#and we forget the less glamorous more frustrating work that really moves the needle | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

reds-revenge · 1 year

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My main issue with the conversations we have about media and how moral it is is that there's actual, tangible suffering and death in real life we can work on instead. I don't really care if I'm watching a horror movie that's not giving the women agency because it's not real, but I care very much about women not being assaulted in real life. I only have so much energy, though, so if I focus all of that on how to tell the One Perfect Horror Story, I'm not focusing it on getting women access to healthcare, which is the thing that will really help.

#like just to be clear!#representation does do good things #and a lot of people prefer to read stories they can relate to #i prefer to read about people who are not like me but that's me! you can want to only read about people like you and that's okay #because we are having fun #our moral worth is not based on our netflix history #but!#there is actual work to do!#in terms of making the world better!#and i want to do that!#and i think often that we get distracted by things that maybe feel more achievable or are more visible #and we forget the less glamorous more frustrating work that really moves the needle #like I'll have long conversations with very sexist guys to try and open their minds just a tiny bit.#usually it doesn't work but sometimes it does! sometimes they see the world a little more widely #and then they carry that with them as they make their choices in life #and this stacks up.#it's not that you can't do a lot of real work in media. you can!#but there is so much more that is maybe more influential #because you can tell stories as perfectly as you want #and it won't necessarily impact how people live #because people often only interact with media they agree with already #so it isn't changing minds or policies or culture etc etc etc #does that make sense?#and it comes from this puritan idea of withdrawing from the world to be pure #which doesn't. help. fix. the world #ANYWAY

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