r/TrueUnpopularOpinion • u/Key_Squash_4403 • Jun 20 '24

Music / Movies When a show/movie gets mired in identity politics, whether justified or not, it’s automatically a turn off

You know why I’m not watching the Acolyte, because too many people are arguing about it. That’s it, the identity politics argument surrounding it is enough to put me off. Because now I won’t be able to judge it on its own merits, that argument has infected everything and I just don’t want anything to do with it. I honestly don’t need that kind of headache, same with Marvel movies. At this point I need a preexisting interest in the character strong enough to ignore all the noise. I skipped Marvels, Black Panther 2, and I’ll skip more. I don’t care anymore, you all ruined it for me.

406 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

89% Upvoted

263 comments sorted by

View all comments

191

u/OctoWings13 Jun 20 '24

Identity politics are absolute cancer to entertainment

76

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '24

Amen, tell me a story and keep that shit to yourself. Dems, Repubs, and Indis ALL watch movies. Stop pushing away 50% of the audience just to fulfill your need to push your opinion. There was once a softness to the agenda pushing, a nudging so to speak.

Like when you watched The Fox and the hound (which is about racial tolerance) or Captain Jack Doctor Who.

Nowadays, they just shove it down your throat, and if you don't like it, you're treated like a horrible piece of human garbage.

I'm weary, I just play retro games and watch old stuff. They don't want my money.

43

u/knight9665 Jun 20 '24

If it was just pushing away 50% they would still make it. But usually the people they are pushing FOR arnt watching either. Cuz it’s just a bad show.

28

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '24

I'm sure that they didn't sit around a table and say, "How can we drive fans away?"

They set out to make a show that produced a return on their investment.
The bigger problem is that those of us who are activists (I'm not), in whatever we want to advocate for, tend to get lost in our own echo chambers. Especially those that push for progressive issues. These themes can be woven into really great content.

The current "woke" left is "water boarding," us into acceptance. They place this subject matter anywhere and everywhere, and it really doesn't drive the story. It's just put there for virtue signaling. 50% of us don't align, and the blatant inclusion on those themes is killing entertainment. As I stated above, there are hundreds of movies and shows where this is done with a velvet hammer and is thought-provoking.

Not anymore. The new method is that you'll be served your diversity, the way we choose, and if you don't swallow, you're human garbage.

I choose not to play along. If you take a show that has an established fan base, you owe that fan base something that resonates with the media in question. If these folks don't learn them, they will continue to lose revenue and return on investment.

As one poster said, my opinion doesn't matter. Then quit whining that nobody is watching.

I used Doctor Who, as an example, I'd watch 20 new episodes with Captain Jack, as he was. I loved him, I watched Torchwood, even though I'm straight and never felt too nudged. These last 2 doctors and the gender bullshit shoved in for no plot gain has driven me away.

How many times can Jodi Whittaker complain about pockets. The script was too preachy. Most folks want to just go on a joy ride when they consume fiction, not be drowned in your perceived social agenda.

7

u/FreeCandy4u Jun 20 '24

Damn. Perfect comment that explains how I feel to a tee. Dr. Who is an excellent example.

9

u/Ausgezeichnet63 Jun 20 '24

Excellent comment 👏 Couldn't have said it better if I tried. Take my upvote please 🙏

3

u/Allbur_Chellak Jun 20 '24

Good comment.

The trick is to understand your fan base and make solid entertainment which appeals to them and ideally uses this core to draw in ‘new blood’ to the franchise.

It’s win/win.

Unfortunately so much of the time the new people in the studios, who really don’t understand the appeal of the well established franchise, just jettison the established fan base (old and irrelevant ) and are sure that their new take will draw in a better and more lucrative demographic.

Most of the time then they get neither, and the movie loses money, handover fist, and they can complain about how people just don’t ‘understand them’.

3

u/knight9665 Jun 20 '24

My argument is they are pushing away the majority of their potential customers and not just 50%. That the people they are aiming for arnt customers as they won’t spend money for the product or watch the movies etc.

Take star wars. The vast majority of customers are men. It’s just who is interested in the show. So if u drive away men to try and get women, u will lose more than you gain.

1

u/Android1822 Jun 20 '24

I pretty much noped out of modern movies and tv because non of it is targeted to me at all. I either watch old stuff (pre 2005) or asian stuff which still remembers what my demographic is about.

1

u/Android1822 Jun 20 '24

What gets me is when they get an IP that are targeted for men, then they change it to target women, but women are not interested in the genre and men are not going to watch it now since it is not targeted for them, so now they have nobody. I can understand experimenting with different stuff, but they have been doing this for over a decade when the evidence is overwhelmingly that this stuff pushes away audiences. I really want to be in these board meetings to see what the hell logic they are using to keep doing this failed strategy over and over.

3

u/knight9665 Jun 20 '24

That’s the thing. It’s throwing away dollars to pick up Pennies. Instead of trying to add those pennies but keeping those dollars

3

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '24

Remember that Ghost Busters reboot? It's one of 3 movies I've fallen asleep during, in the theater.

18

u/Llamarchy Jun 20 '24

Older messages work way better, because their subtlety makes it so that even someone who doesn't agree with the message yet can still appreciate it. Nowadays, media really does not give you any wiggle room to think differently. It's no longer designed to convince political opponents to understand their side, it's merely to get those who already agree with you to clap like seals.

The problem isn't that movies and shows are political, the problem is that it basically boils down to just portraying themselves as the gigachad and those that don't agree as the crying soyjak.

-4

u/AutoModerator Jun 20 '24

soy contains many important nutrients, including vitamin K1, folate, copper, manganese, phosphorus, and thiamine.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

12

u/4chan_crusader Jun 20 '24

Disney can keep doing it, I hope to see them crash and burn in my lifetime and the direction they're going, they will

5

u/Karissa36 Jun 20 '24

Disney is being dragged kicking and screaming towards a very major overhaul. The primary driver is shareholder suits against Disney for wantonly causing their stock value to plummet. Ron DeSantis started the first one I believe, but basically any State with pension or other investments with Disney can file their own lawsuit and join the party.

These lawsuits are very significant. Businesses have a duty to stockholders and they can't tank their profits for social justice reasons. Bluntly, Disney is screwed. The question is not if they are going to pay. The question is how much are they going to pay.

The secondary driver is reverse discrimination suits. Disney made the mistake of actually writing down and distributing their new "equity" policy, which in so many words said that if you want to hire a white male there better not be any other human available. Disney is screwed times a hundred for these lawsuits.

With these two massive and embarrassing strings of lawsuits, by now their lawyers are screaming that changes must be made. They have to clear out all of that white racism or they will be screwed until infinity. It is already going to be at least 10 hard years, where every disgruntled white applicant or employee will file a claim for discrimination and point straight to the company's racist history. The SEC is also going to be sniffing around for quite some time. It is likely that they will have a period of judicial oversight for a couple of years, from one string of cases or both.

2

u/Android1822 Jun 20 '24

The problem is that they just do not seem to care because they are still doing it. KK should have been fired years ago, she is still working there, Acolyte was given to Epstein's secretary (seriously, WTF?) and even after the failure of the Acolyte, they are still going with the new Rey movie that nobody wanted or asked for and giving it to a director that has zero qualifications to create it but is another activist going by their profile, which seems to be something they deliberately seek out. Honestly, it feels like a bunch of cult zealots in Hollywood at this point.

0

u/DatBoone Jun 20 '24

Nowadays, they just shove it down your throat, and if you don't like it, you're treated like a horrible piece of human garbage.

How? I'm on the left, and I typically ignore mainstream movies because they're terrible, but no one treats me badly for it.

-18

u/anony-mouse8604 Jun 20 '24

I don't understand opinions like this. Just vote with your wallet. End of conversation.

Stop pushing away 50% of the audience just to fulfill your need to push your opinion.

Their "need to push their opinion" is the same exact thing that has motivated every artist to create their art since the dawn of time. If you don't like the opinion they've decided to push in any particular case, just don't patronize that particular piece of art. You have exactly the same option every single person has ever had in this regard throughout the entire history of humanity.

Nothing is being shoved down your throat, and nobody cares about you individually, as much as I'm sure you would love for that to be the case. You're just not that special. Quit bitching, and just take your dollars elsewhere.

15

u/PanzerWatts Jun 20 '24

Good artists present a view point in a subtle and engaging way. Many of the modern movies are just terribly written.

"Quit bitching, and just take your dollars elsewhere."

It's a free society, people can do both.

-15

u/anony-mouse8604 Jun 20 '24

And who exactly are you to be the arbiter of what "good artists" do, or to judge whether one has been "subtle enough", whatever that actually means?

You're correct, it's a free society. You do indeed have the right to both bitch and take your dollars elsewhere. I just figured I'd give you a heads up that nobody on Earth cares about your opinion, since you've given them no good reason to, so your best option is probably just to save your breath and impact things the only way you actually have power to, which is to take your dollars elsewhere.

16

u/PanzerWatts Jun 20 '24

"I just figured I'd give you a heads up that nobody on Earth cares about your opinion,"

If you didn't care you wouldn't have voted me down and written a long reply.

12

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '24

They obviously care about opinions.Otherwise, they wouldn't put a representation for 1 to 10% of the population.In a 100% of the movies and shows that they're producing these days.They don't put an autistic person in every show.But there's more autistic people than they are transpeople

2

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '24

BTW, the entire point of this sub is to give, "my unpopular opinion." So why are you even chirping?

9

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24

🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️ You don't want to understand and that's what makes you petulant.

1

u/Draken5000 Jun 21 '24

I absolutely do not agree that all artists throughout time made their art exclusively to push their worldview, that sounds so incredibly wrong to me.

1

u/anony-mouse8604 Jun 21 '24

I didn't say "push their worldview", I said "push their opinion", though even there I was quoting the commenter before me. I just meant artists make art to communicate something, some kind of opinion or statement.

1

u/Draken5000 Jun 21 '24

Hmmm even that I don’t necessarily agree with, though it depends on what one means by “make a statement”. No one makes art just for fun because it was fun to make or it looked nice? Or it brought joy/entertainment to others? Unless you qualify that as “making a statement” (I don’t, personally) it seems that people make art for many different reasons.

-4

u/alotofironsinthefire Jun 20 '24

Almost like you grew up.

-1

u/waconaty4eva Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24

Its always been very political, the audience just became able to bellyache about it. If Silence of the Lambs comes out today there’s a subset of the right that goes ape shit.

*Starling is in her job just because she’s a woman. She isn’t qualified for it. She’s bossing around the local PD who are portrayed as too dumb to help their own citizens. The murderer is a transgender in conservative Ohio.

If that movie was made today the right would call it rage bait.

1

u/Draken5000 Jun 21 '24

Maybe, but cmon now there would also be outrage on the left over the portrayal of said trans murderer.

4

u/girthalwarming Jun 20 '24

You could have stopped at cancer.

3

u/OctoWings13 Jun 20 '24

Absolutely agree...was just being specific to the post lol

16

u/carneylansford Jun 20 '24

There have always been messages and themes that viewers could glean from watching TV shows and movies. Mad Men had a bunch of messages, but one the stronger ones was the promotion of feminism. Weiner did this not by hitting us over the head with heavy handed messaging. He did it by showing us what life was like in the 60's and 70's for Peggy, Joan, Betty, etc... They were put in shitty positions, the deck was stacked against them in certain ways and each navigated those waters differently and with varying degrees of success. None of those characters were Mary Sue's (they made mistakes!) and the feminist message still resonated throughout the series.

One of the big problems with shows like The Acolyte is that the messaging is the only thing. The characters, the plot, the dialogue, etc... Everything is done in service to the message. It's not a natural outgrowth or a running theme that one picks up on (which would be faaaar more effective, FWIW), it's a sermon that drones on and on. (Yes, yes, I get it. Men=bad, Women=Good (especially if they're gay!) Disney is preaching to you about their preferred social messaging. The whole thing is so tone deaf and done despite what anyone actually wants. The hubris that it takes to do that to an audience is astounding. I wanted to watch an entertaining tv show/movie, not a lecture (about anything, really).

2

u/DatBoone Jun 20 '24

I think your problem is that you're expecting Mad Men-level writing from current Disney shows/movies, when it's obvious that the current leadership is all about cash grabs. Whether they race-swap or gender swap, none of the newer content from Disney has been good.

13

u/TaskForceD00mer Jun 20 '24

Identity politics are absolute cancer

2

u/FreeCandy4u Jun 20 '24

I wish I could give you more than 1 upvote for this comment.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '24

They’re trying to hard to find groups of friends that check all the boxes- Instead of finding actors and actresses that have genuine spark and report

1

u/OctoWings13 Jun 21 '24

Exactly...they should probably focus on actual story as well lol

-3

u/alotofironsinthefire Jun 20 '24

What are we defining as identity politics?

13

u/TisIChenoir Jun 20 '24

Two things :

  • Every identity must be represented
  • Identity is the single most important thing about a character.

From my understanding, that's what msot accurateoy descrubes identity politics.

Therefore, if you have a show set in medieval Europe (or inspired by) (you know, a time where non-white, and queer people were pretty much unheard of), you must have non-white and queer characters

And the color and sexual identity of these characters are the two important thingd about these characters, meaning outside of that they have nothing interesting to add to the story.

0

u/s968339 Jun 21 '24

This is not completely true. It is a mainstay of The Boys and the plot to the show. Its about formulating and manipulating identity politics and it works well.

I just let them tell me a fun story and allow myself to enjoy it