#the lack of media literacy is crazy

[the-krakens-bitch]

“We need more complex characters”

Bro you couldn’t even handle them

#allison hargreeves #nate shelley #nathan shelley #the hate I saw for them #wild #the hypocrisy #even more wild #as soon as they did something not nice to the infantilised fanfav character they became the worst person alive #someone compared Allison to Reginald #the amount of comments I saw saying Nate didn’t deserve redemption #but they love Jaime tart #the lack of media literacy is crazy #were they the best people #no #did they make not great choices #yes #but the biases I saw to them was to the next level #the umbrella academy #Ted lasso #tua

[animiaa]

I am getting way too agitated reading Avatar's subreddit and seeing people STILL debating whether Aang should have killed Ozai or not. What the fuck. Calling Aang a coward because he didn't want to kill Ozai? The peace loving 12 year old vegetarian monk who has been taught ALL life is sacred and who is the last survivor of a genocide doesn't want to take a life? What a shock, right?

#is this what they mean when they say media literacy is dead??? #avatar the last airbender #atla #aang #these people lack so much empathy it is crazy #it is 2am and i should go back to sleep #not gonna get into why i get so angry about this because i reblogged posts that say what i think better than i can

[neverendingcomplaints]

The Live Action ATLA

suffers from TORRIBLE (terrible, horrible) writing and, I think, bad direction.

All of the actors have the bones of the characters. There's a foundation there, potential there. The director did not do a great job building on that and bringing it out to its fullest.

And the writers and whomever plotted this whole thing out...a travesty. Too many beloved stories and scenes dropped, chopped and screwed in ways that just leaves you confused. Others have been calling it ATLA fanfiction and I concur lol. It could have been great but it's just OK.

Maybe they can salvage things with Book Two.

And yeah, I absolutely blame social media for some of the ways they decided to change this show. If people weren't fussing about EVERY. FRICKIN. TINY. PROBLEMATIC. THING, they wouldn't have changed Sokka. If people weren't complaining about people acting like people (that is to say, selfish, asshole, triflin behavior) and demanding that every character be perfect angels who never do anything wrong, we could have real stories and not super sanitized, milquetoast versions of everything.

So once again, fandom screeching ruins things.

#NATLA #still watching tho #when the writing tells like crazy #I'll take all the Zutara crumbs I can get #how fandom and its lack of media literacy ruins media #fandom sucks tbh #this is what you get when everything is problematic and nothing is good enough YOU GET NOTHING

[here4thefanart]

As someone who hasn't played the games (but wants to) and is living vicariously through gifsets and videos, it is crazy to see the amount of vitriol and lack of media literacy in this fandom 😵‍💫. Blatant ignorance towards (very obvious) symbolism and reducing sentimental scenes to "platonic bestie moment," makes my head swim.

Cloud and Aerith have a beautiful, tender, heartfelt, tragic romance, and no amount of gaslighting will hide that. You don't have to find it compelling, but to erase its existence is doing yourself (and the story) a disservice.

#clerith #love triangles are the worst #the mental gymnastics to discredit clerith is kinda insane #tragic love story with a slowburn? im invested #if they dont kiss in the next game ill eat my fist

[thefirstlioveyou]

small rant!!!

reminder that all queer media about either/both negative and positive experiences is wanted and needed. raw and emotional queer stories are just as needed as campy and sweet queer stories.

this thought popped back up because i remembered this one tweet i saw a while back that was shading byler (specifically mike, if i can recall), while uplifting a certain popular queer show, saying how fictional media about gay people facing internalized homophobia shouldn’t be normalized - how it’s toxic… how internalized homophobia itself shouldn’t be normalized…… my gosh 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

when i first saw it, it made me really mad, and a little shocked by the lack of media literacy.

honestly, i can argue that stories about internalized oppression are not even near to being normalized. i think there should be more raw queer stories with complex and messy characters - but that’s my personal opinion and a seperate conversation.

but - internalized homophobia. it’s a real and very common issue. i think every queer person faces it at least once in their life to some degree (🙋‍♂️). it’s haunting to deal with. it leads to toxic and self-destructive behavior that can ruin your relationships, romantic and platonic.

everyone can agree there is an odd comfort in seeing a fictional character that depicts your specific pain - you feel seen and heard. there’s nothing problematic or wrong about that. it’s not saying, “no gay people deserves to be happy!!” that’s a crazy conclusion.

it’s especially comforting to see the character after overcoming the pain. in this context, the internalized homophobia. overcoming it in real life can leave you feeling guilt for your previous mindset. seeing the character overcome it too and learn that they’re okay and nothing is wrong with them is like a big hug.

so yes, queer stories about a queer character facing self-hate are just as needed. i personally feel my experience of being queer is being heard - and it makes me feel less alone. everyone deserves to feel heard!

#so leave my son michael and i alone #rant #byler #mike wheeler #mike wheeler is gay #will byers #stranger things #stranger things 5 #rambling

[agentrouka-blog]

One of the things that drives me crazy in regard to Rhaegar apologia is that a lot of them use the fact that no Martell has directly blamed Rhaegar in the text for what happened as proof they don't blame him and it's absolutely mind boggling how dumb this is. First of all, Rhaegar has been dead for close to two decades, whereas the Baratheons and Lannisters are still very much alive so obviously the Martells' wrath will be directed towards them. Second of all, we barely have Martell POVs and POVs are not some omniscient, all-knowing insight into every character's opinion on all of the 456732 characters that have been introduced across five books. The lack of indictment re Rhaegar does not mean they don't blame him. Also, GRRM is not the kind of writer that is going to spell something as obvious as this out in crayon. If you need the author to directly tell you that Doran and Oberyn would be apoplectic at Rhaegar's actions toward their sister, maybe this is not the series for you. These are the same people that say, 'Well, we never got E's reaction to L being crowned at the tourney so we can't know if she was offended....' Like, these people really need the narrative to explicitly state that E was humiliated because her husband crowned another woman at a public tourney in front of nobles from across the 7K. I just.....these people are Not Very Bright and appear incapable of connecting even the most simplest dots. There are certain things that do not need to be and will never be spelled out because GRRM assumes his readers have at minimum a high schooler's level of reading comprehension and media literacy but here we are lmao.

Ned never thought much about Aerys either, the guy who murdered his brother and father. Are we to surmise he didn't terribly mind?

GRRM waited until book #3 to create a dramatic and righteous confrontation with the crime perpetrated against Elia and her children, even though the bare facts have been with us since the beginning. He waited until book #4 to introduce the Dornish perspective and vengeance plan in actual POVs, and until book #5 to introduce Elia's surviving son. Dorne, Elia, Aegon - it is a long game.

It slots well into his use of the POV trap with Dany and the comparatively slow dismantling of any positive patina on the Targaryen dynasty. We don't get a proper face on the horror of it until Jaime's confession in the baths of Harrenhal in ASOS. Maester Aemon was practically presented as a saint up until AFFC where he suddenly revealed himself to be a prophecy truther who had been corresponding with Rhaegar about exactly when he tried to impregnate Elia with his comet-fuelled wonder sperm - all this time, without telling anyone in the Watch about this supposedly fundamental savior concept. Dany's veneer of good intentions is falling apart for anyone paying attention.

Questions the reader could have asked from the very beginning, because the facts were always on the page, are being fleshed out and dragged to the forefront in the latter stages of the book series.

Considering Jon Connington and Aegon - son of Elia and Rhaegar - are about to collide with the Dornish plotline, the question of the Tourney at Harrenhal and Rhaegar's character is going to be much less subtly handled from this point on.

There are going to be a whole lot of revelatory collisions in TWOW.

#anti rhaegar targaryen #elia martell #pov trap #long game #dorne arc #anti targaryen

[uselessheretic]

w here do the ppl who share these dumbass takes even COME from... how is trying to wreck the ship in the middle of a massive storm killing everyone and himself and threatening ppl at gunpoint NOT violent... and how is any MOC being depicted as a 2D caricature of "Flawless and Virtuous Victimhood" (totally never a loaded concept) the only alternative to racist violent/impulsive/hyper-emotional stereotypes (that's not just a dif way of dehumanizing characters of color). and y r u SAYING all this just bc of like. shipping wars over a high-concept sitcom on the internet. wack. new types of ppl on earth every day.

it's so crazy because it really is a complete lack of media literacy which ik is a statement overused but dear fucking lord.

people have no idea how to actually analyze the role poc play within a narrative, contextualize it within both a narrative and historical framework, and apply an antiracist lens from there! things are so much more complicated than just having "good" representation of poc where they're never violent or angry or abusing substances. that's simply not the reality for many poc, especially queer poc who are in communities that are chronically traumatized.

ed's just? so complex and nuanced in a way that characters of color are rarely allowed to be. he isn't vilified by the narrative! he's given depth and time to explore the reasons why he's like this. and then instead of being written off as a lost cause, he's afforded kindness from others and a space where he's able to better himself.

#ofmd

[rayshippouuchiha]

Yeah, correctness is getting insane a former friend of mine thought super heroes were bad because they promoted the idea that law enforcement is good. It was crazy.

The real issue, in my opinion, is that your friend's not even completely wrong. There are characters/heroes who are thinly veiled pro-cop or pro-military propaganda. Or at least the films/shows/comics in which they're written take a very clear pro-cop/military type of stance.

The issue is that people are incapable of or are refusing to admit/understand that there is nuance to the situation. There are shades of grey. And without that understanding they do things like declare entire genres corrupt, immoral, etc etc.

There's a growing lack of media literacy, reading comprehension, and just a general inability/unwillingness to realize the divide between fiction and reality. Or, as I've seen far too often, they're not willing to understand that there's a difference between not personally enjoying/understanding/relating to a piece of media and that piece of media being "bad".

Instead people will broadly declare things "problematic" and then not actually be able to explain why.

#RayRambles #media #fandom

[petr1kov]

the thing about the age old question of 'was griffith in love with guts during the golden age' that really gets me is that like. the main point of their relationship to me is that griffith felt intensely for guts in a way he never felt about anyone else before, that he saw something in guts that fascinated him and reflected back to him, that he, for the first and only time ever, felt genuinely connected to someone and grounded in this deeply human relationship with another person, not coolly detached as he usually was with everyone else. guts made him feel like a real person, not a fairy tale prince or a god king whose ambition put him above everyone else and isolated him by this very reason.

but because the only way he knew how to relate to people was by possessing and controlling them, he also related to guts in such a way. it's the paradox of their relationship: he likes guts in great part because he is his own person, because he doesn't bow to griffith as this superior being and longs to see him as an equal, eye to eye, but he also can't stand the thought of guts being outside of his control, of him not being under his wing, near him. it was ultimately this mix of emotions that caused the eclipse and everything that followed it.

this is the key concept of their relationship, and it's troubled and toxic and not something that necessarily speaks of romance and attraction. whether griffith felt affection for him as a lover or a friend or a brother, it doesn't change the result, because the specific nature of his affection is not the main point, but that he was capable of feeling so strongly for another person at all, to the point of jeopardizing his dream for his sake.

with all of this said, though. it's still painfully obvious that the golden age arc was framed as a sort of messed up griffith-guts-casca love triangle (one where guts is obviously the center of) and denying that is just crazy to me at this point, like. it didn't have to be framed like that, with stuff like the naked waterfight and casca being so intensely jealous of griffith's affection towards guts that she saw him as a (love) rival for years, but it was. it's impossible to overlook that.

i believe the reason why many people resist the 'romantic love' approach is because they assume it would render all of this complexity null and just come across as a jealous/scorned lover story, but of course it wouldn't. not even the most bad faith interpretation of the story would make people think that way, because it's obvious there's more going on there. but vehemently denying the homoerotic undertones feels straight up disingenuous at best and lacking media literacy at worst, to me

#berserk #frankly this wouldn't even be a debate if so many berserk fans weren't the edgy homophobic otaku type unfortunately #it's frustrating because i kinda wish there weren't any romantic undertones between them #it just makes the events of the eclipse even worse in my eyes

[zushimart]

crazy how people will lack media literacy and be so loud about it

[distort-opia]

i think youve talked about something similar before, but do we get to see proof of batman genuinely caring for joker? and not having an excuse of "oh im doing this because i need joker to be fine so i can save other people".

sometimes i get paranoid and think that the whole batjokes thing is just my shipper brain speculating and i have to look at all the evidente again so i dont think im crazy lmao 😅

There's plenty of instances of Bruce caring about Joker, and yeah, I've talked about various aspects of it in different asks. There's a more extensive response I posted a while back as part of an interesting Batjokes discussion, in which OP argued that Bruce does not reciprocate, and I disagreed; you can find that here (though fair warning, that whole chain of reblogs is loooong). I also answered some asks about Bruce finding Joker funny here, and about Bruce constantly saving Joker's life here, and made a compilation of some of the best times Bruce got incredibly unhinged over Joker here.

But I'm assuming you mean... Bruce blatantly spelling it out that he cares about Joker, with zero alternative excuse? Since Bruce is so repressed and caring about Joker is something he cannot easily admit to himself, these moments are rare. But if I were to point some of them out, I'd say the ending to Batman: The Killing Joke remains to this day one of the biggest.

No matter how you look at it, Bruce telling Joker "You needn't be out there on the edge anymore. You needn't be alone," right after Joker shot Barbara in the spine... is something that’s difficult to explain away. Not to mention Bruce laughing alongside Joker -- maybe you could argue that Bruce offering to rehabilitate Joker is just something he'd do with all his villains (which isn't actually true, Bruce hasn't had a moment like this with anyone else), but the joined laughter has no possible "excuse" on Bruce's side. It's commiseration, plain and simple.

Then there's Batman: Endgame, and the insanity that is the ending of that comic. And leaving aside the heart-shaped pool of blood, the sheer suggestiveness in the imagery of their fight... Leaving aside Bruce choosing to die alongside Joker, literally pleading with Joker to stay with him as he dies -- there's this:

Batman calls Joker a friend. This cannot be understood as anything else but what it is; Bruce allowing himself to admit he cares about Joker, at the end of the road. Arguing otherwise ignores the context of the story and the writing that came before and after it (besides indicating a worrying lack of media literacy).

And hey, have some Batman and Joker canonically kissing, in Flashpoint: Batman -- Knight of Vengeance:

Yes, it is Thomas Wayne who's Batman, and it's Martha Wayne who's Joker, but I think that's plenty. There's a Universe in which Joker is Batman's wife. The sheer fact this is a thing that exists inevitably implies that Batman and Joker have romantic potential.

But I'll leave you off with the beauty that is Bruce being directly called out on his Joker bullshit in Injustice: Gods Among Us -- Year 1, by his best friend:

Eyy! If you're crazy, Clark (and Alfred, and Tim, and Selina, and Barbara, and many other characters who have explicity remarked on Bruce's unusual attachment to Joker) are too!

I hope this answer helped! <3 But either way, leaving aside the fact Batjokes objectively has plenty of canon support, my advice would be not to stress yourself out by caring too much about evidence. Shipping, and fandom in general, is supposed to be fun. We're in control over here, and we do what we want. So even if you were crazy, that'd be perfectly fine, as far as I'm concerned.

#this is only hammering it in that I should make a pinned post or a meta post or something #with links to stuff #dammit. I'll do it this week-end I swear #never thought I'd reach the point of needing to organize my blog #asks #batman #batman meta #bruce wayne #joker #batjokes #batjokes meta #my meta

[ambelle]

What’s crazy about people claiming Mel’s goal was to be a dictator is that there’s not a single scenes where she says that or tries to do that.

The only scene we see Mel talk about wanting a throne is the flashback… where her mom also makes it clear bloodshed comes with the crown. And you can see any desire for that melt off her face when her mom beheads that girl. Now she is quite literally part of a council.

Fans lack media literacy and I always have to pay for it for some damn reason.

#mel medarda #bunch of idiots #girl is having nightmares about war and they called her a warmongering dictator #can’t even make that shit up #it’s just dumb #anonymous

[stealthylikeninja]

I don’t know how I’ve got onto anti-billy posts (I mean I do know, because they constantly occupy his fucking tag and obsess over everyone who likes him) but they are absolutely fucking vile. I feel like I should clean my eyes with a bleach for the amount of bullying and hateful behaviour they display. With the way they act you would think that Billy is comparable to fucking H*tler, not to mention the jabs at how other fans are ‘clearly’ racists and abusive because they like his character. Or how they lack media literacy? Is it me, or does that make no fucking sense? As far as I’m aware liking Hannibal doesn’t make you a human flesh connoisseur, liking Joker doesn’t make you a fucking crazy murderer clown, and liking Loki doesn’t make you a semi-genocidal demi-god. It’s fucking fiction, it doesn’t exist, liking someone doesn’t translate to being like that fucking person (it really should be a general motto of this fandom, because people forget or don’t understand that simple stupid fact).

Both of these examples just scream lack of media literacy, if not to go as far as to say lack of critical thinking skills. “Main character you are supposed to like” - so basically we are taking everything surface level, no deeper thoughts, no nothing? Just blindly guided by who you are supposed to like and who you are not supposed to like because show told you to do that?(even though it didn’t actually tell you shit, but go off) Are you able to form a single opinion that comes from your own thought process or do you just do everything someone else tells you to do?

Not to mention, fireworks and applause for a teenage, abused character to die a gruesome death after being literally mentally tortured and controlled by an inter-dimensional monster. You should get a Nobel Peace Price for your clear ability to empathise with anyone (I know, I know, you were not told to do that, it’s hard to form your own critical opinions). Just go around bullying an extremely fucking safe part of the fandom that does nothing wrong to anyone, and just posts their silly little stories and concept arts and protects other characters that are being bullied by this kind of toxic ST fans. What a puritan fucking moral warrior behaviour, absolutely vile.

#trigger warning: antis #billy hargrove #fuck off from this tag if you dont like billy #its that simple #ITS REALLY THAT FUCKING SIMPLE #stop going around throwing the word racism at people that gave no proof of being one #not to mention how many times you direct it to poc billy fans #media literacy who? #critical thinking who? #abolity to think for yourself and analyse the media beyond the surface level who? #puritan bullshit #get off your moral high horse darling you are fucking bully #and you are toxic to this whole fucking fandom making it a big pile of shit #i said it once and i will say it again #billy antis suck #harringrove #tell me you are jason stan/apologist without telling me you are #that actually looks very similar to jasons behaviour in the show #its a fucking witch hunt based on fuck all

[lordelmelloi2]

a lot of work that was done for feminist media analysis in the 90s-2010s was thrown out the window thanks to modern "fandom" etiquette and stuff that just boiled down to "muh ships" and a lot of the mindset that resulted in this shift is outright rooted in racism per the "fiction has no bearing on reality/you should know the difference". I really think honestly its a very privileged & white mindset to have to believe "it's fictional/pretend/private so I don't have to think about if it affects anyone". if you are against racism you should know the impact of media on reality, black feminists and civil rights activists have been pointing out the effects of propaganda and also representation of groups on the social consciousness forever; And I think quite honestly for the whole "well it's common sense to not treat someone a certain way just because you enjoy media that depicts it being shown!" argument, the minute you learn about the history of Minstrels and the Mammy stereotype or the Sapphire stereotype or etc. It should become blatantly clear to you how depictions of anything affect how people act in real life. This in turn also relates to media showing children as sexual objects, incestuous relationships as being funny/desirable/normal, rape as being "tough love", all of these are things that feminists have been doing work to try to combat for YEARS, and right now because of the whole ""pro ship"" BS it's kind of going out the window because people value their own personal comfort over making any meaningful changes. It's not like you get a manual stating when you turn 18 "here's all the crazy stuff you should unlearn so you can help break cycles of abuse and normalization of abuse", but people seem to have given up on trying to understand anymore. Nothing is exempt from criticism, we don't live in a vacuum, media has and historically has impact on reality, social attitudes, normalizing abuse. It's... obvious. Like its blatantly obvious. If you've cared about anything, ever, if you've ever been like "ugh. I hate how (animal movie) made people go out and buy (animal) as pets even though they're not meant for domestication!" you understand already how media impacts reality and people's behaviors, you're just choosing to pick and choose which ones you personally feel are valid.

And I think that when there's epidemics of children being groomed and an abuse and mental health epidemic that's because of rampant pedophilia, incest and rape we need to be more aware of the ways that media feeds these messages to you about what is and what isn't acceptable to do to another person. I don't believe in Neutering media to Never Show it, but I do think people are very stupid and despite saying they don't believe in condoning stuff "in real life" I think there's a wild amount of people who truthfully have no idea what boundaries are acceptable anymore and will gratefully allow the messages to permeate their brain without stopping to think like what the director or author is trying to say or what overall message they're trying to convey. I don't enjoy the discussions being held about "media literacy" in fan communities anymore but there is kind of a shocking lack of discussion about trying to understand the overall point of a story. The big picture. Overarching narrative meanings. Messages communicated. Themes and what they mean and how they tie into the narrative. Idk. There's better ways of writing all this up and I have to get ready for work

[m3r1m4r5u333]

Hey fellow buddie truthers. Here's an idea:

JUST GO AHEAD AND BLOCK if you don't like someone's take on something.

I'm getting really annoyed at all these smug and hostile posts that several people keep making about how 'other fans have it wrong/are dumb for their take on some scene or another/lack media literacy', etc.

Sorry to break it to you, but to my knowledge none of us, including you, are in control of crystal balls. Your ideas of what will happen next on the show may be 'wrong' as well.

So let's stop with the war mongering and name-calling. Just block and ignore, if you do not like what you're seeing. Go ahead and block me too, if you feel like it! Way less drama, it's a win-win for everyone.

(oh and yes, I will also follow my own advice. As soon as I have the time. It's an Eurovision night, 🥳 it's crazy it's party 🥳)

#911 #911 buddie #buddie #911 speculation

[hamartia-grander]

Forget about gritting your teeth through someone's media analysis that is egregiously incorrect. Some character/story analyses I see on here are literally just verbatim re-tellings of what happened in the story - the literal things you are supposed to understand, and the connections you're supposed to make to get what is happening - and they're phrased as crazy theories or analyses. And I just want to scream, because no, you're not weird or 'reaching' for coming to that conclusion, that is quite literally the exact thing the story was trying to tell you. You are stating blatant fact as some incredible discovery. Like that person who thought Lucy Gray Baird saying she was 'going to find Katniss' was "an accident" or maybe they were crazy. But I guess everyone's gotta start somewhere, even if you think saying 'did anyone else ever realise that Darth Vader's theme plays when Anakin does something evil???' is some mind-blowing observation. Like, shit, in a world where media literacy is so sorely lacking, quite literally witnessing a story and noticing details of it is considered analysis. Whatever.

#fandom #banging my head on the wall STOP FUCKING WATCHING NOTHING BUT MARVEL MOVIES THEY LITERALLY ROT YOUR BRAIN #marvel movies and marvel adjacent movies etc etc #THEY ARE COMMERCIALISED THEY ARE CORPORATELY FORMULATED SO THAT MASS AUDIENCES CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT'S HAPPENING #EVEN IF THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE CHARACTERS ARE OR WHAT HAPPENED IN ANOTHER MOVIE #They WANT it to be so so obvious on PURPOSE so that they can get middle aged people who don't have kids to be entertained #so that they can get groups of teens with nothing better to do than watch some new marvel movie that's always in fucking theatres- #-to go in having absolutely no idea who these characters or their storylines are and still understand what's happening #wonder why no matter how good the new marvel movies are there's always just a certain substance that feels like it's missing? #What's missing is the part where they don't treat the audience like idiots who need everything spelled out for them #where the plot and symbolism went hand in hand to tell the story #when you didn't need repeated flashback shots of scenes we've already seen just to remind an audience with an absolute SHITE attention span #what happened literally twenty minutes ago in the same movie #like no. you're not insanely smart nor crazy for recognising that leitmotif. I beg you to look it up that is quite literally its purpose. #you are an audience member observing and understanding the story. #Like I LOVEEEEE delving into the symbolism and narrative rhetorical devices in stories it is my favourite thing #I always loved Socratic Seminars in school because we'd get to just discuss our analyses on the texts we'd read #there's too many people acting like they're INSANE like they are going to be SHOT ON SIGHT if they DARE notice blatant details #that are supposed to be noticed #and don't get me wrong I have no hate for these people. #I truly just hate the fact that this is enabled by the commercialising and commodification of ART. #“content” and all that bullshit #IT'S CALLED ART #IT'S CALLED A GOOD STORY #'bro has anyone ever noticed that gandalf is called gandalf the gray in the hobbit because it was set before lotr?' #YES. EVERYONE. STOP IT