I've been writing thoughts on Disney Marvel movies here recently, as much about how the liberal / conservative divide of the US culture war influences content and perceptions as much as whether those movies are good or not. Burn-out over experiencing too much related content could be a factor for many, it just getting old, between Marvel, DC, and Star Wars producers striking while the iron is hot, adding show after show to streaming platforms, and shows like The Boys and Invincible building on and changing that theme.
The divide related to movies is about producer focus in representing left / liberal oriented themes in their movies, adding female empowerment themes, swapping out white male characters for diverse race, female, or diverse gender and sexual preference characters. All that is fine, but it turns comic books into political statements. They always were that, to a certain extent, driving earlier, less developed female empowerment themes, and racial diversity, it has just pushed further now. Star Trek struck a good balance in emphasizing equality idealism, and Star Wars included diversity without making it a main point, and both approaches worked. Except for the Jar Jar Binks character, I guess; there was going to a misstep along the way.
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diversity and inclusion was emphasized more than the story in Ms. Marvel (image credit) |
One odd twist in that divide is that people rally around disliking that cultural reference inclusion, and those movies, to a greater extent than might obviously make sense. Disliking this trend seems to become a main part of their identity. I suppose that's not new, that people defining themselves in opposition to other people and other perspectives always was a common theme. It's just about comic book movies now, and it serves as a relatively easy path for Youtube media review channels to get to a million viewers, fueling the divide being regarded as an important concern. Then movie producers push back harder; two characters were outed as gay in the recent Thor movie, for no reason at all related to plot or character development, apparently just because, to include inclusion.
This post really started out by offering comments on another subject, which I've written about before, views on Jordan Peterson, in this Reddit question:
Why do people hate Jordan Peterson?
The framing of that question matters, related to identifying this context:
I just don't know why, but what he says infuriates me, and I'm not the only one that feels the same way, he's smart, don't get me wrong, but I don't know why seem to hate what he says.
My answer:
It's culture war bias that's throwing you off. It's not exactly that Jordan Peterson represents conservative perspective, but one of his main themes is definitely rejecting the far left perspective, and their "agenda," to the extent that's even a real thing. To some limited extent I think it is real (then partly it's also not, not in the way he describes), and parts of everything he says works, but it's just a matter of people favoring one of two relatively extreme perspective biases, which evolved naturally over time, reinforced by media positions and other factors.
As I see it--just one more person's take--both extremes need to be analyzed together to appreciate what they really are, and how both creep into more mainstream, central perspective biases. Sure, extreme liberal perspective gets a little weird, and concepts like gender fluidity probably wouldn't work so well as a mainstream cultural form. And extreme conservative perspective is perhaps even more problematic, because it's not just about rejecting those issues, and the concept of privilege and so on, conservative views are also about maintaining a cultural consistency that's just not practical, rejecting that new takes on things and self-definition can evolve over time.
Then both together are more or less used as diversions for the wealthiest interests to get most of the rest of the country to focus on something beyond their own interests not being served by US government direction. If US government served the common good it would address problems like the wealth divide, climate change, national debt, universal health care, over-spending on military, and helping resolve an economic shift away from manufacturing towards evolving forms of service economy, which could be going better. None of that is being addressed, or even considered. Apparently your "team" is the liberal side, so the nonsense you are being encouraged to take up relates to gender issues, female equality, and so on, and only a thin token form of equality of wealth, which means nothing in relation to actually moving in that direction. Jordan rejects some of that as nonsense, which means almost nothing without the rest of the picture.
Don't get me wrong, trans-gender experience is a real thing, and it's valid; there's nothing wrong with new forms of social expression or self-definition. But as I see it the culture war does more harm than good, dividing people over points that don't need to result in such division, for the practical gain of a few. And the divide widens due to other natural forces, not just related to conspiracy theory driven inputs. Youtube channels that complain that Disney and Marvel embrace diversity too much earn a lot for those content producers, so whole new forms of media expression naturally evolve to promote that divide. Social media groupings promote biases and ever narrower shared perspective space, so the left and right keep drifting further left and right.
One part of that could be clearer, what I meant by saying that Jordan Peterson is critiquing a left biased social trend, and an agenda, that's sort of a real thing but also partly not. He interprets that far left perspective as based in Marxist ideology, as promoting a set of interests that are unified, planned, and intentional. Parts of that works; it all does probably tie back to Continental philosophy themes, as he claims in more developed critiques. Seeing it as all one thing, derived into a planned agenda, doesn't seem right to me. He's pushing back against extreme forms being developed and promoted within university education systems, and it probably does work better there, as a distinct and more clearly defined social perspective trend. There must even be a goal there to eliminate others with a different set of assumptions and biases from within that educational context, to get some professors fired. Then Disney and left oriented media may draw on parts of those themes, but they're not necessarily philosophers, working from a developed ideology, apparently towards some set of goals.
It's a bit of a tangent of a tangent here, but let's consider what works about Jordan Peterson's ideas. He's emphasizing a type of self-help perspective, taking responsibility for yourself, and embracing self-improvement. That's positive enough, even as he presents it. He's not necessarily talking mainly to younger conservative men, but that's the audience that has embraced his messages, so in a sense it did work out that way. Maybe being a college professor naturally oriented his message themes towards younger people, and I suppose males might tend to be more conservative, in general.
Peterson loves the earlier Disney "hero's journey" model for telling stories, which I've discussed more in this review post, and less directly in discussing Jordan Peterson's take on Christianity. It uses a story about a flawed hero seeking self-discovery and external exploration, going out into the world to find themselves, being confronted by a challenge that threatens both them and their family or social group, and overcoming all of it through a self-development step. I suppose he must see himself as engaged in something like that, biased towards the kind of oppositional framework I'm describing as problematic. I'm not sure which internal flaws he overcomes; maybe depression related to his wife's illness, and dependency on anti-depression drugs. Those don't seem internal enough yet though; it's his reaction that needs to change, not just accepting issues and taking an externally related step.
It's obvious enough why he doesn't like the other kind of story telling, where a female or minority character has been oppressed by an external system (the patriarchy), and then moves forward only by actualizing her inherent potential, not going through any form of transformation. That story claims that everyone has plenty of inherent potential and value, and self-actualization through self-development isn't the main concern, it's throwing off your oppressors. Then one problem is that while an Iron Man character faces challenges and overcomes them by developing technology and changing personality traits, and focus, a Ms. Marvel character finds a magic bangle, and was born to be able to use it, inherent through birth.
It seems the X-Men follow that second paradigm; they are genetically granted the abilities, and overcoming external withheld acceptance is their challenge. The paradigm can't be applied by people without inherent atypical genetic abilities. It could map to a theme that everyone is of value, if they can find their internal talents, but that's not how it's presented. Then again Tony Stark was a genius billionaire to begin with, and his main accomplishment for perspective shift was deciding to help others, driven by chance to design new armor technology, which is admirable within that context, but it doesn't apply broadly.
All this drifts away from my original concern that over-emphasis on these two strands of thought isn't positive. This was already a very well developed theme in the 1950s through 1970s, with two sets of people pushing for the world to change or stay the same, based on observing radically different sets of norms and values. This is a good video excerpt / Youtube channel reference of people in that time period discussing those issues. It all normalized through the 80s and 90s, as diverse strands of thought that somehow separated people less. It would be nice if the positive values of acceptance of minorities and also appreciating conservative social patterns that were positive inputs in the past both evolved then, but maybe that really didn't happen. Later racism seemed to return, and sexual preference and gender divide widened with self-definition scope increase. On the other side the value of family bonds never became more explicitly appreciated.
The parts drawing the main focus now seem to be outcomes from these underlying focuses, or the most extreme expressions of this diverse perspective divide. On the left it's not enough for females to be seen as equal, or gay people to be accepted (which never really did fully "go through"), new forms of self-definition evolve, and these now need to be accepted too. Which I see as fine, as long as it doesn't degrade into embracing change for change's sake, pushed well beyond what positive and practical range.
One "mistake" in hippie sub-culture was extending social equality and personal freedom themes on to over-emphasis on drug use, or commune style living that wasn't practical, or extreme forms of personal clothing style, like wearing flowing robes (which are coming back, to be clear). It wasn't a conscious decision to make practical concerns extend further, just a natural drift. It seems that we are seeing that again now.
The same happens on the conservative side; there is nothing wrong with valuing a traditional form of family, a husband and wife, pursuing traditional consumption and ownership related goals. Then that can naturally extend to bizarre and far less positive scope, to preparing for a zombie apocalypse, rejecting vaccine treatment during a pandemic, or hating people for wanting to change their original gender.
All of this falls pretty far from making sense of the culture divide, or filling out forms of how it gets expressed, and reinforced. It was just about adding more thoughts on the subject, writing out what I was thinking about a few ideas that came up.
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