movies matter, actually
on Hollywood as cultural influence and why ignoring it doesn't help
Below the paywall today: how the Marvel Cinematic Universe is tied into the US military-industrial complex, Disney’s McCarthyite attack on its own animators and how movies form a vital part of liberation movements.
If you’ve ever written an essay that ends up being even moderately well read on any element of popular culture, you’ll be aware that once the early waves of backlash (the personal attacks, the anger that you are introducing a critical element into something people are just trying to enjoy) die down, there’s the second, disaffected response: the comments that ‘it’s not that deep’, that you should find something bigger to worry about (as if having thoughts about film makes you politically inactive), the smug suggestion that if you ‘fall’ for the ‘bait’ of engaging with a piece of mass media you have somehow lost the intellectual game. This latter response seems to suggest that by checking out of popular culture you can mute its influence. This is akin to suggesting that if you ignore a tsunami it won’t take out your town.
All art is a product of the time, politics and place of its creation. Because of this, in retrospect, it tells us something about its particular era, which is why so often we group pieces of art together under thematic umbrellas after the fact; few people trotted around going “I’m doing renaissance art!” in 15th century Italy. But it’s wrong to think that art of our time cannot tell us something about the forces that shape our society now; in fact, by applying a critical lens to its (covert and overt) messages, the circumstances of its funding and production, and the way it is marketed to the public, you can unearth a better understanding of how it works in the grand scheme of power, and what is the real intent of its creation. The criticism here is not of people who enjoyed that art; it is an attempt to find out what greater power it supports and how it functions in our society as it stands.
Some will argue that a movie is just a movie, and that to critique it as a site of cultural influence is just ridiculous. When people say such things I feel like Rowdy Roddy Piper in John Carpenter’s They Live, when he’s engaging in the most realistic and therefore pathetically hilarious street fight of all time. Just put the glasses on, goddammit!
