Watching the children trying to media literacy Arcane is painful. You are struggling with characters' choices because you like them but they're going down a dark path? That's the point, kiddo.
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I think in the US the average reading level is a 6th grade equivalent? That for sure translates directly into media literacy and any sort of critical analysis.
just scrolling to the comments to see whatsup and I am baffled. Like almost all my favourite characters are villians and i'm pretty sure i have zero plans to take over the world. Besides they tend to be more complex and relateable than good guys. So this is such an odd take to my old ass🤣
As a librarian I have taken a notice that the books most popular with the younger people nowadays prefer conflict to come from external source versus internal problem. I hear a lot of “they brought it upon themselves” instead of having empathy for a flawed character.
this. Good intentions and all they would be villains. In his defence incredible did start his dive into faux superherodom lol. I always felt that he would've turned out right if Incredible was better to him. He wasn't entirely in the way just misgueded is all. But no capes will forever be funny🤣
True, Incredible probably could've tempered him if he took him under his wing, tho I think the main thing he's thinking is "This is a dangerous job & I'm currently fighting a guy that likes to blow things up. I'm NOT putting a KID in this Kind of danger."
Truth. Maybe if he took him as a sidekick or made him more aware of how dangerous it was instead, considering just how succesful he became, buddy seemed smart enough and willing enough to listen. Incredible offered nnothing to him. I also wasn't a fan of his married after children dynamic either.🤷♂️
Yeah… like I can absolutely recognize that Light Yagami is villainous, but if a Death Note was a thing that actually existed, well, I’m not saying I’d be able to resist it.
There is a type of fan who puts way too much weight on the morality of fictional characters. By their logic, if a character does a Bad Thing, they are Bad and you are Bad for liking them. This mindset doesn't hold up well with Arcane, which is approximately 100% morally compromised characters.
I have not yet seen Season Two, that's on "THE LIST", but Season One had a lot of things in it to set up all sorts of landmines for characters making "Bad Decisions".
What I mean, to unpack it, is that he has always seemed compelled to act. "Things could be better, and I know I could help" seemed to be his motivation from his first episode.
Then he picks the first option he thinks of without doing much examination of his solution.
Heck I could write paragraphs (one per character, minimum) about what I see in the characters of Arcane. Almost all of them can revolve around "I am doing what I feel is best" in some fashion.
The character complexity is the true brilliance in the series. That being said there are SO many brilliant elements to choose from, but the character development is what makes it so compelling.
Cait and Vi are 100% that toxic couple who REALLY should not be together, break up four times in three weeks, actively hurt each other emotionally, and yet are still so hot that we cheer whenever they ARE together.
There’s definitely something to be said about the rise of parasocial relationships in the 21st-century and this phenomenon as well. Someone much smarter, much more resourced, and with more time than me should look into it 😬
I didn't even know this was a thing until today. Maybe I have been sitting in my i like the bad characters more bubble for too long but meh. You can like them and embrace they are horrible at the same time. It is fiction after all.🤷♂️
I feel like it started back when parents/schools started giving kids a pass on content that made them uncomfortable. By opting out on that they opted out on teaching empathy.
It feels like everything is tribal now, like sports teams. Too many people don't simply enjoy, they support by investing themselves in a thing that defines them, and everything has two sides. Debate culture toxicity.
Yeah, think it comes back to consumption-as-identity. When the MCU is "your whole personality" it is actually a terrible mistake. Because then anything wrong is about your IDENTITY. So you treat it as an existential threat.
Yeah I think this is why people can just say “it’s not for me” about a piece of media. It has to be the worst thing ever written or “trash” or whatever.
This is the same reason why people continue to idolize artists and politicians who clearly have done horrible shit. They've made people like Trump or Drake their idol and a part of their identity. Now they're in too deep to change their mind 😞
I think about this so much with even the concept of being a “gamer” instead of “a person who enjoys video games.” Any time someone tries to LITERALLY sell you an identity, you are headed for Trouble because you cede control/ownership over your own mind and identity to someone else
So, to be clear, I'm not blaming the SITE tumblr for this, especially as very few of these teens are actually on it, BUT, this has been an issue within fandom there for roughly the past decade.
It seems to be a mixture of issues, including the rise of fascism that are causing it.
I always thought the entire point of “bad” characters was to make you feel something? Like it can’t all just be good guys on the same side who all agree on the right thing. Then your story is nothing.
Completely bananas stuff. On Reddit I've seen people ask if they should read a book or not because the villian is an XYZ kind of bad person and they didn't know if the author was too, because obviously if the writer was a bad person they shouldn't read the book.
Legit think it’s linked to the current trend of global authoritarianism but like… internalized. The need to self-censor the art you engage with, the need to police your own reactions… it just feels like it’s connected to me. Literature/art is anti-authoritarian by nature after all.
A lot of young people who were old enough in 2016 to have understood what was going on really took to heart the concept of a massive propaganda machine lurking everywhere that can turn you into an evil person before you know it's happening (e.g. boomers and QAnon).
Just wanted to thank you for clarifying this social trend for me. Seeing friends and family loudly idolize tyler durden, the joker, the punisher, and then go on to LITERALLY become domestic abusers and mass shooters and killer cops. Their response maybe unhealthy, but their fear is 100% justified.
Although it's cooled down some, there was still that huge push to make sure characters with bad politics weren't written sympathetically, both to avoid their fans adopting those ideas and to prevent fascists from feeling validated by them.
Oh absolutely. Leftists are not immune. I don’t think it has anything to do with political affiliation. It’s a behavioral trend we’re seeing worldwide.
This is happening on all sides. People don’t want to engage with “problematic” media because it might mean you’re a bad person. People don’t want to engage with “woke” media because it makes people weak. Like girl do you realize you’re self-censoring???think for yourself!!!!
Movies like Split do unfortunately perpetuate stereotypes about people who experience dissociative disorders, but it's one of those things where you can watch it to see WHY and HOW it does that. It doesn't make YOU ableist for watching it.
These days we're told so strongly that our role in the system is Individual Consumer, and consumption is the only real action we can take. We have to express everything through it - personality, identity, social responsibility, moral virtue, social position, etc.
We judge ourselves and others for what we eat, where we shop, what words we use, what we recycle, our "carbon footprint"... I feel like it's not a big step from there to judging the art we like and create, and our thoughts and imagination.
I mean there has been an epidemic of people either altering their fave characters' courses of actions or personalities to make them look morally good, or justifying their horrible actions and framing them as good.
Exactly. How can you claim to be a fan of that character when you woobify the f out that character, to the point that the character feels more like an OC than???
The level of media literacy among all age groups is so frightening. The younger generation it's worse because they're parents have now also been raised with the internet their whole lives too, so that's 2 generations that are completely clueless.
Somebody really needs to teach these people that Characters are not the same thing as People.
They are literary devices that have more in common with a desk lamp prop than they do with an actual living breathing person. Even if they're being played by an actor.
I kinda wonder if constant one sided exposure to millions of people’s personal life as if you were friends have made it hard to see people as anything other than characters. It feels like real person and media character have become some weird mix with the expectations of both
I work with someone closely (a writer) who often does the opposite and it's infuriating- sees me as an archetype and not as a person. Writing and life is fuzzy business.
I've seen VO artists get attacked because fans just had no conception that the evil character was an evil CHARACTER, and the artists wasn't personally cruising around being evil.
I think a lot of that aspect comes from how we are seeing art as a consumable thing. Art under a capitalist lens is something you consume that says something about who you are. We have to start calling it “content” and “consumption.” You are engaging with art!!! It is not real but YOU are!!!!
Good points. We've replaced a lot of our identity signifiers with stuff-we-consume-as-identity. So when stuff we consume has "problematic" content, it shoots straight across the ego boundary and becomes about who you are.
Yeah. It's kind of difficult to see which angle would be the most effective way to approach this issue. But, teaching kids that consuming lots of media is not the same thing as media literacy might be a good way to start at least.
“Maybe the curtains are just blue” has gone too far IMO. The question isn’t “are they blue for a reason” or “are they just blue.” The thing to consider is the MAYBE.
I actually recall that there was a Mr Rogers episode specifically to tell people the difference between the Wicked Witch of the West and the sweet elderly lady that played her.
After Arcane season 1 I saw some comments flabbergasted that Vi is not only a cop, but the poster child for police brutality. Knew season 2 was gonna ruffle people further.
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I know a lot of people that like characters that are superheroes, but if they got super powers, they would definitely be villains.
Bomb-Voyage even tried to blow Buddy up 😱
Plus Incredible was getting married that day too, so I don't think taking in a sidekick was anywhere near the front of his mind, nor would it be now.
Nowadays seems that not being able to write a good story/character just results in being given a bigger budget :(
(Also known as "Jayce Does Anything")
Then he picks the first option he thinks of without doing much examination of his solution.
Like him & Caitlyn are tied in the leaderboard
I've seen people mix those up in their own heads as well as misinterpreting it in others.
"Tywin Lannister is such a cool villain"
"You LIKE him? You think he's RIGHT? You support WAR CRIMES??"
Like they hear that copaganda TV contributes to the difficulty in confronting police violence as a society.
This idea iterates, getting slightly more extreme each time, until finally anyone who watches Brooklyn99 is a fascist.
It seems to be a mixture of issues, including the rise of fascism that are causing it.
... this is not the same as judging the people running around going, say, "Amaris was right" or "the Empire didn't go far enough".
I don’t consider it a coincidence that this particular moment feels very similar to the dogmatic puritanism of American fundamentalist Christianity.
They are literary devices that have more in common with a desk lamp prop than they do with an actual living breathing person. Even if they're being played by an actor.
Fans famously got really mad at Doyle for killing off Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem.
Before that I recall it being Walter Mathau as "cranky old man".
Hard to say really.
Don't mind me. I enjoy going down research rabbit holes when I don't know something. XD
We need children's programming to do that again.