It’s a simple truth that my exposure to ‘rage’ and ‘dumb’ posts has shrunk to virtually nil since ditching X (formerly known as Twitter) and moving to Bluesky. A meagre follow count and the fact that Bluesky doesn’t have an algorithm keeps things much saner.
Despite this, the comment I occasionally see that irritates me is that everything is political in response to people discussing fictional media.
It’s true, but not
When someone complains about the fictional media they watch being too political, someone replies, ‘Is this person stupid? everything is political’ or ‘media X has always been political,’ it irritates me because it affords the person responding the benefit of being right, acting all clever and morally sound, while not addressing what is causing the complainant’s frustration.
Sometimes, the complainant can’t truly articulate their frustration, so their statement is blunt. Sometimes, the complainant is blind to the original media they used to watch, and it’s 2024, and they’re radicalised and have lost perspective.
But let’s not be naive.
Sometimes, it is purely because the respondent ignores the subtleties of what’s being discussed to sit on their moral hill even if the complainant opened themselves to it. The truth is, yes, everything is political to some extent and yes, some media, say Star Trek, has always addressed political issues, but to remove how they do it from the argument is dubious at best and malicious at worst.
Where I am coming from
The nature of the internet means I have to include this section in some of my posts. I want it to be precise. I love shows that present challenging ideas to my way of thinking and demonstrate a different culture’s view on life that is different from mine for fascinating reasons.
I don’t mind shows that forensically explore political issues. This is not about what people believe or the ‘right’ or wrong’ of anyone’s belief systems. It’s ultimately just about change and how it’s not always implemented well despite good intentions.
Now that’s out of the way. It’s interesting to note that despite all that being true, I am sometimes frustrated by TV shows today. Not because they are political but because of how they do it.
It used to be about the idea
“I long for the day fictional media was about ideas at its best, not about what I should think”
The truth is something has changed. How politics is introduced into media has changed significantly, and ignoring it is also part of the cultural challenge.
It used to be about the idea. What do I mean by that?
The writing in genre shows used to be better. They’d set up the crucible, the conflict and the idea that the protagonists were working around, and they’d let it play out. How the writers would approach it would involve some or all of the below (and it’s probably not a complete list): –
- A preferred solution was indicated, but other arguments were valid
- No outcome was articulated, and the ideas were allowed to sit with the audience
- The complicated nature of the issue was exposed and recognised as a factor
- The beliefs of the participants held up to scrutiny and were understandable
- They’d let the view of the protagonists not win out due to legitimate complexity
- Exactly what the issue is can be left for the audience to decide
These things seem mundane when written out above, but what they meant to the viewer was that they were being presented with an idea to be explored. This is important because it gives the viewer choice—the choice to engage with the concept as much as they want and to reach either their conclusion or the conclusion that writers favoured in their own fashion.
Giving the audience space
“Stories work better when people see what they need to see in it – not when they are told what to see”
Over its lifetime, Star Trek has discussed many issues, including racism, immigration, war crimes, gender issues, and many other ‘hot topics’ too long to list. This has been done more directly and sometimes through subtests, analogy, and metaphor. At times, the writers have been clear on the right choice; sometimes, they’ve left it for the audience to decide, and at times, the protagonists have failed for understood reasons.
However, space has been left for the audience to engage with the topic how they wish.
One of the better episodes of modern Star Trek is Ad Astra per Aspera from Strange New Worlds. While the episode advocates the morally correct choice, it works through the issue’s complexity, which validates how institutions can institute damaging ideas despite not being malicious. It doesn’t blame. It deals with reality. It also explores the issue through a character people care about. It also doesn’t say what real-life issue the viewer should identify in this conflict, and as a result, the audience often sees their issue or many in what the episode is exploring. They were given the space to find what they needed in the episode.
Let’s also look at the X-Men comic. As the years have passed, people have stated that the X-Men is a story about racism, LGBTQIA and gender issues. Why can all three be true? Because the X-Men is timeless, it wasn’t directly about these things.
It’s about a group of people who are different.
This means the X-Men appeals equally to anyone who feels disenfranchised from the mainstream for any reason. It’s perfectly possible the X-Men wasn’t originally an analogy for anything other than how kids reading comics felt different and excluded whatever colour, creed or sexuality. It sets up the crucible, the conflict and the idea – the comic gives the reader the space to interpret it.
This is also why I love the film Marriage Story. It’s a tough film to watch. People come out of it blaming the husband, wife, or both. Personally, having been through a divorce, I see a complicated relationship where assumptions took hold, both taken and given at the start, that proved not to be true later in life, and the relationship broke down. It presents the crucible and the conflict and lets it play out in a way that gives the audience the space to reach their conclusion.
This is what some genre media does NOT do today. It happens often enough that even people like me roll my eyes and, I admit, get a bit tired of it all. It tips into directly telling people what to think, bashing other protagonists over the head with how they are wrong, forcing some characters to look stupid so another can look better, and the list goes on.
They don’t want you to see what you see; they want to ensure you hear what they want you to hear.
All about a platform
“A shift from the story to the agenda. It’s not about writing a good story buting having a platform for your beliefs.”
I get that not everyone believes that. Do you want to know the secret? Neither did I at first. Sadly, as time has passed, it’s become apparent that statement is sufficiently accurate. It’s distorting what is being delivered.
I’m not angry about it. I’m not on a crusade over it. Society and individuals change, and things swing one way or the next. Ultimately, equilibrium is found, and change will happen even if it’s in ways people didn’t initially predict—you can’t guarantee it won’t be tremendously destructive in the process.
The best emotion I can say I have tied to this change is disappointment, nothing more or less. In all of what I have to say below, please keep in mind I agree with altruistic endeavours to make things more equal and diverse, but we have the phrase unintended consequences for a reason.
Follow the money
Let’s not hide from the fact that when money is involved, and people are on a crusade, even if the reason they’re on that crusade is perfectly understandable, things get distorted.
The rush to institute DEI was born out of altruism (laudable) but also because of money, based on corporations being seen as doing the right thing fast and then by how money flowed to support DEI endeavours. While a moral good in the abstract, this has created a distortion sufficient to impact the quality of output.
It’s not the only factor, but it is a factor.
Just like companies spin up to access government money to institute, say, policies in housing, it’s no different when film studios or game studios can access money that can partly fund their endeavour if they’re shown to utilise one of the many DEI consultancies that have spun up around the ‘money pot’.
Going back to our housing policy example, we know that not all work done is in the homeowner’s interest, even though it should be. It’s the same with DEI. When money is available, and companies rise to meet it, which have their agenda, the result is not always beneficial for those handing over the cash for the final product.
The rush to change
Social pressures to change due to societal events mean everyone is in a rush. The change couldn’t take a generation (let’s say worse case, let’s say a mentorship cycle in the best) to shuttle through; it had to happen now. The trouble is, does the talent pool, and more importantly, the talent queue, exist to support that rapidity?
Signs are showing this is not the case.
The rush to change and the economics of streaming services have been disastrous. It has dismantled how people progress in their careers. This is true in writers’ rooms, where there is no logical way to progress to showrunner. It’s also resulted in animation artists being recruited from Tumblr as if that means they can do full-on films without mentorship. It’s resulted in talentless hacks—wait, let’s say not proven or experienced hacks—writing shows like She-Hulk and thinking they’ve done something clever.
It’s been an absolute disaster of unintended consequences or, if it is to be believed, intended consequences, but this brings us to our next point.
The zero-sum game crusade
The rush for a new talent pool would be a significant, long-term societal shift if it weren’t a sweeping change that resulted in the current talent being gutted. Despite this common sense idea, it seems it might be the case that the rush to find new talent has resulted in them bringing their agendas into the workplace.
This would be fine; change and new ideas are good, but again, you must focus on impact.
If the change is driven so that it’s about division, agendas, and control, then removing those who don’t align is a problem. It’s especially the problem if it results in mentorship breaking down because of the cultural place the mentors come from, meaning (1) the new crop isn’t listening and (2) they form up all Twitter mob style to ensure the organisation is made in their image in a truly destructive tribal marketing fashion.
This rapid change may have been conducted on a zero-sum crusade, just like you see on social media, in terms of how organisations are organised and how stories are told.
It’s not representative
All these things have a natural gravity. Extreme societal or social swings naturally come back down to earth and settle. The problem with fictional media is that it produces outputs that aren’t selling because of the quality and the way the ideas are presented. There is a reason some people find some shows baffling in their success based on social media as it’s the silent masses that are watching them.
This creates an inevitable financial gravity.
In a funny but disappointing way, it’s like the big corporations’ version of the lone creator on X (formerly Twitter) who believes their content should sell just because it’s good and right and about the right things. Things should change so it does sell. The audience for their product is wrong, not the product.
Well, good luck with that. I never thought it’d escape the small minds of a few creators on social media.
And, Finally…
There will always be exceptions, but as a general movement, the typical person watching or playing fictional media doesn’t care what culture people come from or gender they belong to. People like to make the case they do, but for every false flag example, I’ll give you examples where it’s not the case.
They don’t want to be left behind for a ‘new audience’ that doesn’t exist or is so small that companies have trashed whole areas of long-term value trying to find it. They don’t want activism, tribal marketing, and zero-sum choices in their fictional media hitting them over the head with a not-so-metaphorical baseball bat.
It’s as simple as that. They want to be left alone in their heads and, where necessary, engage with the ideas how they want to reach their own conclusions.