#Media analysis

[reconstructwriter]

#but just...yeah it is crazy how pretty much *every* Disney bad guy of my childhood#got killed - sometimes in pretty gruesome ways#Scar? Devoured by his own hyenas#Clayton? Strangled / Hung#Ursula? Impaled#Gaston? Fell screaming to his death#Come to think of it Ja'far escaped death in the first Aladin movie - he was defeated by being tricked#into wishing himself into a lamp - which is exactly how a clever street rat like Aladdin would defeat someone#that Steven Universe - a show that was from Day 1 always about either containing ''monsters'' that couldn't help themselves#from hurting others...or befriending gems that tried to kill you#is it any surprise Steven did the same thing with the Diamonds?#is it childish? a bit unrealistic? sure#it's a kid's show what do you expect?#but you know what else it is? Like Aladdin tricking Ja'far - it's 100% a Steven way to defeating your enemies:#make them not your enemies anymore

YES to all of this! It's sad (and scary) we're so inundated with punitive justice that restorative justice gets such a backlash. Especially when restorative justice or even the villain just not dying is more realistic to the characters, narration, story-tone and even the karmatic defeat of the villains themselves!

To me Steven Universe's defeat of the Diamond Authority is far more satisfying than if he'd killed them because it fits his character and the narration and the tone. If the Diamonds had fallen tragically to gravity like in Disney? Eh, it would've felt cliche and weird for the story.

This describes far better than I could why the Avatar ending is the

perfect one! And heck Jafar's defeat is so much better than if he'd fallen off a cliff or whatever to his death. It's in-character for both, its karmatic, its satisfying.

Sometimes I think about how and why some people had such a *bad* reaction to the end of Steven Universe, specifically in regards to the Diamonds living.

Even though they no longer are causing harm to others and are able to actually undo some of their previous harm by living, some folks reacted as though this ending was somehow morally suspect. Morally bankrupt, even.

And I think it might be because so many of us were raised on a very specific kind of kids media trope:

They all fall to their deaths.

Disney loves chucking their bad guys off cliffs. And it makes sense- in a moral framework where villains *must* be punished (regardless of whether their death will actually prevent further harm or not), but killing of any kind is morally bad for the hero, the narrative must find a way to kill the villain without the protagonists doing a murder.

It's a moral assumption that a person can *deserve* to die, that it is cosmically just for them to die, that them dying is evidence that the story itself is morally good and correct. Scar *deserves* to die, but it would be bad for Simba to kill him. So....cliff.

Steven Universe, whatever else it's faults, took at step back and said "but if killing people is bad, then people dying is bad", and instead of dropping White Diamond off a cliff, asked "what would actual *restorative*, not punitive, justice look like? What would actual reparations mean here? If the goal is to heal, not just to punish, how do we handle those who have done harm?" And then did that.

Which I think is interesting, and that there was pushback against it is interesting.

It also reminds me of the folks who get very weird about Aang not killing Ozai at the end of Avatar. And like, Ozai still gets chucked in prison, so it doesn't even push back on our cultural ideas of punitive justice *that much.* and still, I've seen people get real mad that the child monk who is the last survivor of a genocide that wiped out his entire pacifist culture didn't do a murder.

[ajaxgb]

I'm not even slightly normal about the Administrator's backstory.

LOOK AT THIS FUCKED UP SHIT

She has tortured this man in ghoulish agony for literal centuries. Literally everything that ever happened in the game and comics was to sate her need for revenge and SHE DOESN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHY

Were her parent killed in a break-in? Drowned as aristocrats? Poisoned for their inventions? SHE HAS NO IDEA.

Nothing matters but revenge. Nothing had mattered but revenge since long before Zepheniah died. And not just getting the revenge and then living well! She tried that! She won!

And it wasn't enough!!

She'd bent her life around revenge. It was all she had left. To crush those that wronged her. To destroy everything they loved.

For her entire life, it was the only thing she cared about. How could she move on with that purpose removed? She had everything she could want and absolutely nothing to live for.

And then...

A light in the darkness.

(she's still wearing the noooose oh my god)

TRUE revenge. ETERNAL revenge. The revenge she needed. A revenge she could have and have and have, forever. A monomania she maintained for 150 goddamn years.

150 years of torturing this crusty-ass zombie man(n) because she has literally nothing else going on in her life.

God she's so insane and fucked up (I love her)

[anomalys-bane]

Male and Female Sexualization are NOT Equally Bad

given the new popularity of games and other media such as Love and Deepspace and yaoi and stuff, i see many men going 'SEE! women are just as depraved as men are, now stop complaining about female sexualization in games!'

and oh my god you idiots. lets take some super typical examples from popular media. what differences can we see?

note how much male 'sexualization' (more of a power fantasy on men's part) focuses on musculature, on explicit strength, power, vigor and toughness. they don't even need to be showing any skin. all these are considered sexually attractive by men and women, as a result of our lovely culture. now for female sexualization, its mostly about the showing the (unnatural) curves and arches of their body, being coy and inviting, passive and alluring. women are a spectacle to be acted upon and men are the actors.

look at the filmography, angles and posing for each image, look at how sexy men are shown as relaxed, yet towering and active, and how sexy women are dressed skimpily, are coy and posing unnaturally to invite attention. this is the standard across genres, aimed at both men and women.

imagine if you opened a survival game you were greeted with a man in booty shorts and a ragged crop top, with his back arched, looking longingly at the the player. is it the same as a shirtless man with defined abs and a smoldering look? exactly, it is fucking NOT the same. men would consider it extremely humiliating to be sexualized the way women are sexualized. if its humiliating for a man to do, its humiliating for a woman to do, you're just used to women being humiliated.

take a moment and imagine if sexy women were almost only shown as dominant, active and physically strong, and sexy men as only meek, coy and passive. now imagine if these unnaturally posed meek, coy and passive sexualized male characters were absolutely everywhere, in games, tv shows and movies where it made no sense for them to be there. imagine if they were the only male characters present and you couldn't change their looks. if this held true for at least half of all sexualized characters in media, i would cede my position and admit that male and female sexualization are just as bad as each other. until then, shut the fuck up 😘

[peterdoane-blog]

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised — But It Will Be Clicked, Scrolled, and Forgotten

By Peter Doane

1. The Spectacle of Luigi Mangione

Luigi Mangione’s story is everywhere right now — wild headlines, chaotic clips, and social media’s endless appetite for spectacle. You’ve seen the TikToks. You’ve read the comments. “This dude is wild,” they say, but that’s all they see. It’s just another character in the never-ending reality show of online content.

Here’s the problem: Luigi isn’t content — he’s context.

What people see as a wild man moment is actually a warning shot. But warnings aren’t profitable. Warnings don’t go viral. Wild behavior? That does numbers. This is exactly what Gil Scott-Heron was talking about in his 1971 classic The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Back then, Scott-Heron was talking about TV, but the same logic applies today. TV has been replaced by TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram feeds. And just like TV, social media wants to give you a clean, tidy story — a spectacle you can consume in 30 seconds. But the story of Luigi Mangione isn’t tidy. It’s messy, unresolved, and way too real to fit into a 30-second clip.

This is why his story is being treated like a wild moment of “content” instead of a sign of collapse.

2. Why Luigi Feels Like Content Instead of Context

People have no problem seeing Luigi as content. They point, they laugh, they scroll on. But they’re missing the bigger story. Luigi is not just “a wild man” — he’s a person cracking under the weight of a broken system. He’s not unique. He’s just the latest person to break in front of a camera.

Gil Scott-Heron had a line about this too:

“The revolution will not be right back after a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.”

Translation: Corporate media will never show you real change because it doesn’t fit into a commercial break. Today, the commercial break is the scroll. TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram are endless commercial breaks disguised as content feeds. If something doesn’t fit the vibe, people scroll right past it.

Luigi should have been a moment where people stopped and said:

• “Why is this happening?”

• “How many people are cracking like this?”

• “Is this a sign of something larger?”

Instead, he became a TikTok moment. Funny, chaotic, easily forgettable.

If you’re still scrolling past people like Luigi, you’re not in the revolution — you’re watching the content.

3. Symbol and Timing Matter More Than Morality

Here’s a truth people don’t like to hear:

Being “right” doesn’t matter. Timing does.

This is the part people forget about John Brown. When Brown raided Harpers Ferry in 1859, people didn’t see him as a hero. They saw him as a lunatic, a terrorist, a wild man with a God complex. But after the Civil War started, everything about his story changed. Suddenly, he wasn’t a terrorist — he was a prophet of abolition.

The key wasn’t John Brown changing. The key was timing.

Now think about Luigi Mangione. Right now, he’s just another “wild guy” in the eyes of the public. But if healthcare collapses, if desperation becomes more common, if people start recognizing these “wild moments” as signs of something bigger, Luigi’s story could shift. He could be seen as a symbol of the system breaking down.

This happens all the time in history. People seem “crazy” at first. Then, after things change, those same people are seen as early warnings. John Brown didn’t “free the slaves” with his raid, but his story shook people. It set the tone for what was coming next.

4. Why People Don’t See Luigi as a Symbol (Yet)

The reason people don’t see Luigi Mangione as a symbol is simple:

People think revolution is supposed to look clean.

They want stories with:

• A clear villain.

• A clear hero.

• A clear ending.

Luigi’s story doesn’t fit that formula. He’s not a villain, but he’s not a hero either. His story is unresolved, still ongoing. He’s not a headline — he’s a question mark.

But here’s the part that people miss:

Revolution never looks clean when it’s happening.

John Brown looked crazy before he looked prophetic. Rosa Parks looked like a random woman on a bus until she became a symbol. Revolutions don’t announce themselves. They feel random, messy, and hard to understand in real time.

This is what Gil Scott-Heron meant when he said:

“The revolution will not be brought to you in 4 parts with commercial interruptions.”

There’s no “final episode” of revolution. No clear “ending.” No “season finale” where everything wraps up neatly. The mess is the point. The confusion is the revolution.

If you’re waiting for a perfectly clean, digestible “revolution,” you’ll miss it every time. You’re waiting for a Netflix miniseries — and that’s not how revolutions work.

5. The Revolution Will Be Live — But Only If You’re Living It

The most famous line in The Revolution Will Not Be Televised comes at the end:

“The revolution will be live.”

Most people misinterpret this. They think it means “live-streamed” or “broadcast live.” It doesn’t. It means:

Revolutions happen in real life, not on screens.

If you’re watching, scrolling, and commenting — you’re not part of it.

This is what’s happening with Luigi Mangione. People think that by liking, sharing, or commenting on his story, they’re “engaged.” But that’s a lie. Scrolling is not revolution.

When people watched George Floyd’s murder on their phones, they were spectators. The people in the streets, however — they were living it. Gil Scott-Heron was telling us that real revolution happens in the streets, in real life. It’s not something you watch. It’s something you live.The Core Takeaways

1. Luigi isn’t content — he’s context.

2. People think scrolling is participation, but it’s not.

3. The system turns stories into spectacle to distract from their meaning.

4. John Brown wasn’t seen as a hero at the time — neither is Luigi.

5. The revolution will not be televised — it will be live.

Right now, people are treating Luigi like a wild man for clicks. But he might be part of something bigger. People who are breaking under healthcare pressures, mental health crises, and isolation aren’t just “wild men.” They’re the warning shots.

John Brown’s raid didn’t free a single slave. But it changed the story. Luigi might not “change the system” alone, but if people stop treating him like content and start treating him like context, he might end up being part of the story that finally changes everything.

The Revolution Will Be Live. But you won’t see it if you’re just watching.

[coolreader18]

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[rockpapercynic]

A.I. photos are flooding social media and contributing to an Internet where we can't believe what we see. Spotting A.I. 📷s is an important media literacy skill.

None of us have time to research every image we see. We just need people to notice BEFORE THEY LIKE OR SHARE that an image might be fake. If unsure, check it or don't share.

I've started drawing some comics explaining the basic of AI spot-checking and media literacy in the age of disinformation. Follow along here or on my Twitter.

[kaoskuantico]

I liked she stayed as a villain, and she's a really good one at it. Not every evil characters needs to be redeemed

I saw some people pissed by Agatha not getting a redemption arc at the end of the series, but the real reason is: she shouldn't get one.

She killed so many witches and did terrible things and nothing is going to change that at the end of the day.

I think what they gave us is so much stronger, you see how she’s filled with trauma and can't make herself trust anyone besides herself and her son.

She doesn’t kill witches, because she feels like. She’s a succumbs, she needs the energy in order to survive and that’s something her mother could never understand.

After she figured out how to control her powers I’m sure she could have joined a coven and she’d receive help from them.

But who would trust a kind of witch who has a defense as an attack? And how could Agatha trust anyone after her own coven and mother tried to kill her?

Redemption arcs are more times than not extremely forced, people’s actions shouldn’t be forgiven by a single action. They made us understand Agatha as a whole character, with flaws, traumas and depth and know that, ultimately, her life lead her into doing terrible things, that have no excuse.

[fluideli123]

[IMAGE ID: The American Chopper Argument Meme that reads: "Deadpool 3 wasn't a good movie because the anchor being concept didn't make sense and neither did the cameos, it was supposed to be about deadpool." In the second panel, "Anchor beings are a commentary on Marvel's fucked up money-making scheme and destroying characters who are popular to the audience which puts more money in their pockets." The third panel states, "The cameos still shouldn't have been there! They made no sense!" Followed by, "Deadpool wanted to be a hero since the first Deadpool movie and continues to be rejected over and over and you think it's not important for him to meet people who were rejected by the industry and forgotten? To not only make a jab at big industries but also for himself and his repeating themes?" / END ID]

Guys, I might be passionate about this movie, I don't think it's noticeable./s

[laughableillusions]

You! American fan of foreign or otherwise un-American media! Are you aware of the nuances and cultural differences that are portrayed in that media and have an understanding that you as an outsider looking in should be careful with the lenses you analyze that media in because you have a different perspective that is not catered to?

[morimementa]

The fun thing about COD is that everyone who calls the 141 and every other operator their precious little mew mew skrunkly is fully aware that Soap once used an enemy soldier as a meat shield, Price responded to a barricade by attempting vehicular manslaughter, Gaz saw one terrorist attack and decided going feral was an option that should be on the table, and Ghost is, well, Ghost.

They know their little mew mews are war criminals and they do not care.

[the-bar-sinister]

headcanon: "i have decided that this is true about the character, and it doesn't matter to me if the canon text supports my idea or not."

interpretation: "after considering elements present in the canon text, I have decided that this might be true about the character and here's why."

subtext: "I can show you strong evidence in the text and context of the work that this interpretation could be the actual authorial intent."

[emeryleewho]

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got paid to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

Update: This is literally just a thought exercise to help you be more intentional with how you critique media. I'm not enforcing this as some divine rule that must be followed any time you have an opinion on fiction, and I'm definitely not saying that you have to structure every single sentence in a review to contain zero negative phrases. I'm just saying that I repurposed a rule we had at that specific reviewer to be a helpful tool to check myself when writing critiques now. If you don't want to use the tool, literally no one (especially not me) can or wants to force you to use it. As with all advice, it is a totally reasonable and normal thing to not have use for every piece of it that exists from random strangers on the internet. Use it to whatever extent it helps you or not at all.

[daydreamer-in-reverie]

Started rereading the Hunger Games series and I feel like it’s so overlooked how in 74th and 75th Hunger Games, we don’t know every Tribute’s names, with Katniss only referring to them by their District numbers but in TBOSAS, we knew every single Tribute by name. We associated them with the clothes they wore on the Reaping Day and Suzanne even goes so far as to describe how they looked, however briefly. We see these Tributes and we’re familiarized with them by the little tidbits provided to the mentors and to Snow and Lucy Gray. But we never get this in the original trilogy.

In two generations, President Snow alienated the Districts from each other so much that Katniss didn’t even care to know all the names of the Tributes sent into the Arena with her, with the exception being those who posed great risk against her safety and those she felt great compassion for (e.g. Cato, Thresh, Rue, Mags, Betee, Wiress etc.). Katniss even went so far as to call the D6 Tributes in the 75th Hunger Games morphlings, for their affinity to imbibe in the drugs that help them forget their own traumas (an incredibly hurtful description, in my own opinion, to be known by the qualities you hate the most about yourself). We never know the real name of the 74th D5 girl, with Katniss only referring to her as Foxface and we don’t even know Marvel’s name until we get to the second book and he was Katniss’ first personal kill. Katniss even kills the D4 girl in the books with the same tracker jacker venom that killed Glimmer and yet still, we don’t know her name. We are so removed from the identity of the other Tributes that we don’t even know what some of them looked like beyond brief descriptions of mangled bodies and dead Tributes in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia.

And, the thing is, Suzanne established the importance of names in the series. Even in real life, we recognize the importance of being named. It is a fundamental aspect of being human. If you’re ever in a perilous situation where a person might be placing your life in danger, we’re told to remind the person that you’re human. “Keep saying your name, how old you are, where you came from. Remind them you are a human being just like them.” Before any propaganda can work against a group of people, refusing to recognize a person’s name is the first step to dehumanization. And just like the people of the Districts, we don’t care enough about the other Tributes to even want to know their names. Their propaganda worked on us, the readers.

In two generations, President Snow completely wiped out any sense of familiarity and camaraderie the Districts may have shared with the other. In two generations, Snow sowed the seeds of distrust and division into the Districts so deeply that even we, the readers, were affected by the effects of Capitol propaganda. In two generations, the Districts ceased to genuinely care about the others beyond the vague sense of injustice they feel for their shared plight. It’s why Career Districts don’t seem to care about killing the other Tributes. How can you care, to show your compassion and humanity, when you can barely see them as people? Yes, they may have been in the Arena with you. Yes, they may have been starved and beaten and forced into labor like you were. Yes, they might be children just like you. Yes, they might be subjected to the same deplorable system that turned you into virtual slaves. But they are not your friends. They are not your allies. They are strange, with different customs and traditions that you have. You do not share the same values. They do not care about you. At the first chance they get, they will kill you with your bare hands and they will do it with alacrity if it meant their survival. There can only be one Victor and it can’t be them. It has to be you.

[sugas6thtooth]

The Feelings Of The Average Israeli Occupational Soldier: A Quick Analysis By James Ray

If you haven't already, follow him on tiktok. (@jamesgetspolitical) He gives constant updates on the genocide in Palestine but also offers food for thought in his content.

Free Palestine, End The Occupation🇵🇸‼️

[reactorshaft]

just… Goro Miyazaki starting his animation career with having a son kill his father, the king of a kingdom where magic is disappearing, and run away and Hayao (possibly ending) his career with a young boy refusing to take on his family’s powerful legacy over a magical world, knowing the world would die without him in favor of not abandoning his family and choosing to live contentedly in the mundane world…