if there's a blindspot here. And if not, I'll keep thinking about it.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Maybe I can bring what I felt, as also a white 30 something women who is sex positive.
Preface note: I don't necessarily agree that if we are being offended, it is because we are privileged. Also because I felt that the point is brought in a contradicting way in the video. She says that people who are privileged are those who are offended. But the example she gave is with the black American tiktoker talking about the black magic man trope. So he is the one "offended" or upset about the movie, but it is not coming from a privileged place. Maybe she felt uncomfortable by the critic because she is privileged. But it just shows that sometimes we are feeling offended or uncomfortable because we are privileged, and sometimes we are not privileged and still feel uncomfortable.
Parenthesis over.
From my side, the viewing was an interesting experience. I almost walked out of the theatre at the beginning of the movie when she was with the child brain and experiencing with the apple, and witth the lawyer SA her in the closet. I was so mad, I thought it was the classic trope of sexy born yesterday.
But as the film continued, I felt it completely turned the trope on its head, and I felt empowered.
It is weird, and I am still not completely clear on why. And this movie has stayed with me since because of that. What I am understanding of my reaction to it is as followed.
I felt it showed so well the complexity of sexuality as a woman. As a child who has a sexual appetite, you can be abused. And, in real life, you need to deal with complex feelings of guilt, like it was your fault, and you are perverted. However in the movie, she doesn't carry the guilt. She reconized that the lawyer was abusive and a shitty person. But she got what she wanted from the relationship and left without ever feeling guilt or shame. It was what it was. Not healthy, but good for sex. It doesn't excuse it, it just say, yeah pretty shitty guy, but she shouldn't be the one carrying the burden of it, even if she enjoyed some of the interaction. He is the one paying for his shitty behavior in the story.
Later one, the more she learned about philosophy, the less sex is interesting for her. She likes the sensation, but it is not her obsession anymore. And when she explores sex as a sex worker, it is for completely different reasons. She likes the aspect of getting access to a part of people that people don't show in society. She is non judgmental and curious. She sees that in the context of the movie she has limited power. She can't choose her clients. She has limited means of independence as a woman, and sex work is an imperfect one. Not because it is sex work, she doesn't see an issue with using her body as a mean of production. But because she is dependent on an institution (the house) that say they cannot afford to select the client. Therefore, she finds other ways to take something out of the experience. And it is not sensual pleasure anymore. But the exploration of human quirks.
Finally, by the end, she stops sex work, not because she is "liberated" or "saved", just because she got bored of it. It has become repetitive, and she is ready to move on.
I love how absolutely unapologetic and unjudmental it is with the topic of sex. It is truly refreshing and empowering. She is allowed to pursue toxic relationships for the sake of lust and not be scared for life (while not being oblivious of the toxicity of the situation either), to pursue sex work because she wants to, to look at sex as a way to connect and study people. It is an inspiring and feminist movie for me because she doesn't feel guilt linked to her gender. (She does feel guilt linked to her class privileges) but everything that has to do with being part of an under privileged group, she didn't internalised the guilt, even when her behaviour wasn't perfect. And that was liberating to me.
@@olympuce1 Thank you for taking the time to write this all out! I really appreciate having another perspective. My first viewing of the movie will always be what it was, but I'm interested to watch it again in the coming years and see if I glean anything close to how you experienced it. I do appreciate that Bella never internalized the guilt or self-consciousness that we're so often made to feel. My biggest complaint still remains that sex seemed to be the only means of empowerment, and took up most of the 2 hour and 20 minute film. But being further away from it, I can totally see how someone would have your experience. Thanks again for sharing.
poor things is anything but feminist. I hated that movie, because it's clearly is a male take on feminism. And it's disgusting.
Everyone is free to like that movie but...if it's directed by a man and made for Hollywood it's simply not a feminist movie. Sex work is not empowering nor "better" and less oppressive than being married and having a baby. That rethoric is absolutely bonkers and one of the most sinister and gross bullshit liberal feminists come up with. Sorry not sorry.
Honestly, everyone should watch this video 🖤
Thank you for doing this video. You explained it so perfectly.
I don't know "Poor Things" (yet) but I latched on to you saying that people seem to have a problem with the main character being very sexually active. I've always thought that the reason LGBTQ+ rights took a turn around 2000 that some saw as positive, was because a subset of our community promised, essentially, to stop having sex and get married instead. Many of the current problems the LGBTQ+ community is facing in the Anglophone world are caused by hetero society finally noticing that being allowed marriage didn't stop some of us frightening the horses.
Thank you so much for this brilliant and important video!!
Great video and insights.
Yes, your exactly right! Thank you for this video ❤
I'd just like to comment on the plague doctor. My cuddle buddy got me a fairly large one after I got Covid-19. Her name is Rona, the doctor that is.
Amazing name
I’ve watched a lot of your videos and this is possibly the most important and insightful one you’ve ever made
Thank you!
I have people in my life with different tastes that enjoy art. I love talking music, literature, movies, theatre, and art with the friends and family members that I am close to and, for a while, we did this using social media. Recently, I realized how little of this was done on social media anymore. Mostly this was because people stopped using social media and most of what I saw were influencers in those arenas. Since what I love the most is the conversation with people, I just started upping my social life instead of my social media life. I don’t know if this is relevant to the poor literacy around media, but I do think that it is difficult to find online anymore because the landscape of social media has changed so much over the years. Even in “people circles” rather than “influencer circles”, social media seems to be designed to help people create bubbles of influence. You can’t address your privilege if everything you do is designed to give you more of the same. I used to think social media was about connecting with people. It just doesn’t feel like that anymore.
Brilliant. Thank you for challenging us 💖
Bless you for this video. So insightful and well-explained. The explanation of confronting privilege regarding Black characters in Poor Things was so well said.
Also, I would absolutely watch a video deep-diving the Matrix, haha. I adore those movies so much.
Privilege is definitely a factor in issues of media literacy, but it's not the only aspect. A lack of empathy is an aspect. Stanning is a huge aspect (strong bias for one character causing an inability to empathize with other characters who may be in opposition to that character, or who the stan sees the narrative as favoring "unfairly" -- the stan will then twist everything that character does to suit their narrative). Simply not having the context to engage with a work well (whether because of poor school funding, or previous lack of interest in literature/film, or etc.) is another issue.
I remember being very offended that I was assigned to read The Bluest Eye in an American public high school in the 1990s. The reason I was offended is that there is an explicit father/daughter rape scene in it. I'm also from the city it was set in, but did not live there at the time, and there is father/daughter CSA in my family background, although not me personally. We didn't really talk in terms of "triggering material" at the time, but that was the reason I didn't think it should be assigned (but that we should definitely read other books about the Black experience that didn't have explicit incestuous CSA in them). I felt there was a very good chance that at least one or two kids in the classes who had to read that book were being abused at home and should not have to deal with it as assigned reading. The teacher was male and I thought he was a good guy on the whole, and he definitely assigned the book because he wanted to discuss and confront privilege, but he totally left his male privilege out of the equation.
On another note, I don't agree about Poor Things, and I think the issue with it is the overarching/controlling involvement of presumably cishet men. It is hard to critique abuse without showing abuse, that's true, but there are more and less exploitative ways to depict it. It reminds me a lot of Angela Carter's Nights At the Circus, which does similar things in a way that I didn't personally find as exploitative. Poor Things works super well as a critique of the male characters (and in that context, the fact that it was a male-driven project is not problematic) but I don't think it serves its female characters well, even if I think Bella should have sex with whoever she wants. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ People may dislike Poor Things for reasons other than pearl-clutching, their own privilege, etc... as you said, it's not immune to critique.
Anyway, love the channel, Willow, and even if I don't agree with every point, I'm always interested to hear what you have to say!
Protagonist centered morality is such a plague (or, in the case of stan culture stand character based morality). It truly feels like this aspect of fandom has trained people to shut off their empathy and revert to this need to see every single character as for or against the character they care about, creating villain and hero dichotomies where they don't exist. Usually this leads, as you mentioned, to quite a disconnect because they don't even like the character as the flawed complex person that they are but rather a sort of muddled together Fanon version that shows they're quite uninterested in the original material. It's appalling how I've seen people revel in and brag about having no empathy for other characters and feel threatened when others ask them to open their minds.
I think many completely miss point entirely and it just makes me sad or angry.
Love what you're saying here Willow. I was thinking, as I listened to you, that the term privilege is so emotionally loaded and can be used as a judgment when maybe sometimes the word experience might be more appropriate. For example, a white straight man can sometimes seem, to me, to be demonised for being so and calling them privileged can just tap into any angry misogyny. Whereas it may be more helpful to recognise that because of being a white straight man they simply have a different experience than a different type of person and as human beings we have a responsibility to be challenged and educated about the experience of others. This is one of the great benefits of literature, I think, as it gives us the chance to be challenged and to be made uncomfortable, in a safe way; and to step into another's shoes and gain empathy and understanding of how our experience/privilege is different to that of others. Thus helping us to grow as individuals and behave as better human beings to others.
I like your point, and I think if I was trying to have a conversation with a straight white man about his privilege, I would use the word “experience” in order to placate him and encourage him to see reason. In my head, I still call it privilege but using “experience” as a tool of conversation and persuasion is very smart.
I had a similar thought: using "privilege" in discussions with my inner circle and academic conversations, but "experience" in more casual or less equitable conversations with folks who, even if they think I'm a bit unique, don't understand that I'm a queer, enby anarchist.
Thank you Willow!!!
Great video! More people should speak about this!
We live in an age of young, outspoken people who are aware of the vast and endless injustices of the world - people who are angry, lost, and trapped by the state of the world want solutions. They want answers. They want to effect change NOW. And it's not happening. We're tired, scared, and pissed off.
And I think this directly correlates to the current media literacy discourse. Why? When one feels utterly unable to effect even the most basic of change in the world, turning that attitude to the art and entertainment you consume can feel like activism.
That's why you get these moralistic, puritanical outrages from people who basically think depiction is endorsement. Our only outlet in this hellscape of a world we live in is our entertainment. So when we police the ethics and morality of that, we feel like we're saying something, doing something.
That's why you see people who thinking counting lines of dialogue a female character has in a movie is doing a feminism....when in reality all they are doing is utterly failing to engage with the piece on any meaningful thematic level.
People now expect art to instantly BE POLITICAL. To MAKE A STATEMENT. If a person can't immediately graft their politics onto a piece of art and if THE STATEMENT isn't instantly recognizable, or if you find it challenging and uncomfortable in any way, you rebel against it.
And yea, all art IS political. But the problem comes from putting the politics first and the art a distant second.
I'd say that it was always a problem to some extent but because of the internet/esp social media we see it more.
Great video. Thank you.
Great video!!
Exceptionally well said. Thank you
It's funny...it feels like there is more good discussion of storytelling by people who aren't professional critics or literature professors than ever (eg all the people discussing their specific problems with the end of Game of Thrones and using terms like 'character arc'). However, it often ends up very PLOT focused, sometimes character-development focused, but there seems to be more confusion around dissecting themes and messages.
And I think you're right about the privilege and discomfort, but I also think people often aren't taught to think through that discomfort. They see that the topic is there, but not what the author is trying to convey about it.
Sometimes I still get uncomfortable when, despite thinking about it A LOT, I can't figure out how a book is trying to frame a certain uncomfortable topic. For instance, 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' and 'In the House of the Spirits' are both Latin American magical realism novels with extensive political commentary...and which you could tag with just about every trigger warning imaginable! But the former feels more uncomfortable to me than the latter because while the political themes of both are pretty clear (it's hard to imagine walking away not understanding that the authors think banana republic imperialism/ right-wing coups are bad) the other TW-worthy stuff is handled rather differently. In 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' there's a lot of messed up stuff that happens to women and children that kinda reads more like the 'here's a bunch of random quirky stuff that happens in this town!' part of the book than the commentary on the horrors of war and imperialism. It's still an important piece of literature...but I can't love it as much as I want to because of that. I appreciate that Allende took inspiration from it and created a similar story that I CAN unequivocally love, in part because I feel secure that when a rich man SAs a young peasant girl (for example)...it's VERY clearly a case of "portraying does not equal endorsing." I feel discomfort in that scene because it is inherently horrifying, not because I'm unsure whether she thinks that is OK (unlike with the bit in 'Solitude' where one character marries a child who then dies while pregnant and...we're apparently NOT supposed to read him as a monster?).
Thank you. I saw PT with a friend and she hated the movie. She talk about how there was too much sex and wouldn't accept my argument that it was supposed to be ugly and crass and unconfy. Your explanation makes sense to me, she is super privileged and doesn't really reflect on that, so yeah.
''Media literacy'' always was garbage. People discovered this sentence not so long ago and already throwing it around, screaming how bad it is, everyone is media illiterate, crisis. Internet exists for 20 something years, before most people just watched the movie and either liked it or not, most didn't give a fuck how good the writing is, how good are themes being explored, what meaning is there. (most still don't) It was left to the critic. Now people are able to talk about it on the internet, everyone is an expert in storytelling here and, OMG, everyone is so illiterate, it's crazy.
This is a deeply depressing and cynical take, wow
“Back in my day everyone was stupid and we liked it”
@@WillowTalksBooks nothing cynical and depressing about it. I'm saying that people always were media illiterate, and that's a fact, cause they're more interested in getting their life together, instead of learning how writing works, which is normal. But people think for some reason that everyone's becoming stupid. You discovered internet, discovered how "stupid" people are, and for some reason you think it's a new development that's happening only now.
I said at the top of the video that this isn’t new 🙄
A great video, and a hugely important topic to discuss! It's so valuable to feel that discomfort and learn how to look at it directly without flinching. Or, rather, to feel that flinch and examine it.
Also re: The Matrix - I remember how the film went from a 5/5 plain ol' good sci-fi, to an actual modern masterpiece after I really figured out the extent of my own queerness and just how much that's what the movie's about. It feels like _home_ now.
Feels like home 🥹🥹🥹
I don't think "look at it directly without flinching" should be an encouragement for all people. I have a friend who saw a painting at an art gallery of a man blowing his brains out, and they had to turn away because their dad committed suicide by blowing his brains out. Do you think my friend should have sat there and examined the piece further?
God, no, who would? That would be inhuman. But I’ve seen you reply to every comment on here and it’s clear that you’re confusing encouraging privilege people to engage with art that will challenge their mindsets with vulnerable people getting triggered. And I don’t know how this has happened honestly.
@@WillowTalksBooks I took things the wrong way, and I was reactionary due to being triggered. I need to step away, and calm down, before I try to engage with anyone on this topic.
'he's actually quite a nasty man' shocked Pikachu face
I think there is some nuance missing here. Plenty of works are not by people in the margins and much of classic lit has viewpoints that are uncomfortable to us today because they could not even conceive of a more progressive world or because they just flat out weren't progressive even in their time period. So you are on the right track but I can see the conservative turnabout argument coming very easily, suggestions of lots of right leaning authors because they make you uncomfortable (First thing that came to mind is Herbert's outright awful gender politics in the Dune series). I guess what I'm saying is it needs a finer point on it?
I'm thinking media literacy is the combination of actually taking the time to engage with the material (rather than just assigning an arbitrary liked or disliked, or disregarding the whole thing over a single item like a character outfit) and knowing yourself well enough to understand where you might be bias (less specific than privilege, but encompasses all the things that we might inherently dislike or be completely oblivious to). Engaging with the work this way requires reflection, and that's where the growth can happen right, it might be a changing of view or it might be a better understanding of why the opposing view doesn't add up for you.
My next guess is that a skill like this is increasingly hard to exercise in the modern world because there is just so much, we are spoiled for choice. We're constantly pulled to the new shiny thing, and actively encouraged to watch/read/play "the thing", say I did it (maybe then watch a youtube video to explain to us what we just experienced), then quickly move on. When we sit down with Frankenstein, its not the only book we will have for the next several months, and we have the options of constant distractions while engaging with it.
Anyway, love the content, well thought out and well spoken as always.
I can't thank you enough for the introductions into modern Japanese literature!
Omg the matrix comparison was genius❤❤❤
Oh btw, since you brought up Moshfegh. I wanted to ask if you heard about the allegations that she took "inspiration" from Olga Tokarczuk? I came across it recently but haven't read both books (Death in Her Hands and Drive Your Plow) and I was wondering what you think.
Oh interesting! I’ve read Drive Your Plow but not Death in Her Hands, and I haven’t heard about these allegations. But honestly, Tokarczuk is a genius, and I also massively respect Moshfegh so it would be crushing if it’s true.
Excellent points 🙏Poor Things is amazing - and yet, I understand the criticism (about the black archetypes, not the other stuff)
Ps: I love your sweater ♥️🩶💙
This reminds me of a couple of reviews I read on the IMDb on the film Queen Kong. There are people who take this King Kong parody way too seriously. It’s a parody it’s meant to make fun of certain things happening in the 1970s and stereotypes in the 1933 film. People take themselves way too seriously nowadays I get the impression. Maybe the thing with a parody is that it’s bound to offend some people. Back in the day when I grew up if you didn’t like a parody you shrug your shoulders and went on with your life. But now with social media…. It seems to me that people stay in a state of frustration much longer. You can’t make a parody nowadays without being afraid to get canceled.
You make some strong points.
As a Muslim I really appreciate you Willow❤❤❤❤
I wrote my college thesis on Haruki Murakami. Now THERE is an author whose work makes people deeply uncomfortable while having quite a lot to say. I can't even imagine what some of these people would say about those books.
I certainly know what I’d say about his books. Actually, I’ve already said enough.
@@WillowTalksBooks Oops, now I'm looking through your channel and seeing that you've done a bunch of videos on him already lol.
I'm doing an essay soon about The Matrix as a trans allegory/through a queer theory lens
What the fuck.
Frankenstein is just Old School Robocop that never had a fair chance.....
Yes, it seems Poor Thing has really sparked conversations around media literacy lately. I really liked the book and loved the adaptation. I currently have a playlist of videos I'm working my way through on others' thoughts. One I watched a couple nights ago was "Is POOR THINGS Really Misogynistic? 🤔 | In-Depth Analysis" by Celeste de la Cabra, which I thought was good and I agreed with. I also watched a video recently that discussed media literacy in regard to book banning: "we're missing the point || media literacy & book banning" by Burd's Books.
This also makes me think of a documentary I watched just last night called _Hell on Earth: The Desecration & Resurrection of The Devils_ (2002). Ken Russell's 1971 film _The Devils_ is one of the most controversial films ever made. It was censored and banned widely upon its completion and release, including cutting out two notable scenes. One of those scenes is known as "the r*pe of Christ," probably the most well-known scene of the film nowadays for those familiar with its history despite it being lost for 30 years. Even nowadays it is hard to find a physical copy of the film- either the cut/censored version or the full version- and has exclusive and limited availability on streaming. I watched _The Devils_ for the first time a few years ago on The Criterion Channel, which I think is only available in the USA. It's currently on the service again now and I plan on watching it before the month is over when it goes off again, especially as I just watched this documentary.
Anyway, there was a priest interviewed for the documentary who had some of the most insightful and significant comments of the doc. He consulted and viewed films in the USA and was a sort of middleman between the filmmakers and those working for the British Board of Film Censors who would be viewing _The Devils_ (a British film)- at least that's what I gathered from the info given. He recalled how the censors were appalled and ashamed, taking against the film.
He thinks the r of Christ scene is "integral to the film." "A scene that portrays blasphemy but is not a blasphemous scene." And particularly is important because it is part of a larger sequence intercut with one portraying "a true spiritual enrichment." He and Russell also pointed out how the scene was in the script (which it seems the censors read beforehand), which was namely based on Aldous Huxley's book _The Devils of Loudun,_ which was based on actual events and historical records. And there's a perceived difference / (potential) difference of interpretation between a reader picturing/imagining a scene or events through reading the words and when a filmmaker commits them to film in detail for viewers to see.
6 years of being on Twitter and I've watched the collective minds of people be warped in disturbing ways. Yet when I speak to people in person, they seem fairly normal. I'm convinced the whole narrative comes from armchair anthropologists.
Can someone help me understand how not wanting to see a woman with an infant brain have intimate relations with grown men is so wrong? I don’t think this type of art will communicate these feminist ideas clearly to anyone who doesn’t already understand them? Maybe I’m wrong.
The fact that you’re not comfortable with seeing that is supposed to encourage you to reflect on the infantilisation of women and the sexualisation of young girls by the media and the patriarchy in real life. And seeing Bella embrace her autonomy and her sexuality is a rallying cry for, and a celebration of, women’s freedom. See? It’s not hard. It’s both educational and inspiring :)
I don't think you're wrong. I don't think it clearly communicates feminism at all.
@@WillowTalksBooksI’m a huge fan of your videos and commentary & I greatly appreciate your reply. I love books with unreliable narrators who are messed up that offer that kind of commentary. I don’t feel that Poor Things (the film) conveys these ideas clearly to someone who doesn’t already understand them and that’s where it fails in my opinion.
you're not wrong at all. Sex positivity is cool, but prostitution is misogynistic abuse and a human rights violation. It's not hard to see. Therefore, Poor Things is not a feminist book/movie. Also, the whole "being a sex worker is more liberating than being a wife and a mother" is so insane I can't believe grown women agree with that statement.
We in the Tiny Hands Society completely agree with you
Jack Saint made a really interesting video about the same topic through the lens of Dune. It's a good companion video.
"Frankenstein is a nasty man" My initial response is "No duh, that's the point". I love Frankenstein! I tried Wuthering Heights recently but DNF'd it. Just not for me, so confusing. I do have Poor Things but still have to read it.
Talking about being uncomfortable I was so confused, because Frankenstein never made me uncomfortable. But then the women/queer people/people of color etc. making people be uncomfortable it clicked, oh yea, my existence as a queer disabled trans man makes them uncomfortable, and I relate to the "monster". No I don't condone his actions but I am disabled and deformed (obviously not like the creature but still) so I feel for him, so much, and hate how shallow everyone is in running from him in fear just based on how he looks, even his own "father". Shallow people really make me angry to say the least... and I guess that's what makes them uncomfy? That's all I can think, confronted with their own shallowness.
I still need to watch The Matrix films! I'm 35, I know I suck at watching things.
Great video! I know there's been times I was made uncomfortable because of my white privilege to. I hope to always be learning, growing and examine anytime media makes me uncomfortable.
I suppose young people don't read Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' and learn about satire anymore. The idea of a mindless wife doll goes all the way back to Galatea. It's a persistant male fantasy, ignoring it doesn't make it go away.
[Shakes walking stick]
Kids these days!
@@WillowTalksBooks they follow our bad example not our good advice?
This was great!
You're going to make me have to reassess my opinion of Hogg....dammit.
I would add the movie Cuties to this list. Netflix promoted it horribly, and that made people never want to see it. In fact, they were very angry at a movie they've never seen. The movie is actually an examination of all the things people were screaming about. How it's hard to be a young girl and especially to be a young girl in an immigrant family who expect you to be one way, and a society they don't understand wanting you to be another. How hypersexualization can distort how young teens see themselves and how sexuality is expected from girls that are far from being women. It deals with media pressures on sexual expression, peer pressure to conform, and then when expressing what they've seen, digust from older generations. But everyone judged it from a 40 second clip they saw on the internet. I try really hard to not judge something before I've seen it or read it (I've failed, but now I try to catch it earlier). I think people get swept away in these anger waves without actually knowing what they're angry about.
(I would also like to add Lolita and Catcher in the Rye to your list of classics that are consistently misread)
(Also, also, thank you for talking about this, it's a really important topic)
(Also, also, also, I adore Wuthering Heights and you've reminded me that I need to reread it)
I would argue that Cuties is different because the movie featured real life child actors. If the movie had used animation or didn’t film those scenes like that (tm) perhaps they would still be discourse but not in the same way
@juand1rection The child actors gave very nuanced and amazing performances. I'm sad that their work wasn't able to be recognized because people got mad because other people were mad because other people saw a clip out context on the internet and got mad. And none of them had seen the film.
The argument aboit Cuties was never a misunderstanding of the themes, or that they were done poorly. The argument about Cuties is that in order to show those themes the child actors had to be subjected to the very abuse that the show was critiquing. The same argument has plagued both adaptions of Lolita. The very same channels making these videos about Media Literacy, possibly even this one, have made numerous video essays about how Lolita shouldnt be adapted. If Lolita shoudnt have been adapted because of the harm caused to the child actors, then Cuties should suffer the same fate.
I'm not taking a side in that argument, and won't. I'm just pointing out the actual argument some people are making, so you can avoid strawmanning in the future.
Conservative bigots co-opting the Matrix is annoying but also hilarious because of the actual content of the story (and the fact that the brilliant women who made it are trans as you mentioned)
I hated Wuthering Heights as a romance, because I was told it was a romance and that made it so disgusting. I hated it more for how people loved it as a romance. I was the person screaming “what is wrong with all of you?” I’ve since met a community of people who enjoy Wuthering Heights for what it is and am slowly overcoming my trauma. I plan on reading it again soon and enjoying it, because I love gothic literature and I’ll never let that be taken away from me again. Also, everyone who says Wuthering Heights is a romance: Stop it. Get some help.
Yikes and ugh: I don't see Wuthering Heights as romance by any stretch of the imagination!
Did you just not watch this video? It was literally said at the beginning theres a difference between romance and romantic even using Wutherimg Heights as the example. Its definitely a gothic romance. Perhaps you should watch it again, lol
Me watching this, thinking, "Oh god, I hope my comment a few videos ago that Frankenstein was a bit too long and it felt like it was beating me over the head with the themes at the end and Frankenstein's whining didnt inspire the laughing aside or hit a sore spot where people kept saying it was bad😬... Like I dont think it was bad, and definitely not for the time. Just as me, now, in a modern lens, having annotated the whole time and run out of tabs, going, "death/immortality anxiety, Darwinism, trauma, the Jungian Shadow self, the self-pity, the critique of God and society, yes yes get ON with it.... God. I want to read something else now and there are HOW many more pages of this man? Im so Tired. " Lol.
But in all likelihood, the comment i am now angsting about wasnt even seen and I am just anxious over a torment of my own dumb4ss creation....
Like..... Frankenstein... God damn it. 😅
Okay, I have no idea what comment you’re referring to (I get a lot of them) but it’s hilarious watching you become Frankenstein right before my eyes. Thank you so much for this gift lol
@WillowTalksBooks Oh, I'm so glad! Fight anxiety with humor, etc. 😂
Regarding "Poor Things", from the scene descriptions I've heard, I couldn't watch it due to the gore and animal cruelty. Gory images have always been traumatizing for me.
What the heck? Just because The Wachowskis transitioned doesn't mean the matrix was queer coded or about LGBT issues. The original trilogy was made before they transitioned and to my knowledge has no relevance to LGBT. It's a story about humanity reclaiming existence from machines who don't even have a concept of sex or gender and aren't organic. It's an action film stunts and chosen 1 prophecies. It also has nothing to do with the patriarchy because the machines don't have a biological sex.
I might give you that one about capitalism, but most of the criticism around that was how bad the choice of the machines using us as batteries instead of central processing units was because the directors didn't think people would understand central processing units in 1999 and the plans and the animatrix being incredibly short sighted and leading to the events of the films in universe. You made-up most of that off the top of your head while talking about the matrix being used to twist ideologies. It has been, but you're doing the same thing by making all of that up.
And what you're doing here is basically saying that if someone objects to a piece of media that relates to being queer or subversive, it means they're privileged. You're not allowing for any other interpretations to be valid. As an Australian who lives in a country with equal rights legislation that has been in place since the 1980s, I am not privileged because I'm white and I'm not privileged because I'm a man. Automatically accusing me of such is racist towards all races because it implies that I'm an oppressor or benefiting from oppression just because of who I am and it implies that any other ethnicities are disadvantaged despite the fact it is banned by my country's legislation. In addition, accusing me of male privilege is both misogynistic and misandric because it makes me seem like a bad person just because I'm a man and it implies that women have it worse than they actually do.
Former English teacher on not, keep your political punditry out of this.
Okay so there’s way too much to unpack here and I’m not your therapist, but I really need to point out here that I don’t know you. You’re an anonymous internet man with bad media literacy (The Matrix was always about being trans, please research it even a little bit 🙏). But at the end when you say that I’m accusing you, that is very telling. Because again, I don’t know you, anonymous internet man. That is purely your guilt speaking. So touch grass, read a book, talk to real people, get a therapist, take a deep breath; whatever it takes to open up a little bit 💜
@@WillowTalksBooks I looked up a few articles about it. Apparently. The Wachowskis included many of those themes inadvertently. I got that from a screenrant article and a Vox post. They were planning on including a trans character (Switch)but the idea was cut and although the character appears, they aren’t trans, meaning that aspect does not feature in the movie itself and is indirectly relevant at best just like things said about TV shows on Twitter that aren’t present in the shows themselves.
As for the other themes around revising identity and even the aliases the characters use, there are other reasons those tropes are used so how can you claim that’s about being trans? When there’s too much ambiguity? You have made me aware that interpretation is possible, but you can’t claim it was intended to be about being trans. That’s just your reading of it and I still think what you’re doing is equivalent to the red pill movement on the other side of the political spectrum. being trans and trans rights are political issues because they’re politically debated across the world. They shouldn’t be politicised because that can lead to a lot of trans people suffering where conservative factions are in power and it creates more extremism than it otherwise would, but they are. so from my point of view you’ve pushed your political positions into your analysis by claiming it to be a universal interpretation of the movies when it’s just your opinion. There’s rabbit holes on both sides and not just one.
As for the privileged stuff, instead of trying to disprove me, you just accuse me right back. How can I be guilty for something that I don’t even believe exists in my country and is at least implicitly banned by legislation? I’m not responsible for what my ancestors did, nobody is at least not like that. That concept is as old as the Bible And as fraudulent.
You’ve said yourself that you don’t know me, so how can you claim to know why I’m reacting this way?
poor things is still porn disguised as art
Neatly answering the question, “Is this one commenter’s media literacy in crisis?”
(Answer’s yes, babe)
Why can't porn be art?
There was an X-men clip shared on twitter recently where a villain tells one of the mutants that they whine too much about their problems, unlike the normal humans (while he was trying to kill a mutant) and real life people were agreeing with him 😀
Sigh
Disney did a beautiful job of framing the Friends of Humanity... The human bad guys in the episode... As a stand in for the real life home grown terrorist organization, the Proud Boys. I'm not surprised right wingers are reposting that clip out of context as some kind of win for them. It kind of puts them as the uneducated bigots they are.
X-Men '97 even went all in on the second episode with an insurrection scene of the same goose stomping fascists storming a government building. It was eerie, and I thought it was a brilliantly biting piece of animation that challenged recent political turmoil in the US without being too overt and heavyhanded with the message.
I saw you repost the jstoobs tik tok and I genuinely thought, 'I need Willow's take on this' and I was so excited when I saw the thumbnail. 🤣🫶🏾✨