unspeakablehorror (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unspeakablehorror) wrote2025-05-22 04:16 pm
unspeakablehorror) wrote2025-05-22 04:16 pm
Entry tags:
The Politics of Entertainment
A lot of mainstream TV and movies specifically promote "Western" values and especially the values of the United States government as inherently superior to all others. Specifically, this media promotes capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism regardless of whether it's geared towards liberal or conservative consumption. In short, a lot of media is simply sugarcoated propaganda. This is especially true of children's media, and why "it's just a children's cartoon" is not a valid argument for a piece of media not containing embedded political values. Quite the opposite, actually. The whole point of children's media containing such values is to help ensure the absorbsion and adoption of those values by the future generation. The point is to get to them early, so these values become their default.
Now, the people involved in creating this propaganda are not necessarily aware that that is what they are doing. Indeed, many of these people may consider themselves apolitical or even countercultural. But their awareness of their place in the machine is unnecessary for the machine's usage of them. The machine functions in a way such as to elevate those most useful to it while suppressing the rest.
Some examples:
Star Wars - The depiction of the Ewoks employs a number of incredibly racist tropes, including depicting them as cannibals and them accepting C3P0 as a god. The colonialist aspect of the core worlds in the prequels like Coruscant is purposely obscured by making the Separatist government headed by Sith puppets and relegating things like the genocide of the Geonosians to a relative footnote outside the movies.
Star Trek, especially modern Star Trek - While Star Trek has always had implicit militaristic undertones (considering their supposedly peaceful mission of exploration they sure are involved in a lot of wars and their ships are sure decked out to the teeth in weapons), the last seasons of Picard and Discovery especially doubled down on this. Also Picard has a white saviorism arc involving the romulans that it never even bothers to resolve.
Avatar: The Last Airbender - contrast the narrative choice to depict the oppressed Jet and Hama as incredibly evil and, in Hama's case, irreedeemable, to the narrative's treatment of Zuko and Iroh. The narrative never treats Iroh as an actual villain, and Zuko is not only given a redemption arc, but becomes ruler of the Fire Nation at the end of the story.
Avatar - the white savior fantasy in space. The white savior fantasy is inherently colonialist.
Legend of Korra - basically doubles down on the colonialist and imperialist apologism of its predecessor. Also adds a copaganda angle.
Now, the people involved in creating this propaganda are not necessarily aware that that is what they are doing. Indeed, many of these people may consider themselves apolitical or even countercultural. But their awareness of their place in the machine is unnecessary for the machine's usage of them. The machine functions in a way such as to elevate those most useful to it while suppressing the rest.
Some examples:
Star Wars - The depiction of the Ewoks employs a number of incredibly racist tropes, including depicting them as cannibals and them accepting C3P0 as a god. The colonialist aspect of the core worlds in the prequels like Coruscant is purposely obscured by making the Separatist government headed by Sith puppets and relegating things like the genocide of the Geonosians to a relative footnote outside the movies.
Star Trek, especially modern Star Trek - While Star Trek has always had implicit militaristic undertones (considering their supposedly peaceful mission of exploration they sure are involved in a lot of wars and their ships are sure decked out to the teeth in weapons), the last seasons of Picard and Discovery especially doubled down on this. Also Picard has a white saviorism arc involving the romulans that it never even bothers to resolve.
Avatar: The Last Airbender - contrast the narrative choice to depict the oppressed Jet and Hama as incredibly evil and, in Hama's case, irreedeemable, to the narrative's treatment of Zuko and Iroh. The narrative never treats Iroh as an actual villain, and Zuko is not only given a redemption arc, but becomes ruler of the Fire Nation at the end of the story.
Avatar - the white savior fantasy in space. The white savior fantasy is inherently colonialist.
Legend of Korra - basically doubles down on the colonialist and imperialist apologism of its predecessor. Also adds a copaganda angle.