#but!!! here u go. the spark notes version of the glass onion thoughts

[rollercoasterwords]

Hello there. This is me asking you to talk about the glass onion thing, I wanna know 😌

ok i just spent. an hour. writing a whole essay. and then accidentally deleted it. so!!!! i don't think i have the energy to rewrite the whole thing but the condensed version of the glass onion thoughts:

the movie itself was fun and i don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying it, but what bothers me is seeing so many responses praising the movie as though it was this groundbreaking anticapitalist critique when in reality the actual message of the movie was neither groundbreaking nor particularly anticapitalist and the movie itself is very much invested in capitalism; it's a film made by a multi-billion corporation whose primary purpose is to make rich people richer.

and i think a lot of this uncritically positive praise that treats the movie as though it's making some important political statement is falling into the trap of asking "does this media say something good or bad" rather than asking "is this media a lecture or a conversation." because sure, glass onion seems to be saying "eat the rich!", but that message is very carefully outlined in bite-sized chunks that are then spoonfed to the audience. like, it's very clear who's good and who's bad, and it's very clear why those people are good and bad, to the point that the viewer isn't really encouraged to question those assumptions and is supposed to just sit back and agree with the points the movie is making. and if more people were approaching media critique with the starting point of "is this a lecture or a conversation," i think fewer people would fall into this trap of just going "oh, this movie is saying something i agree with!" and instead pause and ask "why isn't this movie encouraging me to draw my own conclusions?" because in the case of glass onion, i think the answer to that question is that the movie is not really making any groundbreaking critique and is rather a perfect example of "anti-capitalist" capitalist media that works to keep people complacent by making them feel as though there's some important challenge being made when there's not.