Eternals: Marvel's lowest rated film to date

[Makeshift Python]

If seeing gays, Muslims, blacks, etc offends someone, that's their problem, not the film's.

[Frustration]

And trying to persuade people by putting material in media is... wait for it... using that media as propaganda.

The argument doesn't need to be false or misleading. It doesn't even have to be contrary to reason. But it's intended to advance your agenda.

[Makeshift Python]

And trying to persuade people by putting material in media is... wait for it... using that media as propaganda.

The argument doesn't need to be false or misleading. It doesn't even have to be contrary to reason. But it's intended to advance your agenda.

"They're people too"

WHAT A DEVIOUS AGENDA!

[Winter]

And trying to persuade people by putting material in media is... wait for it... using that media as propaganda.

The argument doesn't need to be false or misleading. It doesn't even have to be contrary to reason. But it's intended to advance your agenda.

"They're people too"

WHAT A DEVIOUS AGENDA!

Is The Lord of the Rings Propaganda? I mean, it was written by a WWI veteran, who clearly had no love of war, who was an avid nature lover, who made his villains uncaring monsters who were pure evil and were all driven by a lust for power.

Here's another point, the Henry Series, Richard III IS Propaganda as is Macbeth and even Hamlet & Romeo and Juliet could count as propaganda or an agenda pieces. To look at Richard and Macbeth both present the title characters as villains who have no care for those around them and only seek power even though the real men were either not nearly as bad as the plays present them as or were more honorable and noble but were made out into villains.

The Owl House, has an LGBT character who has ADHD, is in a relationship with another girl, Amity, in season 2, has a surrogate mother who's powers are intended as a metaphor for mental health issues and physical handicap and a villain who wants to take over the world. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is as gay of a show as one can get and deals with things like trauma, abuse and how one can overcome it.

The first three all have something to say about major events in the world, one is based in part by Tolkien's own personal experience in WWI while the other two are stated to be propaganda upfront to appease those in power at the time, painting real world people as villains even if they weren't nearly as bad as the plays say they were. The other two do not present being LGBT as anything usual or special it is simply a part of who the characters are and the same can be said about Encanto (a film that delve into emotional abuse that focuses on a cast of none white people), Frozen 1 and 2 (films that focus on two women (one of whom my be ace or gay) that deals with nobles that are deceitful and hate those who are different).

And then there's the Eternals who have a deaf secondary character, a gay man as one of the leads and who's cast is diverse.

All these stories save the last one are praised by audience and critics and it has NOTHING to do with the message being presented to us because even if there is an agenda it doesn't matter because most don't care. I'm trans, I LOVE the Dreadnought novels and part of that is due to seeing myself in Danny but it's mostly down to it just being a good story. I think Richard III and Macbeth are great plays even if they are WAAAAY off historically.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, stories and the way they are presented has not changed as much as many argue today and the arguments of how stories have changed and are now full of agendas have also not changed over the literal centuries.

Everyone who writes a story is putting their own ideals into what they write because a story is something we share with others but even if it's just a lazy ripoff by a hack writer we put a bit of ourselves into that story.

I don't like the Star Wars Disney Sequel Trilogy but that has NOTHING to do with the fact that the film has a woman as the lead, a black man and a Latino man or the fact that the villains are mainly white guys. I dislike it because Rey lacks development, Finn is wasted as a character, Poe becomes progressively worse at his job and Kylo Ren and the First Order are all a bunch of morons who can't do anything right even as their lives depend on it.

I love She-Ra and The Owl House and them saying it's okay to be gay and a different race without ever drawing attention to those facts does not equal propaganda.

[Beastro]

Propaganda centers around one thing: If a work stands or falls based upon one thing in the work.

Captain Planet is propaganda. You take out the environmentalism and there's nothing left of the show. You take out the Christian themes or things around power, or love of nature in LOTR and it remains standing because it's a story supported by many different pillars (and are all interconnected, which provide the work with it's thematic depth).

Even the most propagandistic of works still has something to express that isn't tied to the propaganda. You can watch Captain Planet to enjoy a slice of 90s cheese, for instance. Others can enjoy Triumph of the Will for it's cinematography and Leni Riefenstahl's directing.

I think Richard III and Macbeth are great plays even if they are WAAAAY off historically.

That's part of that has saved them as dramatic works. They are no longer seen as plays reflecting reality or ones to gratify those in power so we can appreciate what else they express. In the case of MacBeth it's focusing on a mans fall into the mad grasping for power. Him being a decent man that becomes a monster while his wife is a monster that crumbles under the guilt of what she's done getting him to become one have nothing to do with the Tudors or Stuarts and are iconic examples of truth being reflected non-propositionally.

[Winter]

Propaganda centers around one thing: If a work stands or falls based upon one thing in the work.

Captain Planet is propaganda. You take out the environmentalism and there's nothing left of the show. You take out the Christian themes or things around power, or love of nature in LOTR and it remains standing because it's a story supported by many different pillars (and are all interconnected, which provide the work with it's thematic depth).

Even the most propagandistic of works still has something to express that isn't tied to the propaganda. You can watch Captain Planet to enjoy a slice of 90s cheese, for instance. Others can enjoy Triumph of the Will for it's cinematography and Leni Riefenstahl's directing.

I think Richard III and Macbeth are great plays even if they are WAAAAY off historically.

That's part of that has saved them as dramatic works. They are no longer seen as plays reflecting reality or ones to gratify those in power so we can appreciate what else they express. In the case of MacBeth it's focusing on a mans fall into the mad grasping for power. Him being a decent man that becomes a monster while his wife is a monster that crumbles under the guilt of what she's done getting him to become one have nothing to do with the Tudors or Stuarts and are iconic examples of truth being reflected non-prepositionally.

Exactly, thank you.

Side note, I've actually considered the idea of a Captain Planet Reboot, one that alters but keeps the environmentalism but alters it to be more nuanced, deals more dark vs. light magic, makes the title character this Ethereal being with an androgynous design and voiced by a man, woman and someone who is nonbinary while the planeteers are a bit more fleshed out. Silly, yes, will I do it, probably not but it reading that just made me think of it so putting it here for the laughs.

[Frustration]

Is The Lord of the Rings Propaganda?

Technically, 'propaganda' can include data about objective facts. But we tend not to use the word to refer to that sort of information, because even in these days we retain a vestigial sense that truth is objective and objective reality can be known.

So, let's limit ourselves to subjective opinion. Did Tolkien intent his novels to change the opinions of the people who read them?

Yes, obviously. Especially since one of the topics that the novels have a position on is that there are such things as corrupt and noble forms of persuasion, and that using skill and knowledge to manipulate people's emotional reactions callously and without respect for their reason and actual truth, is a form of evil.

Tolkien wasn't trying to deceive, in the sense that he seems to have held the beliefs he was illustrating to be true and valid. But any work of literature involves the attempt to affect the readers' emotions, 'manipulating' them if you like, to feel certain things in association with certain situations. That's an inherent part of storytelling.

So yes, they can be considered a form of propaganda.

Illustrating a particular relationship between people without drawing attention to it doesn't make a work any less propagandistic. It may make it more effective as propaganda than if the intended moral was explicit.

[Winter]

Is The Lord of the Rings Propaganda?

Technically, 'propaganda' can include data about objective facts. But we tend not to use the word to refer to that sort of information, because even in these days we retain a vestigial sense that truth is objective and objective reality can be known.

So, let's limit ourselves to subjective opinion. Did Tolkien intent his novels to change the opinions of the people who read them?

Yes, obviously. Especially since one of the topics that the novels have a position on is that there are such things as corrupt and noble forms of persuasion, and that using skill and knowledge to manipulate people's emotional reactions callously and without respect for their reason and actual truth, is a form of evil.

Tolkien wasn't trying to deceive, in the sense that he seems to have held the beliefs he was illustrating to be true and valid. But any work of literature involves the attempt to affect the readers' emotions, 'manipulating' them if you like, to feel certain things in association with certain situations. That's an inherent part of storytelling.

So yes, they can be considered a form of propaganda.

Illustrating a particular relationship between people without drawing attention to it doesn't make a work any less propagandistic. It may make it more effective as propaganda than if the intended moral was explicit.

youtu.be/64BOxYpVZpU

[Frustration]

I have a much better understanding of both that word's technical definition, and the various ways people understand it, than you do, Winter.

One of the biggest problems with it is that people tend to associate a negative meaning to it, then insist that the things they approve of can't be propaganda because they're not bad or wrong.

That's a form of delusion.

[hammerofglass]

Propaganda: when an English person takes a good look at something.

In all seriousness though, the principles of propaganda are so normalized now that every commercial you've ever seen and the vast majority of entertainment would qualify.