I want to start an argument.
So I'm gonna try to argue this.
Ever since like the 90s, people have said that video games and horror movies etc are causing violence and stuff.
And I think, I might be wrong but I think around the 50s it was popular to send "good" messages to at least kids, when doing kids stuff like super heroes or whatever, tv shows, comics etc.
The heroes had to stand for something positive and they had to tell you what was right.
Now we live in a time where we even have movies about bad people, where the protagonist are a bad person and or there are multiple protagonists with different opinions and nobody is more right than the other.
We also live with fiction like fantasy that isn't even meant to be for kids, ala Game of Thrones.
Not to mention there is plenty of violent entertainment out there not suited for kids.
I think think this is for the most part a positive change.
I think this is actually a good thing because stories are not just about sending a political or anti poltical message anymore but it's about the art and craft itself of making good stories.
You can't value a story the same way if the highest priority for the makers is to adhere to certain agendas at the end of the day.
People fall in love and critique the stories themselves not it's indirect or direct messages to little kids.
Also, reality can be very unfair and complicated, maybe not for the people born into a family with good family values, but for many kids life can be weird and tough.
And to watch movies where there is just some preacher there confirming beliefs in what is right, it doesn't do anything for you, it has no value anymore, because you can't connect and relate to someone selfrighteous and smug.
I don't think there is anything wrong with that, not everybody likes the same thing, not everybody agrees on the same things, not everybody enjoys seeing captain justice cathcing a criminal for the 9999999999th time in a row.
Sometimes it's more appealing to see good people fail and have their character smudged. In a sense it's like the death of God.
You kill God by suddenly putting dirt on the cape of Superman, or forcing him in to a complex moral dilemma that he can't get out of clean.
You don't "really" kill God, but you stop believing in Santa essentially.
It's easier to represent the real world or at least how we really feel inside if we are not held back by moral standards.
So in a sense escapism has it easier appealing to people for real, or portraying reality that might have otherwise been unseen.
Also, in the real world people don't always agree on what the right thing is, ask different politicians if they are good people and trying to fight for what is right.
All of them are gonna say yes, but neither of them will agree.
So how can we agree on what is right when portraying good vs evil on the screeen?
Is Lord of the Rings where evil is always dark and monstrous more right than Game of Thrones where all the humans are flawed?
Or is it just less complex?
Are we all gonna assume the good person is always right when in the real world we are polarized?
How?
How can we just let go of what we think and feel and all agree that yeah, what that character did was heroic etc?
If you have stories without a moral compass, I believe that forces people to think for themselves instead of being brainfed the same dead thing over and over.
And in the end I think that's an even bigger moral to the story. Cus if you suddenly need to stop and think that means you are making actual progress in my mind.
If we don't need to think but expect some leader to think for us, then how can we say we are really good? We barely know how to define good, we are just mindless slaves doing whatever people are telling us to do.
That's my thoughts.
So I'm gonna try to argue this.
Ever since like the 90s, people have said that video games and horror movies etc are causing violence and stuff.
And I think, I might be wrong but I think around the 50s it was popular to send "good" messages to at least kids, when doing kids stuff like super heroes or whatever, tv shows, comics etc.
The heroes had to stand for something positive and they had to tell you what was right.
Now we live in a time where we even have movies about bad people, where the protagonist are a bad person and or there are multiple protagonists with different opinions and nobody is more right than the other.
We also live with fiction like fantasy that isn't even meant to be for kids, ala Game of Thrones.
Not to mention there is plenty of violent entertainment out there not suited for kids.
I think think this is for the most part a positive change.
I think this is actually a good thing because stories are not just about sending a political or anti poltical message anymore but it's about the art and craft itself of making good stories.
You can't value a story the same way if the highest priority for the makers is to adhere to certain agendas at the end of the day.
People fall in love and critique the stories themselves not it's indirect or direct messages to little kids.
Also, reality can be very unfair and complicated, maybe not for the people born into a family with good family values, but for many kids life can be weird and tough.
And to watch movies where there is just some preacher there confirming beliefs in what is right, it doesn't do anything for you, it has no value anymore, because you can't connect and relate to someone selfrighteous and smug.
I don't think there is anything wrong with that, not everybody likes the same thing, not everybody agrees on the same things, not everybody enjoys seeing captain justice cathcing a criminal for the 9999999999th time in a row.
Sometimes it's more appealing to see good people fail and have their character smudged. In a sense it's like the death of God.
You kill God by suddenly putting dirt on the cape of Superman, or forcing him in to a complex moral dilemma that he can't get out of clean.
You don't "really" kill God, but you stop believing in Santa essentially.
It's easier to represent the real world or at least how we really feel inside if we are not held back by moral standards.
So in a sense escapism has it easier appealing to people for real, or portraying reality that might have otherwise been unseen.
Also, in the real world people don't always agree on what the right thing is, ask different politicians if they are good people and trying to fight for what is right.
All of them are gonna say yes, but neither of them will agree.
So how can we agree on what is right when portraying good vs evil on the screeen?
Is Lord of the Rings where evil is always dark and monstrous more right than Game of Thrones where all the humans are flawed?
Or is it just less complex?
Are we all gonna assume the good person is always right when in the real world we are polarized?
How?
How can we just let go of what we think and feel and all agree that yeah, what that character did was heroic etc?
If you have stories without a moral compass, I believe that forces people to think for themselves instead of being brainfed the same dead thing over and over.
And in the end I think that's an even bigger moral to the story. Cus if you suddenly need to stop and think that means you are making actual progress in my mind.
If we don't need to think but expect some leader to think for us, then how can we say we are really good? We barely know how to define good, we are just mindless slaves doing whatever people are telling us to do.
That's my thoughts.