#but the adult equivalent to a McDonald’s toy was not it

[thedesertpenguin]

*me opening Instagram* Oh the Bridgerton account posted to their story! Are they giving a hint about s3 (delusional)

Them: We have Funko Pops!!

Me:

[patriciavetinari]

It was against my wishes that I was made to watch the Andor series. I have thoughts.

I'm finding it very hard to discuss because with the entire franchise I feel like it's some sort of topsy turvy alice in wonderland world where we are expected to take very seriously this media that is so simplistic and so devoid of difficulty or nuance or the quintessential greyness and relativity of morals that calling it a series for children is insulting to at least some options of children's media.

I feel bizzare when star wars films (as well as marvel for that matter) are treated and reviewed and discussed as if these stories aren't an equivalent of mass produced plastic mcdonalds toy: utterly generic, simple, inoffensive and lacking any kind of storytelling mastery.

And yet we're at a point when those are not flicks, not something we can agree is fast food of cinema, instead it is treated like something grown adult humans should sit down and discuss as important cultural event of our times. (Not Andor specifically yet, but star wars in general at the very least).

To me, all of this is peppa pig. I cannot take this seriously. I cannot look at those movies and series that are milking themselves for money and are offering the same primitive story over and over and over again and be part of this pretense that this is cinema, that this is for adults. I will not sit with a group of adults and discuss the story and character development in peppa pig. That is not to say peppa pig is inherently worthless! No, I want children of target age to sit down and discuss those things. Learn appropriate level of media comprehension and analysis through appropriate works at appropriate age. Just like I feel star wars franchise in general is meant for pre-teen children, I guess.

And it's bizzare to me not only that the same story and same characters are regurgitated over and over, all of it also has this veneer of seriousness, thoughtfulness, with a pretense of being adult choice of storytelling (and story-listening!). That's the milquetoast liberal message aside even. It's literally the same to me as children's shows getting those grimdark remakes with drugs and sex and incest and rape and murder and abuse added in while it remains a flat, unseasoned, unnuanced story that we are for some fucking reason supposed to sit down and discuss at our lunch breaks because that's apparently what adults consume and discuss.

This is a continuation of that recent tiktok thing about 'not reading a 700 page Russian novel', the battle of anti-intellectualism and snobbism versus lack of curiosity towards anything more challenging than disney. It's disney. It's quintessential disney writing which is not to say the story is necessarily bad: again, for the target audience (which for star wars in its entirety should be in my opinion up to 13 years old) it can be ok. But it's not for adults.

Stat Wars is not for adults. Disney is not for adults. Marvel is not for adults. It doesn't mean it's bad. Graphics are good, yadi yada, spaceahip goes brrrr, it's fine. But I have as much desire as an almost 30 year old to watch or discuss it seriously as I have to watch and discuss peppa pig or spongebob or scooby doo or barbie mariposa.

I'm not even saying it's bad for adults to like children's or teen or young adults' media, keep an eye on it, check it out when it comes out, notice good and bad things about individual pieces, analyze them, admire the art etc etc etc. But the genre and the target of that art should be kept in mind. It should be called what it is: pre-teen sci fi. It should be placed in that category in media libraries, it should be prefaced as such in conversation and when the conversation is about adult fiction, Andor or Star wars (or marvel or disney) should not really take much space in that conversation.

And I'm tired of how much space that primitive writing, those mass produced plastic mcdonalds movies with basic barely liberal messages take up nowadays. I hate that I cannot just say that I don't really check out children's media this days and be understood as someone who doesn't watch marvel or star wars stuff (which is all the same whale anyway).

There's nothing to discuss. Writing is poor, pacing is poor, dialogue is dry, acting is okay (there's not much to act out, everyone had the same expression for the first five episodes), graphics clearly the main point of the whole thing and yeah, I guess, spaceships flying look good.

[mononokehunters]

@inknad I could write a thesis on this tbh but Disney is the McDonald's of entertainment and every criticism or compliment of one could be leveled at the other.

As to its place in the animation industry, it's the equivalent of Walmart and its effects over the past thirty years on small privately owned grocery stores.

Overall, it's bland, it's soulless, its designed to be appealing to the highest number of people with the least amount of risk so stories, characters, designs, all roll into one indistinguishable "Inoffensive Attractive Aesthetic." It has cornered the market on entertainment as a social experience rather than an individually enriching one, so that the content barely matters so long as it can be turned into a toy and fashion line. And they've gotten so good at it that fans will eat up their #3 Strong Female Protagonist combo with a side of Adventure and Magic without a second thought and tweet about it for a month straight. Of course because it's successful, any studio that can edge their way in on the side follows pretty much the same formula (with a few very weird exceptions).

Meanwhile anything even remotely visually interesting or narratively experimental is relegated to YouTube or, if the creator is really lucky, a spot of Adult Swim. Which is to say, thank god for YouTube.

[sibiapalaceaustralia]

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