Local vacation outing in Pattaya, Rayong, and Sriracha

 

I've written about visiting places in Honolulu, and about travel themes and culture there, and about visiting Ayuttayah back here, in Bangkok.  But I've not covered what local travel is like, recently, beyond that.  There's something really special about visiting local areas in Thailand, which I probably won't do justice to here, but I'll make a start.

Pattaya; not exactly for families

Pattaya is definitely one of the main sex tourism resorts on Earth, so it's not really for families.  We go there sometimes to go to local water parks, mostly, like to Ramayana, which is really in Rayong, the next area over.  We go out to eat, or to malls, back in Pattaya, and we did make it to a Harborland play area this time.  But in general most of what goes on there is not for us.

photo credit

One might wonder how evident that sex tourism is, if you don't go to the main red light areas.  Pretty evident.  The beach ends up being a center for working freelancers, and there are massage places and strip clubs all over.  It's not as crime-oriented as one might expect; the feel isn't too seedy, beyond selling sex being the main running theme.  It seems safe enough otherwise.  You might get overcharged for parking, or something like that, but scams would typically be pretty tame.  The deeper you would get into the experience of vice the more risk you would probably experience, especially with a lot of drugs and alcohol involved.

There are some expat families there, and I guess not all tourists are there for that main draw, so "normal" tourists are also around.  It is strange seeing tourist families with kids, but then we were there with kids.

Ramayana water park

the kids' play area there, from many years ago

This time there were a lot of Russian and other origin area tourists there, maybe a lot of central Asians, where it had seemed Thai and European in the past.  That didn't change anything for me.  I would think that for "higher society" Thai families it might; I might be missing quite a bit about standard perceptions of class levels related to different origin areas.  Or maybe I'm not; it's a stretch for me to represent a standard Thai "hi-so" perspective.

That park is nice; it's much better than a local Wet and Wild in Honolulu.  It's bigger, and the slides are better.  There are lots more seating areas, including plenty of deck chairs that recline or resemble beds.  The Lazy River is kind of massive; it takes awhile to go around it.  There's a separate smaller kids area, which we finally didn't even visit, since Kalani is older now.  They rent "cabana" huts for a private space sort of experience, at a fairly low cost, for something like $30 to $45 for different sizes, but the ordinary pool-side seating is pleasant, of course including sun umbrella coverage.

Some of the most intense slides are a bit much (with all of them listed here).  Two involved drops; they start by literally dropping you, by the floor under you just disappearing.  This video shows what one is like, how you just speed up to city road velocity and then rocket through a loop.

I didn't take any pictures of the park this time, beyond Kalani doing a zip-line themed biking attraction.  It seemed ok.  The chain came off the bike on a third (bonus) trip across that cable, so the guy working there needed to walk on the line (of course on a harness), and push her the rest of the way.  It seemed the best part, to me, adding uncertainty and thrill to it, but then I wasn't stuck on the bike up on a cable.

Value is a repeating theme across everything you do in Thailand.  It doesn't cost that much to go to the Harborland play areas I'll mention, or to this water park.  Maybe around $40, for standard entrance?  Food didn't cost that much in it, or anywhere else.  Everything is inexpensive.  

If that value came with working through rough edges that would be one thing, but it's not like the older local parks where things feel a bit worn; it was pretty well maintained.  Since it was a good bit newer than the Wet and Wild I mentioned it felt newer.  Locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms were clean, and everything worked.  

I suppose Harborland (play area) sites may or may not be like that, depending on their age.   They look fine, but that equipment takes a beating, so they either stay on top of maintenance and repairs or else some of it doesn't work.  Given how the infrastructure is the thing, the slides, bikes, an art and craft area, trampolines, and so on it's not such an important theme.  They have varying electronic games in different sites, and sometimes those break.  We did a trampoline game version in Pattaya that was nice (of course that worked), where you could play basketball or different games, with it tracking your movements through basic image recognition.  That's a good intro to say more about those places.

Harborlands

We've been to three in the past month, in Bangkok, Pattaya, and Sriracha.  Sriracha is Japanese themed (aesthetically; there isn't much that's functional from that theme).  It's also the oldest, and a bit of extra wear and tear showed that.  None of them are really dated in Bangkok, but an electronic game or the like may not work in one.

I'm not so worried about safety; they seem to be over-designed, to avoid issues that might involve risk.  And basic; they're just crawl spaces, slides, and so on.  It's nothing like an amusement park area.  Kalani always loves to play in kids' bike spaces, which I just participated in this last time, maybe for the first time.  79 kg is definitely over the weight limit, but that bike seemed really durable.

There are ball-pit areas, and games related to shooting foam balls in for-purpose play spaces, or places where you feed plastic balls up into a vacuum hose and chute section, then they collect and fall on you.

One might wonder how a 57 year old can appreciate those forms of play, scurrying through small crawl spaces, and going down slides, or roller-surface based sled ride tracks.  We first took Keoni to the Funarium, a related play space area, back when he was 2 or so, so that was 15 years ago.  It just seems normal to me.  I enjoy seeing the kids enjoy those places, and if it involves me crawling around some too that's fine.  

Fairly aggressive water slides are something else.  Either you stay adapted to having that kind of experience or else you can't handle it, in middle age.  Keoni and I did a lot of those Ramayana slides in fast succession once, maybe 5 years ago, and I started to get motion sickness from it.  He and I did those drop slides four times this visit, the most I ever have, by a lot.  It was intense.

One guy there, a muscled-up 35 or so year old, kept going down the simpler drop slide and screaming with excitement.  When Keoni first did the "Aqualoop" version he was visibly shaken, and swore he would never do that again.  But we went back up, almost immediately, as soon as he regained equilibrium.  I guess it's a little like taking drugs; you do get a crazy adrenaline rush from it.  Not so much in Harborland, but the small drop slides there affect you more than you might expect, just doing a 15 foot vertical drop.

It's all something of a workout.  I missed a couple of slides (back in Ramayana), when the kids went on two person versions, but we went on close to 15 slides, walking up 3 or more flights of stairs each time.

a smaller, more local, less safe park version

I get it that lots of parents might be more into dropping the kids off, or viewing them from a distance, instead of actually playing with them.  But why not play with them?  It's pleasant making art when Kalani does, and I liked figuring out how to play a couple of basic tunes on a tiny piano (organ).  She gave me an extended check-up in a kids role-play area, but that quiet time came after a few busy days, so after the checkup I laid down to get a nap.

Oddly mobility is a factor.  If you never did much for exercise, and stayed active, those slides, in both places, would probably throw your back out.  The wear and tear is beneficial, to me, all light duty enough.

Local people, local feel

This part is mostly transparent to me, because I already live in Bangkok, most of the time, but the local people are really nice in different areas.  I think that stands out most in the quieter and more rural areas, which isn't exactly where we went.  But a street food vendor in a busy urban place isn't necessarily so different than one in a quieter rural town market.  Maybe less rushed, so a little more conversation might come up.  My Thai is limited, so that only goes so far, but the kids aren't shy about talking to different people, and they are completely bi-lingual.

Keoni and I walked out to a night market and temple area at a local island just off Sriracha, when Kalani's meal ran quite late at one Japanese restaurant.  The infrastructure was impressive; a large durable plastic deck walkway built out for half a kilometer or so could've let 1000 people walk at the same time, or more.  We had been to that temple before; it's a typical Chinese temple complex (closed at night; we didn't visit it this time).

a local art fair, in an old part of Bangkok, but the comfortable feel is the same

The feel is what stood out.  Those local places are really informal and comfortable, and family oriented.  None of the homeless population themes or potential crime risk issues come up, that are always something to watch out for in US cities, ever, in any form.  

I tried to think of what space would be that comfortable in feel, and family oriented, back in Honolulu.  Waikiki, their beach resort area, is nice enough, but there's a much different energy to it.  It's more hectic.  People are in a hurry to get wherever they're going, and the mix of different types of people adds a unique feel.  It's not dangerous, or off-putting, not really involving tension, but it's not relaxed either.  People smoke weed everywhere, but that just becomes normal.  That Thai food court / market space was as relaxed as kids playing at a park, which may not be as relaxed in the US now either, since parents would need to keep an eye out for whatever might happen there.

It's possible that some of it is just in my own mind, but my impression is the exact opposite, that it's a real local tone or feel.  Others may not consciously experience it, but it's there for them too.

we visited the Khao Keo open zoo on this trip

that monkey threatened us, as in he communicated a threat

I'm from a local area in the US, where people tend to be a bit relaxed, and life is slow in pace.  But public gathering spaces kind of went by the wayside there, quite awhile ago.  The mall went dead, and local park spaces never were a main theme.  People gathered around a fire pit in their own home, with family, are relaxed, and social, but you need to set that kind of thing up, it's not there to visit by walking to a nearby park or outdoor food court space.

They have food trucks in Waikiki; that's perhaps the closest one could come to that theme.  But seating would be limited, and it's never a gathering place.

There was a large park on the land side of that island walkway, where people were running, and that's another example of what I'm getting at.  It wasn't busy, but a couple of dozen people were there to walk or run, even though it was around 9 by then, getting late for that.  Of course we didn't see a single homeless person; again that's not standard local Thai theme.  There was no graffiti, no litter.  

In Honolulu not only are there homeless people living at essentially every roof-covered bus stop, we saw drugs being sold and smoked off foil at one in Chinatown earlier this year.  So that was free-base cocaine, or meth?  I don't know; we didn't ask.  Over in the plaza space, walking there, we saw two guys with a large sized blowtorch, and what looked like chem lab equipment, smoking something else, or maybe the same drug, again I don't know.

It's not just about drugs and homelessness; the feel is different beyond that.  Thais wouldn't understand what you mean if you told them about these issues, or crime risk.  They wouldn't know what gang culture means; they would be thinking of biker gangs, or groups of motorcycle taxi drivers not getting long with the group the next soi (alley) over.  Apparently there is organized crime in Thailand, of some type, but it's as much a part of their lives as the mafia is in the US; it's just not.  They would probably ask you which parts of movie experiences relate to real life, and if you would need to be in a city slum to experience that.  They don't have slums with organized gangs in them, in the same way, so their questions would be based on what they've seen of Hollywood movies.  

I don't mean to say that Thailand is universally better than the US, related to culture, feel, and drug and crime issues.  To me it feels safer and more comfortable.  You don't have to worry about being one block too far over, or what time of evening it is.  I lived in Baltimore, right out of college, and that was another extreme, where being in the good area only protected you so much, and there was real danger within two blocks in most places.  That's missing in Bangkok, and certainly in Sriracha.

One strange part is that a sex resort like Pattaya also feels generally safe.  It's nasty, that's for sure, but you seem to have less chance of getting mugged in the worst parts of Pattaya than in the better parts of Baltimore.

Thais are friendly and open too, as rural people tend to be in the US.  That gets criticized online, as only superficial, tied to appearance but not real feeling, but I think it's both.

Oriental Leaf Fu zhuan hei cha comparison, Lincang and Fengqing versions

 

red wrapper Fengqing version on the left, in all photos

I'm comparison reviewing two exceptional Fu cakes from Oriental Leaf.  I think the zhuan part relates to a brick form, so I guess these aren't that, but it still helps identify the material type, for people accustomed to only seeing them pressed as bricks.  

I've recently tried what seemed likely to be the best example of Fu zhuan hei cha I've yet to try from them, reviewed here.  The comparison theme serves a few purposes.  One is to get through versions and samples of teas faster, so that I can review 10 or so teas a month, instead of 5.  

Then it also plays a role in highlighting minor differences between similar versions, which is why I'm using it for this review.  It would be hard to spot differences in feel, sweetness level, aftertaste expression, and so on when reviewing similar versions days apart.  Even isolating flavor aspect differences could be tricky, if a basic flavor range is similar.  It works best for very similar character versions; trying two completely different tea types just adds work, and probably limits what you can notice.

These will be exceptional, it's just a matter of how.  All of the Fu versions I've tried from them have been great, and that's not going to change for these.  That last version was surprising for eclipsing earlier examples, and just being on par with that would be good.  

I'll add the vendor descriptions here first, which I always add back in to the post review notes after trying the teas.  I should also add that these were sent by the vendor for review (many thanks!).  The days of bloggers connecting with producers and vendors to review teas are winding down, or just blog writing is, but it's nice carrying on that form, especially to communicate about interesting and unique teas.  

I had others try those earlier Fu versions in a number of gathering based tastings, and essentially every person saw the version we tried as a highlight.  Work out visiting me in Honolulu and Bangkok and you can place that for yourself.

On Taoism Jingyang Golden Flower Fu Brick Tea - 350g Cake (2020)  ($65.50)

A 2025 World Tea Champion winner where five years of patient aging and Yunnan's finest spring buds unite with Jingyang's legendary flowering craft to deliver a Fu Brick Tea of extraordinary golden flower density and silken, honeyed complexity.

Jingyang Golden Flower Fu Brick Tea — Naturally Flourishing Golden Flowers, Mellow Sweetness, Silken Body

Abundant Natural Golden Flowers (Jin Hua)

Masterful Jingyang Flowering Craft (Fahua)

Smooth, Sweet, Zero Bitterness

Ideal for Daily Wellness and Long-Term Aging

What Makes It Unique

2025 World Tea Champion — Superior Leaf Award: Internationally recognized for best leaf profile and cup character, validated by blind tasting from global experts.

Extraordinarily Dense Golden Flowers: This tea has everything we look for: excellent base material, perfect "Golden Flower" growth, and great aging potential.

Premium Yunnan Spring Bud Material: Unlike conventional Fu Brick made with coarse autumn leaves, this tea uses 2020 spring harvest with exceptional bud density from Lincang and Fengqing.

plenty of golden flowers (the Fengqing version)

the Lincang version

nice looking leaf material, not chopped, as hei cha in general would often be

The black wrapper version is from Lincang, the red from Fengqing (from good Yunnan Assamica plant tea material, where a lot of hei cha source material would come from elsewhere).  I could see why this stood out in an expo event competition; these are pretty good.  Again, as related to trying two other smaller cake versions earlier, one matches my personal preferences better, but both are nice, distinctive, complex, and lacking flaws.

Related to that pricing, $65 for 350 grams, these are much better than any pu'er versions you would buy for that cost range.  The type costs less in general, since demand isn't as high, but for tea of this quality in general under 20 cents a gram pricing is pretty low.

This review doesn't mention golden flowers (which are there).  They add a distinctive yeasty, fruity sort of flavor input, which at best comes across as fresh bread and honey or dried fruit.  Those flavors get mentioned, I just don't elaborate on guesses about the fungus causing them, versus the original material.

Review:

Fengqing:  very nice!  It includes the range one might expect, if anything a little more distinctive and pronounced than expected.  Sweetness stands out, along a toffee or light caramel range.  Flavors are relatively light and bright; a main flavor is similar to fruit cake, a mix of bright range dried fruits, particularly something like dried apricot.  There is spice, and warmer tones, but those are secondary, and the warmth is limited.  There is warm mineral range, but that will evolve more as the tea is fully wetted.  I'll do a longer flavor list next round.

Lincang:  spice is heavier in this, and the tone is slightly warmer.  It's also exceptional.  That spice range is going to be hard to describe; I think it's more than one thing.  One part might be clove, and another cinnamon.  

Of course there is a yeast-like aspect to both, so some description to fresh bread or cinnamon rolls would make sense.  I'll try to sort all that out next round.

Fengqing #2:  it's pleasant the way this set of flavors integrates.  It may or may not sound like that; it is atypical range, related to a lot of other tea types' character.  

Dried fruit stands out, a little stronger, maybe heavier toned this round (for being brewed lighter, or relating to more leaf input than fungus related flavor).  Yeast flavor has already dropped back, but another part of this does relate to a fresh bread flavor.  The type isn't easy to specify; maybe closest to fresh cinnamon rolls or sticky buns (which are kind of the same thing, just presented differently).  

Light and warm mineral supports the rest, giving it a depth.  Pronounced sweetness seems to help tie it all together, now more clearly in a toffee range.  It's very clean in effect.  Feel is full and rich, and it provides some aftertaste experience, with some of the warmer tones and sweetness carrying on after.  

Lincang #2:  spice develops further.  This is really more than one kind of spice.  A warm incense spice stands out, something like sandalwood.  There is no astringency bite or sharp edge to this, but it includes spice range like a cooked form of ginger, a different kind of medium toned note.  That's closer to cooked lotus root, if that's familiar.  It doesn't come across as sweet as the other, but it includes sweetness.

Mostly related to personal preference for sweeter teas and fruit range I like the first better, so far.  But this balances well; the flavors are complementary.  Slightly stronger dark bread tones works well with the rest.  I've been brewing these a little strong because they work well that way.  The flavor intensity would support lighter infusions still being pleasant.

Related to comparison with the other earlier versions these might be a little better.  It's been awhile, so it's hard comparing across months of time since earlier exposure.  And when I drink tea just to enjoy it, or even in informal tastings, I tend to break them down as descriptions less, which sort of could help with analysis and ranking.

Fengqing #3:  it evolves; warmer tones keep ramping up, and lighter sweeter range is replaced by heavier sweeter range.  The earlier fresh cinnamon roll is closer to a fresh darker bread now, not a heavy version of one, but not light either.  The earlier dried apricot has changed to a heavier dried fruit, or mix of dried fruits.  Feel is still thick and rich; maybe even a little heavier.

As a sheng drinker one might consider if teas that lack the intensity and punch are somehow less appealing.  Flavor intensity is fine in this, but young sheng, or sheng with limited aging, is typically aggressive, in terms of feel and flavor, and this isn't that.  I never completely stop drinking black tea, versions along the line of Dian Hong, or related SE Asian forms, so I stay in contact with preference for a different range.

Some of this character isn't different than flavorful and intense black tea, that expresses a lot of depth.  The flavor profile isn't a close match, but it does overlap.  The warm mineral base and fullness can be comparable, again only related to black tea versions that emphasize depth.  The bread-like range is different.

In giving it one last taste before the next round something like dried blueberry might make for a good interpretation of part of it.

Lincang:  this evolves to include more spice range, again along the line of incense spice, perhaps close to sandalwood (although my incense spice range memory awareness is now limited).  It comes across as a little dryer.  Really it is sweet and full, with good depth, but small differences across a similar range stand out in comparison tasting like this.  A touch of fruit edge might relate to a warm citrus peel, not like chen pi (aged tangerine), but still not so far from that.  

There's almost a savory effect.  It's not similar in flavor that it links to related to sun-dried tomato, the other form of savory / umami flavor that tends to be expressed, beyond seaweed that's more common in green tea forms.  This might resemble dried seaweed a little, the roasted sheets version.  But it lacks the vegetal range; it's just the savory edge.  And that is secondary to the warm spice and dark bread context, along with warm mineral base.

Fengqing #4:  this shifts a good bit.  That dried blueberry I had mentioned is closer to dried cranberry now.  It's not exactly tart, but the fruit flavor has changed.  Maybe dried dark cherry works better.  The warm tones have shifted from a bread-like yeast note closer to cacao.  This is much closer to one set of flavor aspects that can come up in black teas, that dark cherry and cacao pairing.  The base feel and deeper flavor range context is different.  It doesn't include any of that sharpness in black teas, present in a very limited form in soft and full black teas.

Feel is a little creamy.  You tend to only associate that with milk oolong, or at least light rolled oolong, but it works as a description for this.  It's reasonably close to a milk chocolate and dried fruit experience, layered on top of warmer mineral and earth tones.  It's harder to isolate the earthy range in this, since the rest stands out a lot more, but I think it plays a role in this seeming so full and complex, and balanced.  It would be natural to just interpret it as warm mineral, but I think it's both, also including mild and sweet earthiness.  

Something along the line of a touch of sweet leather gives an idea of what I mean, but this doesn't taste that much like leather, it would at most relate to a base flavor tone.  Of course that vertical layering is something I'm adding in interpretation; I really do "see" the flavors in that way, but it's probably more in how I frame them than a naturally occurring positioning that everyone else would also experience.

Lincang:  that one spice note dominates this, and then there is a lot of depth and complexity beyond that.  I guess how much one likes this tea might relate to how they experience that one flavor aspect input, as much as the rest.  To me it's squarely within the range of incense spice experience, but I guess someone else might see it as tying to medicinal root spice, or something else.  If you think "bay leaf" when you taste it then it seems to resemble that conventional cooking spice.  

Since other spice range supports that aspect experience it's really complex, even if it's natural to see it as simple, with one note supported by others.  The rest sort of resembles that complex mix of spice inputs in pumpkin pie spicing, which of course overlaps quite a bit with masala chai spices.  I suppose preconceptions about flavors, what one expects, or associates with different complex ranges, would affect interpretation.

Fengqing #5:  this will probably be enough for note-taking, even though these won't be finished.  

Somehow yeast range seems to pick back up.  Interesting; that had seemed to fade.  That relates to a complex flavor set the golden flowers contributes, which seems to extend well beyond yeast, into some of this fruit range I've been describing.  The feel of this is interesting, and pleasant, really well balanced and full.  There is still that pleasant set of dark cherry and cacao flavors present.  This would work well as a Christmas tea with nothing added to it.

Aftertaste intensity is unique.  It's not one main flavor carrying over, or a set, but the rich feel and depth of flavors, and sweetness, all linger on.  Compared to sheng intensity or oolong creaminess and floral range it's limited, but it has a lot of depth, so it doesn't come across as limited.

Lincang:  the main spice note falls into a more even balance with the rest, letting this integrate the best it has.  Those other complex flavors worked well as supporting range before, but now it's all of a similar intensity.  It comes across as softer and fuller, and maybe even sweeter.  A yeast-like depth resembles a light rye in this, a fresh bread note.  Apparently this will brew a few more infusions that are even more pleasant, complex, and balanced, instead of narrowing in scope.

Again related to my own preference the first version stands out more.  I can appreciate spice range flavors, layered with fresh bread notes, but an even sweeter dried fruit and cacao set of flavors works better for me.  This probably relates to a difference between people who are attracted to lots of sweet flavors and deserts, like dried fruit based deserts, or even chocolate and ice cream, and others who like a savory and spice oriented range more.  

Why not both, as differing experiences at different times?  I do crave plenty of intense, bitter, aggressive young sheng, but my main preference within that range is lighter, fruity, strong but approachable versions.  Then sometimes I'll have Xiaguan that's not all that close to ready, and the variety of experience is nice.  A Da Xue Shan origin (I think it was that) "cannonball" form version works well to cover both ranges, and to balance, even related to being transitioned but far from fully transitioned, from 2017 or so.  I just looked it up; it was 2018.  The point is that some of my favorite teas aren't sweet and fruity.

Conclusions

A lot is concluded in this already.  The teas are good, from good plant material, sold at a good value.  I liked one more than the other (the Fengqing material version), related to it being sweeter, a bit fruity, and for tasting like cacao, while the other included more incense spice range, that transitioned to being more balanced by other inputs in later rounds.  

Both kept brewing; I tried another pleasant round that day, and two more the next day.  They needed more time for those 5th through 7th infusions, but you could stretch timing and keep going, or even simmer that type of tea, if you wanted to get the last of it.  Plenty of tea types you drink until the character is unpleasant, but these don't drift into tasting like some version of wood in late rounds (per my interpretation; maybe that simmered round would be off in some way).

To me a next question is how these would compare to the last exceptional Fu zhuan I just reviewed from Oriental Leaf (a 2010 Jinyang version).  I don't know, but I can guess, and might write about comparing them.  These are quite good but I think that tea was great.

You tend to miss things in trying a tea just once, as I do in these reviews, but I have to accept that limitation or else I would need to write and compare two sets of notes for each post.  There might be a difference in body / feel, flavor complexity, or depth between versions.  You can easily miss an important input that's kind of "in the background," like a touch of sourness, or a minor flavor.  I noticed mint on a second tasting of one recently; it was secondary, in terms of intensity, but it adjusted how the rest came across.  I would probably just compare the version that I liked better; three way tastings get to be a bit much.

Those earlier two On Taoism versions (identical tea, listed here, and reviewed earlier here, but sold as 190 gram cakes) were essentially an equivalent option, just sold at less volume, and a slightly higher cost (but still around 20 cents a gram).  I had reviewed them brewing them Western style.  That works, but for teas this good it's interesting to me to see the development of them across Gongfu rounds.  

If I'm in a hurry in the morning I'll still sometimes brew exceptional tea Western style, to keep things moving, and it's nice that these work both ways, as better black teas do.  For good oolong you kind of lose too much from transitions, but for inexpensive and medium quality rolled oolong, as most Thai versions are, Western style is still fine.  If an oolong version is limited in quality or flawed enough Western brewing is better.  Initially I kind of expected more limitations from these teas, an extra rough edge or feel gap, but they're solid, complex and well-balanced.

an orange kitten helped with this tasting

The political war extended to movie themes in the US

 

At first glance everyone already knows how this is going to play out:  there are conservative or liberal oriented movies, and then people on the corresponding side of the US political divide will watch one or the other, and reject the other.  That happens.  But there's a little more to it now.  There is a tendency for a middle group to reject anything remotely like Hollywood liberal inclinations, among people who aren't actually politically conservative.  At least that's how I see things playing out.

The early steps are well-known enough.  In movies like the Star Wars sequels, or Terminator sequels, or later Marvel movies, they tend to build up female protagonists, by "nerfing" or weakening male characters, and gender swap characters, to make white characters into minorities.  Of course this is regarded as fair and inclusive by some, or many, liberals, and rejected by conservatives.

There's a lot less to cite about the opposite trend.  Hollywood is liberal-oriented, so an example of a movie just for conservatives is harder to come up with.  Let's check with Google on that:

Major Hollywood studios rarely label or market films as explicitly "conservative," but 2025 saw a notable rise in mainstream faith-based projects, military/action features, and traditional values narratives. Notable examples include David from Angel Studios, alongside faith-themed and traditional family hits like The Chosen and House of David.

Right, I've never heard of those.  I saw a 20 year old (or so) time travel movie about conservative Christian ideology awhile back; it was odd seeing anything like that.  I had to look up what that was:  Time Changer, from 2002.  It was interesting at least seeing that opposing view, that people might re-adopt values from the 1800s (reject swearing, wearing more modest clothing, all the parts of a very literal interpretation of the Bible, etc.).

Let's skip ahead:  this is mostly about the reactions to the Christopher Nolan Odyssey film.  Of course, since they've replaced Helen of Troy with a black actor, and included a trans-man as a Greek warrior the issue is that it includes liberal signaling.  But the movie is kind of neutral, related to the rest of it, per reviews on both sides.

That brings up an interesting context:  more conservative viewers might either decide to never see the film, because of those issues, or if they did see it would need to find reasons to dislike it, even if ordinarily it would seem like a good movie to them.  That's simple enough.  You can just dislike the story treatment, the character development, any changes from the original Greek myth version, and so on.  And more liberally oriented viewers can find plenty to like as well, to justify why this socially progressive film is good, not only for being socially progressive, but also as a film.

There is a set of Youtubers who benefit quite a bit from this divide, by outlining why the liberal orientation is a bad thing, for viewers who want to feel common ground with others related to disliking that.  The twist is that they're not only conservatives (the viewers, or the Youtubers).  The guy who makes the Critical Drinker Youtube channel stands out among them, related to popularity, and to quality of content (authored by Will Jordan, the name of "the Drinker," per online inpu).  

He communicates clearly, and expresses ideas well.  His perspective seems fine, although it does tend to become repetitive.  His image gimmick is that he is Scottish, and drinks while watching films (supposedly; he has sort of moved beyond that early branding theme, although he still does reference it).

I see his perspective as matching one part of a "classic liberal" view.  This relates to someone who was liberal in the 1980s or 90s, but who then fell into a middle ground for political perspective when the left shifted further left.  There is one other complication to this:  it's normal for people to be more liberal when younger, and then more conservative when older.  This seems to happen for some of the reason I've just described, that society keeps changing, and when people fall behind the pace of the changes they are automatically a conservative.  I'll give an example.

My parents were quite liberal in the 1970s.  They were open to people of all races, nationalities, and social classes being regarded as equal.  My dad was even a social worker; that was his career.  But then as acceptance for people being gay became mainstream in the 1990s, and not just different races, that was harder for them to adopt.  A couple of my close friends were gay, and they never seemed to express disapproval for that, but they still saw people being attracted to the same sex as somewhat unnatural.

Is it possible that it is unnatural?  The question only makes sense within a conservative worldview, that can draw on categories of natural norms, instead of seeing these as assigned by society, and open to change over time.

So they don't really hate gay people, but aren't comfortable with that theme.  It's the same as for others who can't relate to transgender self-definition today, or people being gender neutral, or whatever else.  People who were liberally oriented in the 90s didn't have to accept these later designations, because they were either unheard of or very uncommon then.

I suppose some of this carries over to other minority issues, related to immigrants and such, or maybe to issues related to openness to societal class level changes, but I won't make this discussion more complicated than it has to be.  Feminism also works out to be a complicated topic.  Of course where I'm from, a conservative rural area, in Western Pennsylvania (not that it matters; rural areas are fairly culturally consistent in the US), people are more racist, and against any of the modern progressive agenda and perspective, and for most probably even the older forms of it (classic racism).

Related to that film, the Odyssey, it was interesting how the Critical Drinker, and others, were up against the challenge of explaining why they didn't like it.  It should be easy, right; any parts of the plot or character development could be regarded negatively.  Or the lighting, the action sequence development, use of CGI, and so on.  But in this case most reviewers felt that it's a pretty good film, so lots of that wouldn't work.

The Critical Drinker settled on the portrayal of the main character as the main critique, related to how Matt Damon acted out Odyssius.  Not so much as a personal criticism of Matt Damon's acting, but more the direction.  Even pro-liberal reviewers said that his character is a bit war-weary and one dimensional related to character depth, for most of the movie, so it was simple enough, and a natural choice.  Then the ending apparently doesn't match the original version, so that's easy to dislike.  And the scenery apparently doesn't look like Greece, which would mean more to me if I'd actually been to Greece (parts related to there; I guess Troy was in North-Eastern Africa, so generally near the Middle East, sort of?).

original source cited in the image, worldhistory.org

It's an interesting divide, coupling "classic liberals" with conservatives, related to one part of their media preference.  Maybe they're not so far apart, in terms of general perspective and worldview?  The US isn't set up for there to be any moderate middle ground though, politically.  People are suppose to be conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican.  Lots of media tone reinforces this.  Trump throws that off a bit, for being so extreme, but in general the society really does break along that line, and media content does, related to news, television shows, movies, etc.

Then one other irony is that Trump isn't really a conservative.  He doesn't care about guns rights, or abortion, or really even about minority issues, although he can play the role of a borderline racist easily enough.  He is pro-Trump, and the rest is flexible.

So what does this mean?  Does this odd part of the culture war open up a space for moderate perspective?  Probably not.  It's just an idiosyncrasy, related to how some films work out, which I suppose would carry over to streamed television content.

These commentators aren't really leveling out the cultural field, in terms of saying that it's fine for people to be trans-gender, or that racial issues shouldn't matter anymore.  It's easy to interpret them as saying the opposite, even though they're not, supporting negative views on racism and transgender acceptance (with negative here meaning bad, being racist, or transphobic).

They earn Youtube views and income by saying what people want to hear.  They really do think that Helen of Troy shouldn't be a black character, and that casting a physically small trans man as a soldier doesn't really make sense.  But they're not necessarily racist or transphobic, or unusually supportive of  race or trans acceptance issues, more kind of in the middle, not particularly concerned with these themes, or against them.  It's easy to take that in different ways, as a viewer, depending on your own biases.  

That's how the 90s went; these things weren't issues, and people let others be however they wanted to be.  You could change your gender back then, and you wouldn't be hated, or seen as some sort of progressive champion.  You'd have been a social role and status outlier, which wouldn't have been regarded as good or bad, by most people.  Conservatives would have found it off-putting, as they do today.  For liberals it couldn't have seemed as normal, since it wasn't as conventional, but it still could have seemed fine.

It's interesting how "political correctness" has changed since, although it doesn't really shift the landscape of these ideas or positions all that much.  Words like "oriental" became regarded as negative (pejorative), and fell by the wayside.  The pronoun theme became complicated.  None of all of that changed the world and personal perspectives all that much though; even among supporters it was regarded as the language simply catching up to modified and updated perspectives.  Sometimes the changes don't stick, and they seem like overreach in retrospect, but often they do.

Odysseus

I finally saw Odysseus, so I can compare my take to what "the Drinker" commented.  I wanted to like it more than I did.  Parts were great, especially the visuals and action scenes.  It was a bit dark; there was no need for that part of the Mediterranean to all look like a Batman movie, matching Gotham in dark tone.  It was slow.  

The characters didn't do much for me.  Odysseus was traumatized by war; that was his only emotion and communicated theme for two thirds of the movie.  Athena did so little that she could've been a PTSD flashback, as some have speculated.  She might have asked a couple of leading questions but essentially she just looked sad.  It doesn't work to use one of the most powerful gods, and the only one actually on screen, to just look sad.  The gods existed in that world, but they only caused storms.

It would have been much better as a standard action movie. Characters could have been likeable and had some depth when playing a more standard role.  Tone could've been more varied, not just dark and tense.  The change of the ending was for the worse; it made no sense.  Odysseus traveled for 10 years to get home only to turn around and take another open ended, unplanned voyage immediately, seemingly within a day or two of getting home, or at least a few days.

The feminist oriented theme that women should be allowed to run a country worked, as a queen.  But it was awkward having Tom Holland's character be 18 or 19 in the movie, and look like 30, and being too young to be a king, until he was designated the new king at the end.

In one sense this doesn't change that conservatively oriented media channels need to arrive at the right conclusions, to dislike left-leaning content like this.  So little of this Odysseus film needed to be "liberal" that it was a shame for them to have included it.  Helen of Troy could've been white, as a Greek would be, and using a trans actor added nothing, beyond that controversy.  Without that baseline going in reviews would probably still be similar, but that one third of the potential audience would be more open to liking the film.