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Unpopular opinions

WakeBored said:
What a depressing thought: Hollywood makes our mythology.

I feel sick at the suggestion.
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Films and TV play the same cultural role as griots, bards, and other storytellers over time. Why would that make you sick?
 
PhDeac said:
Films and TV play the same cultural role as griots, bards, and other storytellers over time. Why would that make you sick?
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A culture’s “mythology” is more than just a collection of stories. It can do a lot of things, including explaining a shared view of our understanding of our place in the world, capturing and directing a cultural ethos, explaining shared values, and serving as a guide for human decisionmaking. If the thought that flunkies who couldn’t hack it in academia or as authors and who are instead employed by mega corporations, with fiduciary obligations to shareholders to maximize profits, to write lowest-common-denominator stories whose sole purpose is to put as many butts in a seat as possible are the people writing our shared American mythology—on this definition—doesn’t turn your stomach then I’m not sure we have enough in common to have a productive discussion about the issue.

I’m just imagining a 14 year-old faced with a moral dilemma and asking himself “What Would Aquaman Do?”

If that is, in fact, where I thought we were as a culture, I would be a constant state of despair about the trajectory of our society.
 
you're sad that a 14 yr old would try to emulate a someone trying to do the right thing?
 
Yeah. That is strange. A culture’s mythology is also captured by its religion and history. We just don’t think of those as mythology.
 
WakeandBake said:
yet he believes in the myth of trickle-down economics
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Well he believes “What would Aquaman do?” is worse than “What would Sean Hannity do?” as well.
 
I started using jarred minced garlic instead of mincing cloves fresh and I have absolutely no regrets. I’m never going back
 
PhDeac said:
Yeah. That is strange. A culture’s mythology is also captured by its religion and history. We just don’t think of those as mythology.
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I think a lot of people think of religion as an example of a culture's mythology
 
PhDeac said:
A culture’s mythology is also captured by its religion and history. We just don’t think of those as mythology.
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We don’t?

That’s the classic definition of cultural mythology.
 
BeachBumDeac said:
I started using jarred minced garlic instead of mincing cloves fresh and I have absolutely no regrets. I’m never going back
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Some people don’t want more in life. That’s fine.

JuiceCrewAllStar said:
I think a lot of people think of religion as an example of a culture's mythology
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We are probably saying the same thing. I was pointing out that people generally think of religion as more absolute truth or absolute fiction defending on their own individual beliefs rather than as shared cultural markers.
 
WakeBored said:
What’s “right” isn’t constant. I have a problem with Hollywood defining what’s “right” for us as a society, yes.
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Do you have some examples of how what’s “right” changes over time?

Why do you have a problem with “Hollywood” using TV and film to “define” what’s right as opposed to TV evangelists or politicians and pundits or public intellectuals? If Hollywood’s definition was wrong, wouldn’t the free market reject it?
 
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