Let's get down to brass tacks... (SJWs/influence in movies)

[Yukaphile]

I mean, what you said about taking a real-life historical moment in the movies and using that to shoehorn in something politically correct from today... I've felt that. I've railed against it. So... you're preaching to the choir here.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Personally I don't care.

Mmaybe what Chiggy was saying about shoehorning time into a movie to draw attention to it. That's more of an aesthetic thing and is more generalized. Like I hate when the first episodes of a series have expository elements in the dialogue that solely provide information. Like you don't notice it at first, but when you watch it after the fact having watched the whole show, it sticks out. And it's not exactly subtle, for lack of a better word, when it's progressive measures.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

What I'm trying to say is that in really good fiction, every piece contributes to the whole in some way. Chekov's gun and all that. Sometimes it's done poorly, like with the clunky exposition that you mention. Ideally, the audience won't see the puppeteer moving the strings, and each scene will seamlessly accomplish more than one goal. Some stories just don't have a place to naturally acknowledge the plight of some neglected group or to try to pass the Bechdel test or whatever, and forcing it into a work just to check a box in some social justice checklist is a bad idea creatively. Of course the same principle applies to other gratuitous elements.

As you pointed out though, representation can be considered a different (albeit related) issue.

I mean, what you said about taking a real-life historical moment in the movies and using that to shoehorn in something politically correct from today... I've felt that. I've railed against it. So... you're preaching to the choir here.

Generally speaking, Hollywood sucks at getting into the heads of characters from a different time and/or place, especially once it's far enough removed from their mindset. Getting into the head of a misogynistic guy from the 60s isn't a problem for them. If they attempt to accurately portray the values and motivations of a 14th century monk, they'll spectacularly fail more often than not. When you pay attention to these things, it gets pretty distracting to see that supposedly historical characters are thinking and acting exactly like modern Californians in costumes (which they are, of course). Political correctness is just another way that they fail at that.

[Yukaphile]

And those highly praised "foreign art films" are no better sometimes. Neither are, obviously, books. Literature which we tend to regard as "more intellectually engaging" than anything put on screen, even if the content itself is rather trashy, because there is truth that hard work went into it, but then, that's true for making movies too. Can't help it if the final product sucks.

[Mecha82]

I mean, what you said about taking a real-life historical moment in the movies and using that to shoehorn in something politically correct from today... I've felt that. I've railed against it. So... you're preaching to the choir here.

Generally speaking, Hollywood sucks at getting into the heads of characters from a different time and/or place, especially once it's far enough removed from their mindset. Getting into the head of a misogynistic guy from the 60s isn't a problem for them. If they attempt to accurately portray the values and motivations of a 14th century monk, they'll spectacularly fail more often than not. When you pay attention to these things, it gets pretty distracting to see that supposedly historical characters are thinking and acting exactly like modern Californians in costumes (which they are, of course). Political correctness is just another way that they fail at that.

That issue has nothing to do with any of that "social justice" or "political correctness" or any other thing that you tend to blame on. Instead it's related to writers and actors not being able to get to that mind set because of how long ago those events were. It's something that could be easily be solved by them studying history and how people generally thought, talked and acted back then. So really it comes down to lazyness.

[Yukaphile]

I hate political correctness because when combined with revisionism it leads to a nasty combination of victim-blaming and myopic morality.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I mean, what you said about taking a real-life historical moment in the movies and using that to shoehorn in something politically correct from today... I've felt that. I've railed against it. So... you're preaching to the choir here.

Generally speaking, Hollywood sucks at getting into the heads of characters from a different time and/or place, especially once it's far enough removed from their mindset. Getting into the head of a misogynistic guy from the 60s isn't a problem for them. If they attempt to accurately portray the values and motivations of a 14th century monk, they'll spectacularly fail more often than not. When you pay attention to these things, it gets pretty distracting to see that supposedly historical characters are thinking and acting exactly like modern Californians in costumes (which they are, of course). Political correctness is just another way that they fail at that.

That issue has nothing to do with any of that "social justice" or "political correctness" or any other thing that you tend to blame on. Instead it's related to writers and actors not being able to get to that mind set because of how long ago those events were. It's something that could be easily be solved by them studying history and how people generally thought, talked and acted back then. So really it comes down to lazyness.

I wasn't attributing the issue to political correctness per se, that's why I said "generally speaking." I do think political correctness can be a part of that problem, which is why I said "political correctness is just another way that they fail."

We can see this when we see decidedly modern opinions coming out of the mouths of historical characters who would never actually hold them. Maybe political correctness isn't exactly the right term for that, it's more like whitewashing.

[Yukaphile]

The actual term is "Presentism." Trying to apply values from today to a time long gone by.

[Mecha82]

Yeah, it's basically that. So pretty much result of incompetence.

[Yukaphile]

Or biased agendas, on either side of the political spectrum. And honestly, sometimes it's hard to tell which one is worse.