Not Chuck, but well worth watching.

[Worffan101]

youtu.be/95mL3us0HSQ
Contains a full hour of analysis of the current state of the Internet video-essay scene, focusing primarily on the left (which, full disclosure, is my side--I'm an unapologetic anarcho-syndicalist libertine), then has over an hour and a half of analysis that boils down to "TFA is incoherent and highly derivative and doesn't understand how people or space work", which is something you can say about any JJ Abrams movie because JJ is a fucking hack.

I'm more impressed by the analysis of the video essayists, though, because I've noticed this problem a lot and it's really annoying me; possibly due to the hilariously low quality of our opposition (frex, Nazis, "dark enlightenment" types, Channer Nazis, unapologetic neoconfederates, and whatever the fuck incels are supposed to be), the Left has, I feel, been getting into something of a rut. More and more leftist commentators are doing less research and just reiterating the same rote talking points for cheap political points. (just a few examples off the top of my head, Michael Moore's entire filmography, Hbomberguy and Moviebob's forays into game criticism, Moviebob's trumpeting of the structurally broken TLJ after spending 5 hours dissecting the structural flaws of Batman vs. Superman, and the Pop-Culture Detective videos referenced in the video above) Many of these commentators, except Michael Moore, are capable of much better--for example, Moviebob's analysis of Batman vs. Superman is probably the best analysis of a bad movie I've ever seen, Hbomberguy's analyses of conspiracy theorists and British politics are really well-done, that sort of thing. So it's really disappointing when I see clearly intelligent people, be they editorial columnists or Youtube reviewers, bending over backwards to mindlessly defend something just because they're told that its politics are on their side.

I think that this is bad for the left, bad for American society, and extra bad for democracy. It reduces the left's efforts to mindless campaigning for a narrow set of proposals and policy positions handed down to us by a political party's elite and/or a few charismatic "outsider" figures, and restricts us to a narrow and limiting political binary that does not accept a system other than American capitalism as a possible default state of society, and limits argument on economic policy to how much restriction of capitalism there should be, and on social policy poses a significant risk of the social-justice movement descending into mindless tribalism. It leaves us with a choice between two increasingly polarized factions, and the one that has so far remained attached to reality (again, I'm a leftist here, so I'm biased in that I'm unable to ignore that, for example, immigration has historically been one of the fastest ways to grow an economy, or that unrestricted capitalism has historically led to monopolistic exploitation of the people and widespread social instability due to poverty and exploitation amid shrinking wages, rising cost of living, and increasing income inequality) is increasingly at risk of succumbing to a slavish adherence to a single position restricted by the pre-determined binary paradigm.

I mean, just because the other side hates gay and trans people, wants America to be muslimfrei and to burn all our money building a useless wall to keep the brown people out, and thinks that we should give bonuses to billionaires, doesn't mean that anyone who doesn't agree with anything that the Democratic Presidential candidate says or does is the Enemy.

Also I'm fucking tired of being called a sexist Nazi fake-leftist Bernie Bro because I voted for Sanders in the primary and have criticized Clinton (who I voted for in the general in an attempt to keep Twitler out of office) for her moronic decisions on the campaign trail, her lack of appeal as a candidate, and her political record.

tl;dr We need to start questioning left-leaning commentators from a position on the left. It'll be good for the left and good for society, and is not going to harm the left because the other side's loudest voices are so self-evidently moronic.

thoughts?

[Admiral X]

I think this guy is giving Plinkett some serious competition for run-time if this is only an intro.

[Karha of Honor]

I am sure i watched some Mauler vids but if it's this long i want to log it into my Letterboxd.

[Worffan101]

I think this guy is giving Plinkett some serious competition for run-time if this is only an intro.

Yeah, his Jurassic World 2 video was also insanely long, but it was on-point as Hell. And it's not like long videos are inherently bad; people love Chuck's half-hour intros to the background of various Trek movies, after all.

[Fixer]

Fixed the YouTube video for you Worffan.
Nearly 3 hours for an intro? I'm going to need some time to look at this one.

Since this video does seem to touch on the various politics covering the criticism of the new Star Wars, I'm going to agree this is the right place or this topic.

[Madner Kami]

Nearly 3 hours for an intro? I'm going to need some time to look at this one.

Yup. Exactly 2 hours, 42 minutes and 15 seconds.

[Worffan101]

Fixed the YouTube video for you Worffan.
Nearly 3 hours for an intro? I'm going to need some time to look at this one.

Since this video does seem to touch on the various politics covering the criticism of the new Star Wars, I'm going to agree this is the right place or this topic.

Thanks!

Yeah, it only touches on the politics indirectly--in criticizing the hypocrisy of other youtube reviewers, he touches indirectly on the big elephant in the room that TLJ was advertised as socially liberal, and therefore there were tendencies to paper over its remarkably socially regressive storytelling and the shitty way it treated Rey and Rose, as well as the structural flaws of the movie, in favor of accusing critics of the movie of being cybernazis.

This guy's done some really good analyses--though I am not sold on his takes on Infinity War and Black Panther (I'm of the opinion that Black Panther was a much smarter movie than anyone gives it credit for, despite the slightly dodgy CGI in the final fights, whereas Infinity War didn't really "get" any other MCU movie--I could go on for hours about the subtle tribal politics in play with T'Challa and M'Baku's relationship in Black Panther and the way Infinity War completely misunderstood all of that with the one line of interaction they got in that movie, but that would be boring as hell for anyone without a passing interest in sociology or anthropology), but his Jurassic World 2 analysis was great and I thought his 5-hour (yes, really) analysis of the plot and themes of TLJ made a really great point about how TLJ's buttfucked structure and haphazard artistic sensibilities ruined the themes of its plot.

And I know people want everything in bite-sized sound bites now, but sometimes, you really DO need the in-depth analysis--frex, Moviebob's Batman vs. Superman analysis, which I still maintain is the gold standard for dissecting how a bad movie was made and why despite Bob's recent spate of poorly-researched reaction pieces, is 5 hours about a 2.5 hour movie, and every second of those 5 hours is necessary to explain the fascinating degree to which and obscene number of levels on which that movie fails.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

thoughts?

Interesting. Me? What I've noticed is a growing number of forum posters who talk about leftists indie internet producers that, more or less, have a questionable dogma towards... Just kidding, I think it's an interesting topic to tackle that I'd, up until now, think that only I really care about this sort of thing.

I usually look at the polarity (of overall left and right) of people commenting on social media, and their respective establishments at large (Democrats and Republicans), but haven't thought too much on leftist video producers opposite rightist video producers. That is except for my more recent attention to Jordan Peterson and Lauren Chen (Roaming Millennial). Those are the only two right-leaning, err, people on internet videos, that I started paying attention to, but haven't totally followed as of the holiday season. Peterson, I'll watch his interviews with, say, The Economist or maybe a more leftist establishment unraveling his stuff, but I don't follow him that properly. Lauren Chen fits into that mold that Peterson kinda does that articulate their viewpoints that I don't align with in a way that I personally kinda appreciate. Though it can just get soo tiring for me. The rightists often will lament leftists commentators and student bodies etc.. about how absurd they come across, and I don't really disagree with that. But I don't conflate it with the overall left in terms of The Democrats or ideological principles or progressive beacons of academia and social interest groups that actually constitute the left. And rightists don't ever acknowledge these latter things as important to respectable leftists. Still though, Lauren Chen is, as far as I've come across, the person with themost digestible articulation that espouses conventional conservative rhetoric. She does bring up social conditions that, say, any given leftists generally don't really consider in comments section or even maybe in YT videos. Peterson does this to a considerable extent, but I honestly feel he tries to exhibit himself as nonpartisan.

So I guess that brings me to where leftist video people that I follow might lose me a bit. I don't feel it's their responsibility to appease my interests. There is a polarity imo and I'll respect the pull of that that might come off as a bit of bias here and there. The right far more often sees issues in terms of galvanization of sides instead of objective and respectable standards being violated, ie; Roseanne got fired, so what happened to James Gunn is poetic justice. Also, MovieBob in his Han Solo video acknowledged that not everybody is white-hat/black-hat with stuff when he was describing Han, and I did feel that that applied to the kind of things we're talking about here, so that was really nice. This kind of understanding is something that I do find with the leftist video makers that does affect my consideration when there is growing influence of polarization. I'm really not sure if that starts to touch upon your considerations Worffan, so I'll just rest at here and digest the thread at its current state. Also I do have a bit of self-conscious when talking about video producers on the internet, so to the sky I apologize if I misgeneralize anyone.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well I watched Patrick Willems's Last Jedi video, and I'm a bit at odds with something Maul's video was saying. There's two scenes where Willems holds up a sign that reminds us that these are kids movies. That's contrasted with him saying that they're super great (and why). Maul's video's point there I believe was about hiding behind subjectivism to shield one's points from all criticism. Every point he makes about that in terms of principle is distinctively important, though it's obviously important to get a sense of the context of the videos he brings up for cited examples. I'm familiar with a good deal of these "left" producers and their self-aware approaches to handling conventional criticism that goes towards both these movies and their videos in particular. When Patrick Willems says that Star Wars is the absolute best, I only get the sense that he's talking with a bit of intended hyperbole. He holds up the aforementioned sign twice, and the first time he posits, "if you are a person that thinks that SJWs or diversity or feminism ruined this movie. Or if you're going to tell me that I'm a Disney Schill. Or if you're going to tell me to watch a 5-hour rant by some angry guy on YT. Or if you think I should kill myself because I liked a movie..." then proceeds to hold up the sign. That's not a shield of criticism in the form of subjectivism trigger warning, that's a disclaimer weeding out trolls. That's not really a suitable example to be used about hiding behind subjectivism.

Maul's video he brings it up at 40.25
The Willems scene is at 1.40 near the beginning.

[Antiboyscout]

Well I watched Patrick Willems's Last Jedi video, and I'm a bit at odds with something Maul's video was saying. There's two scenes where Willems holds up a sign that reminds us that these are kids movies. That's contrasted with him saying that they're super great (and why). Maul's video's point there I believe was about hiding behind subjectivism to shield one's points from all criticism. Every point he makes about that in terms of principle is distinctively important, though it's obviously important to get a sense of the context of the videos he brings up for cited examples. I'm familiar with a good deal of these "left" producers and their self-aware approaches to handling conventional criticism that goes towards both these movies and their videos in particular. When Patrick Willems says that Star Wars is the absolute best, I only get the sense that he's talking with a bit of intended hyperbole. He holds up the aforementioned sign twice, and the first time he posits, "if you are a person that thinks that SJWs or diversity or feminism ruined this movie. Or if you're going to tell me that I'm a Disney Schill. Or if you're going to tell me to watch a 5-hour rant by some angry guy on YT. Or if you think I should kill myself because I liked a movie..." then proceeds to hold up the sign. That's not a shield of criticism in the form of subjectivism trigger warning, that's a disclaimer weeding out trolls. That's not really a suitable example to be used about hiding behind subjectivism.

Maul's video he brings it up at 40.25
The Willems scene is at 1.40 near the beginning.

Those "Trolls" are critics. The argument still applies.