God it's going to be a sorry state when someone has to write the history book for world war three and point to a space movie about magic swords and wizards as one of the leading factors to global thermonuclear war. So if I read this correctly the "Russians" want to make the Americans believe they are so un-united that they can't even agree over a summer blockbuster so how can they unite on bigger things like Presidents so anarchy will reign and the purge will be enacted and the country will sink into the ocean or something? Is that it? How do we know the Russians aren't just drunk and bored of the cold and dark and trolling people online for poops and giggles? I may have missed the answer to all of these as I haven't read the preceding pages.
They want to make white males feel like they are under attack because of diversity. And, it is working to a degree.
Is the Star Wars fanbase that big? Like really? I mean I know a lot of people go to see them but I mean fans as in people dedicated enough to go online and talk about it after. Won't most people who see these event movies just talk about it round the water cooler and leave the nerds to argue about the lore and stuff? I'm just struggling to see average joe going into the movie and lets say not liking the movie cos it's got a girl in the lead and taking it any further. Like would he have gone to see it in the first place and if he did would he not just bitch about it to his mates, post a thumbs down on twitter on face book and move on? I mean I know I haven't but I'm one of those nerds and thus part of the smallish percentage that won't make a big wing in voting or politics in general.
Death by a thousand cuts. You attack anything that has a white male following with claims of diversity destroying it, and the rest is taking care of itself.
I think history is going to look back on what we're going through now as the first global cyber-war, which Russia has already won. I think they may see it as the turning point when people discovered that you could do far more damage to an enemy with subtle manipulation, hacking, and psychological warfare than you could ever do with armies and missiles. Conventional warfare may come to be seen as a crude, primitive tactic, wasting vast amounts of lives, resources, and effort to achieve something that can be done far more economically. At least, that's my hope, though it has a scary side too, if nations are that easy to bring down.
Lots of people actually liked the film. That isn't what this is about. This is about creating friction.
Star Wars is a great franchise. This movie is not one of the better entries. It's as simple as that. If arguing over a movie being good or bad is enough to shake society to its core then humanity is already lost.
So a Taste of Armageddon would eventually be redone with the computer just sending obnoxious emails to each other and scandalous made up gossip about the other side? Maybe I'm missing this not being in America or not being on the twitters but is the clash that big that it's spilling over into real life? Are we saying that people were that riled up about Rey that they marched down to the voting booth and ticked the first box that had a dick attached? This all seems a little blown out of proportion for what it was with the vast portion of the population forgetting about the movie as soon as they walked out until the dvd is released or trailers for the next one (whether they liked it or hated it) That's not to say that I think Chris is wrong about cyber warfare and under mining countries that way being a thing after the leaks and stuff Clinton had just that I don't think the enemy is going to choose to wage that war on this battlefield.
The quality of the movie isn't the point. The point is attacking it in such a way as to rile up white men who feel everything is being taken away from them because of diversity. It is a piece of a much larger puzzle.
I'm also not an American so I can't see it. America is killing itself with its obsession with race. Russian trolls don't have to do anything. The Last Jedi didn't suck because it had a diverse cast. It sucked because it was badly written and boring. I'm sure many people liked it and their views are just as valid as those who didn't but I have a hard time believing this or any other movie has the kind of societal influence you're suggesting. No disrespect.
It is a piece in a puzzle, not the whole puzzle. It only has to help move the needle, not do it on its own.
I was going to say that I was struggling to see how that piece is connected but I guess with the rise of school shootings and incel culture (to my knowledge a fairly American thing) I suppose I can see the link. It still seems a very horse shoe nail approach to warfare that I'm struggling to see taking place even in our internet driven world. Like the russian war council coming up with the notion of attacking through making fun of pop culture seems like something someone who over rates the importance of Star Wars would say.
That someone would be someone other than me. Nice movies, but I'm not a fan of it like I am of Star Trek.
The point is, it's one small symptom of the larger systematic attack on American institutions. It's all interconnected. The open, active white-nationalist hate movements did their recruiting and tested their methods on fan sites like 4chan and through small-scale hate campaigns like Gamergate before escalating to bigger things. Art and entertainment reflect larger societal trends and can help shape them as well. Remember, censorship and the seizing and destruction of art and literature was a basic part of what the Nazis did. Stirring up hate groups against art and speech that they dislike is part of the larger process of stirring them up against races they dislike. It's the first step that escalates to something bigger. First they burn books, then they burn their authors. The small stuff may seem trivial, but it's part of a master plan that we've seen play out before in history. So we dismiss it at our peril. The fact that it doesn't immediately look dangerous is exactly what allows it to succeed.
Yes, a lot of white men in the US have an obsession with race, sexuality and gender and using those to keep others below them and out of power because they believe that they are superior to everyone else simply by being born white and male. There is now a backlash against that because people are dying, being denied basic rights and having their basic humanity questioned, which is causing those same white people to suddenly play the victim and claim that they're the ones being attacked. This has extended into shows and movies because somehow to some deranged minds, having a woman, queer character or person of color in a popular movie or show is stealing a role from a white man and they throw a hissy fit over it. In an ideal world we'd just ignore them because they're just spoiled children in the bodies of grown men, but these people are nuts and constantly attack and send death threats to people.
Oh, please.... The reason it's a culture-war is there is an attempt to control speech...and it's happening on both ends of the spectrum. Don't deny it. What do you think political-correctness is? How about the big Wreck it Ralph controversy? How about the controversy that Zoe Saldana wasn't black enough to play Nina Simone? Gay sulu controversy with George not wanting such an "homage"? Need I go on? It seems like a new dumpster fire sprouts up almost daily. The left holds everything that comes out of Hollywood up to a strict ideological litmus test, starting with quota-like expectations with the casting decisions. It patrols and polices and deconstructs things in the search for problems whether they're there or not. This is the fertile ground upon which The Last Jedi controversy could grow. The more the left frames its editorializing about entertainment in terms of them being unassailably "right" and everyone else as "wrong", the more it affirms the truth behind the NPC meme, that there's no way to even have a constructive dialogue over it due to such entrenched ideology. But no, let's just blame the Russians.
No. The Wreck-It Ralph "controversy" was about the very design of a black character being drastically changed to make her look more white, she was then changed back to the original design because fans and the original artists objected to it. It wasn't that big and Disney didn't even make a big deal out of changing, they seemed to just want to make the fans happy since that's the entire point of that scene. Also gay Sulu turned out to be a waste of a scene given that it's a blink and you'll miss it scene that is unclear unless you knew for sure what the context was. It upset certain people, mainly the ones upset at the very existence of gay people. But like most of these scenes with "exclusive gay moments", it was a waste of a scene and not representation by any stretch of the imagination and that was the most insulting part. Don't make this a left vs right thing either, that's entirely in the heads of the right based on conspiracy theories and delusion. You really seem to have huge issues with representation of other groups in media based on the posts I've seen, which is odd because unless you are one of those groups it does not affect your life in any way. I'm going to go out on a limb, based mainly on board demographics that you are male, cis and straight. I'm not sure about race, but I have a pretty good idea. So you really don't know what it's like to never get to see yourself in a movie or show. As I've told before, I didn't get to see a single positive example of someone like me until I was in my 30s. Since you seem to be upset that this is happening, let me explain what it is like to never get it since you're clearly so used to it that you can't imagine what it's like. It makes you feel alone, like you don't even exist. For better or for worst, our view of the world, society and ourselves is heavily influenced by movies and shows because we see them from birth and all through our lives, especially as children when our brains are still being formed. Now some of you get heroes like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Harry Potter, He-Man, Spider-Man, all white guys. So little boys get to see themselves in these characters and there is nothing wrong with that. But if it's only white guys, that's leaving out the vast majority of the human population. So we started adding new characters who represent other people, like Black Panther, Katniss Everdeen, the various women in the X-Men and other Marvel teams, Poe, Finn, Rey, Rose, Michael Burnham, Paul Stamets. These characters truly mean something to people, especially kids who get to see someone like themselves. Because trust me, you know pretty early that you're different that what is seen as the default in media. So when you see someone like you being a hero and an equal to other characters like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Spider-Man or Captain America it is a very empowering feeling. In my case, it saved my life because the only representation I had gotten up to that point was horrific. People like me were insane, evil, deliberately tricking people or an absolute joke and that has a nasty way of making you feel that about yourself. Because if that's how the entire world sees you and you see everyone agreeing with it, then it has to be true because your brain is still cooking at that point. So when I see people complaining about this, it makes me see them as nothing more than people who just want all that to go away because it makes them uncomfortable for reasons I don't care to understand. It just seems like greedy children demanding that they get it all and refuse to share. So yeah, I really find it easy to just dismiss as garbage. If I've mischaracterized you, I'm sorry. If so, you may want to reconsider your usage of language because that's the message you seem to be sending on a regular basis. In fact a part of me doubts that you'll even care to read this and instead just get offended, which was not my point. I'm simply trying to explain how people see this differently when they do want to see non-white and non-male characters.