The other day I watched Leave the World Behind and while the general concept of the film was fine I guess and the cast was generally talented there were all these weird Boomer Lib moments in the construction of the characters that made it really alienating to anyone who's not, you know, a boomer lib
Then I go on to Wikipedia and I see that Obama personally gave feedback to the screenwriter, telling them how to make the characters more sympathetic
One of the greatest own goals in the history of cinema
@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs I mean I think that was part of the point, that they wouldn't act like that...but instead of trying to build up a creepy atmosphere around stuff like that they tried to Say Something About Society to Upper Middle Class Liberals
@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs The kids were the weirdest part for me...what self-respecting teenager would think that the Obey Giant is still cool, the little girl that watches The West Wing, etc. Who wrote these characters? Oh right, Obama
@julieofthespirits I am equally wary about seeing "Civil War"....Texas teaming up with California in the trailer? Texans would die upon this news just so they could roll over in their graves.
@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@julieofthespirits I've been thinking about this because it being an Alex Garland joint means I'm willing to bet he's thought of something both plausible and worth chewing on, I'm from CA and the idea is obviously patently absurd (and deeply offensive) except that maybe this is about water wars.
@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@julieofthespirits California brain is real, I'm sorry to report it becomes more intolerable over time, they will never resolve the contradictions so long as we are living under capitalism
@kiwi@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@julieofthespirits My last book was basically compelled by anger when I moved to California involuntarily and did Not Like what I found. But the worst is how many are smug about how Super Great it is here; whereas it could be super great if it were not terrible, which is angering
@inquiline@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@julieofthespirits I left for the last time/permanently ten years ago now, fwiw I think a lot of that shit is nostalgia, it's so fucking difficult to stay alive, the joint is constantly in smoke and flames, the electrical grid is doing the fires and also held together with dental floss, and oh yeah the tech psychos bought the government, a reality check is well overdue
@kiwi@inquiline@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs full of blank eyed stepford wives convinced they live in paradise as they sweep the ashes of burnt mansions off their porch
@julieofthespirits@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs Yeah. It's actively dystopian, made moreso by people gaslighting others abt the choices the state has made, while thousands of people sleep under freeway overpasses and the air burns your throat and eyes. I've biked thru parts of LA that do not seem like they are in the US, infrastructurally
That said @kiwi I totally relate to nostalgia upon leaving a formative place. And I think people are very invested in believing CA is some sort of eden on earth
@inquiline@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@kiwi I mean the ideological portrait of utopian California is effective, pet sounds is one of the greatest albums of all time
@sidereal@julieofthespirits@inquiline@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@kiwi i grew up in LA and lived all over the country before I finally made it back here. It's deeply, deeply fucked up, but for all that I'm not really happy anywhere else for strictly personal reasons. People definitely need to shut up about it being paradise but it's not actively worse than anywhere else I don't think.
This is also true. Intellectually I know that some of what's happened is in the almost-decade since I've moved here, there are more people sleeping outside in the places I used to live, too. That said no one* is ever like "Philadelphia is paradise on earth, no notes, 100%" 😂
*well some people are but it's a niche viewpoint based on idiosyncratic characteristics
I live not far from that place where the techbros want to build their new fancy brotopia (next to a large military base, how's that for scary) and the ads for this damn thing keep popping on around me and my hair is standing on end.
@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@inquiline@kiwi@julieofthespirits There's the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy version of California Über Alles, which referenced the specific policies of conservative governor Pete Wilson, but it's based on the song of the same title by the Dead Kennedys, which referred to liberal Jerry Brown, but talked about California politics and culture as a thin progressive facade over fascism.
I lived in Oakland when Jerry Brown was mayor, one of a series of liberal apologists.
@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@inquiline@kiwi@julieofthespirits I've kept wanting to go back to rewatch Mad Men. The whole narrative of Don Draper circles around California and ends there. Don Draper is the California Ideology incarnate. "I hear your pain, and I will exploit it."
@violetmadder@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@inquiline@kiwi@julieofthespirits I think of it in a category with The Sopranos and Succession, but unlike the other two, Mad Men is not a story in which everyone is an asshole. It's much more about drawing you in to sympathize with Don Draper, before you realize how profoundly selfish he is.
The Sopranos I felt like I wasted my time watching, it's a bunch of jerks being jerks and nobody seems to learn anything useful or improve-- but at least it's fictional. Succession, I'm not bothering to try watching. Same for Billions and most other shows of that type. I dropped Peaky Blinders after a while. Sons of Anarchy stopped being fun when it wasn't any wacky biker shenanigans anymore but just betrayals and bitterness.
Almost everyone in the Fall of the House of Usher is a jerk, but at least they get their (rather spectacular) comeuppance.
Mad Men being based more on real events would tend to amp up my negative reactions quite a bit.
@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@julieofthespirits no one can afford to live in California anymore, land value is fake but very very violent, gotta start the expropriation part of this failing state ASAP
Add comment