YouTube link here. Same as last week.
Part 2 of 2. Tony has a lot to say about his mental health. And then we talk birthdays. And then Jas gives us an email that we probably butcher, until we tire ourselves out. Enjoy!
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***SPOILER ALERT***
William dies.
Just not this week.
Y’all were definitely getting at what I was trying to differentiate, especially in the later part of the conversation.
What spurred me thinking about this, if this helps further, is that Pete had just recently scene Batman Returns again, and said to me, “It’s like you can almost see the staple-gun marks on the props.” And that got me thinking about how that is not at all the case in the Marvel universe. You are not supposed to notice the seams (literal or metaphoric) which draw attention to the constructedness of the world. I also think about this contrast: there’s a video on “Every Film a Painting” about the Marvel Symphonic Universe, and one thing they do at the beginning of the video is show how difficult it is for people to hum the theme to most Marvel Movies (interestingly The Avengers Theme is somewhat of an exception). When they are talking to composers on their work on Marvel movies, the composers mention that there is a general consensus that the music be in the background but not draw attention to itself. Contrast that with the way music was just used in the Willow series in which they use contemporary popular music which stands out because its not what we are expecting as fantasy music.
Overall, what this difference comes down to is what William was talking about as the difference between the modern and the postmodern. The modern hides its constructedness in order to justify an authoritative vision of the world. Not–hey, somebody made this, and therefore its possible for me to find issues of bias or the ways in which things are being represented, but, this is the way things are. The postmodern celebrates constructedness–this is a story!!! Isn’t it great that we can make stories!!! Here’s this person’s (or group of people’s) created vision, and you can enjoy it, disagree with it, engage with it in whatever way you want. The modern is about authority and the postmodern is about agency.
One thing that I approach slightly differently than William (I think) is that I don’t set apart nonfiction from that process. I think one needs to turn the same postmodern lens on the stories that we construct that are called history or science just as much as we do with fictional stories.
Interesting that you both agree that we are now living in a postmodern world. I wanted to hear more about what leads you to say that.
We don’t disagree on that, actually. I, too, think we need to turn a postmodern lens on the stories that we call history and science and news.
I think you’re correct in pointing out that there are forces in our world that do not favor the notion that we humans mostly just make stuff up. The notion that the deep truths we cling to are mostly just our best guesses.
I don’t think that ordinary humans have a problem with these notions. But there are some who want us to believe that humans hate such uncertainty so that they can a) build a hierarchy that (falsely) promises to provide certainty, and b) build a hierarchy that (falsely) promises to protect people with the right certainty against people with the wrong certainty. Basically, we are told that hierarchy is our best or only solution in overcoming our existential fears of ignorance (“People fear the unknown!”), impermanence (“People fear change!”), and isolation (“People fear what they don’t understand!”). If we believe these lies, then by the time we face the existential fear of irrelevance (“People can’t figure out what it all means!”), we’re ready to defer the construction of meaning to someone else — or, if we fancy ourselves superior to others, we assume the construction role ourselves and assert the moral prerogative to force our construction — “the Truth” — upon others. Or, at least, that seems to be the formula followed by the fear-soaked and power-hungry.
What makes me think we live in a post-modern world is… that formula doesn’t succeed as often as it used to. I mean, sometimes it does seem VERY successful. In US society today, we see the formula everywhere, and we see it having real-world, real-time impacts. Some argue that the formula is more successful than ever! But the formula loathes chaos. Chaos is actually a sign that the formula is faltering. And there is A LOT of chaos.
It doesn’t mean the formula will fail, though. One voice can still emerge and successfully silence the rest. I’m hopeful that such a thing won’t happen.
Ah, sorry, must have misunderstood the distinction you were making between fiction and nonfiction.
That’s interesting about today’s postmodernity. I wonder if it might also have to do with the fact that we’re all exposed to much more heterogeneity than in the past.
One other point I forgot to add to the original post had to do with “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” There was one episode sort of in the middle in which the whole way in which the Captain America symbolism got used seemed very self-reflective of what Marvel had done in the past and generally the symbolism of American exceptionalism. That episode worked as a critique of a lot of things about America (including racism) to me, whereas that speech at the end of the series seemed more like–here is our “anti-racism product.”
Without spoilers (and without having watched most of the series), I think I know the bit you’re talking about in the middle of Chicken & The Spring Commando. It did seem like Disney was going somewhere with that. But from what I was able to glean via osmosis, that whole storyline/perspective kind of just… stopped?
Still, Disney seems to be making very slow, very “years after they should’ve”, but very consistent progress on social issues. I should give them a drop of credit, at least.
Yeah, that is exactly what happened. That show was weirdly all over the place. Different episodes were totally different in quality and overall concept.