#but as you see I have also watched Lawrence Of Arabia and am familiar with that whole Deal | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

elainemorisi · 8 months ago

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cannot tell if I'm Sturgeon's Lawing it, overextrapolating, or in fact remotely onto a thing, but... Media These Days is really taking shortcuts with like, [especially moral] characterization, right? like this isn't a remark in any direction about the contents of the morality, it's a remark about how many times I've watched/read a thing and sat there going like, I'm pretty sure you (writing) expect me to take this as believable, but you actually just have a paper doll mouthing words here, this isn't believable just because the paper doll is mouthing The Good Guy Words

and like it's something beyond Pet The Dog, is the thing. I've no objections to dog-petting as a tool. one identifiable difference being that The Good Guy Words are then later made load bearing for reversal, of all fucking things. it's one thing to have Designated Good Guy that's fine (and actually this stuff is more Designated Sympathetic, so again, "moral" being used very loosely). but if you want?? as I think you want??? me to first believe that DGG is in fact G but then! to be shocked when he isn't... you gotta do more than mouth words. we don't actually share an unspoken and obvious moral code, you the writer and I. but also even in cases where I don't outright disbelieve your definition of Good it... still doesn't work. there's still no there there

and like the fixes are there, but they're not so similar as to feel like the explanation is really in them (closest generalized fix is "remember the agency of other characters" but like that's a fix for so much bad writing it barely counts). it sorta just seems like this particular bar has sunk into the floor? but why?

tl;dr the experience is "I'm not conflicted[/shocked/moved], I'm confused" and I swear, it's increasing. often in total (but popular) shit, sure, but sometimes in not-utter-shit-in-every-other-respect stuff too. and just, why??

#most recent example being Dune 2 which I finally watched #but as you see I have also watched Lawrence Of Arabia and am familiar with that whole Deal #as you know. uh. most. of your audience would be...#the entire first half is profoundly disbelief-suspending not because I disbelieve Paul per se #but because I SINCERELY CANNOT TELL if the writing expects me to!#could work either way but works in NO WAY because I just cannot figure out what the writing thinks it's doing!#a pure shit but not apparently perceived as shit other recent example would be that awful Dark Academia movie a few months ago #you cannot shocktwist if you cannot first convince like wtf??#Three Body (Netflix) was obviously just extremely badly written but in the exact same way #like you put the words in the mouths and you think you're like... done? you're not done??!#like at least when Trek pulls some kind of omfg that is Not Correct idea you can actually tell what the writers in fact believe here #or rather like... you can tell THAT they believe. something. like for real. like there's an actual human mind making a claim #like even when the whole shebang sits atop some laughably bad assumptions they're still like. there. as a structure #but this other thing feels like it's like. outsourcing that and expecting me to fill in some really wide blanks?#and often in very specific and emotionally charged ways??#and like sorry but this is also what tswift does these days? the blank-filling?#hers is more specific-lore-based but it's very much the same feeling #like I'm being presented with a (pretty boring) gesture instead of an actual piece of art?#why??? why IN GENERAL especially??

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