universe is missing the point of fiction media!" then they’ll turn around and mock visionary shows like NCIS for scenes in which the detectives enhance the resolution of an image. Oh, computers can’t just do that? Who cares! Lock in! The point is not that the story makes internal sense, it’s what the story communicates!
The degree to which I’m willing to excuse unrealistic shit in media depends on the degree to which that media purports to be reflecting reality.
Fantasy stories, yeah whatever magic.
SciFi? Unless you’re trying to write a hard SciFi I’m willing to excuse some bizarro tech.
Action or horror film. Eh, I can suspend my disbelief.
Cop shows? I mean considering how cop shows shape people perception of real life cops, yeah I’m gonna scrutinize them a bit more.
Show that’s supposed to be about the agency that investigates internal crime within the US Navy? The fact it’s gotten so ridiculous seems weird to me.
I think that also applies to extremely fictional stuff, whereas how it says it is vs how it actually is.
Like Harry Potter’s magic system, the books act like it’s a hard magic system, with laws and rules, but it’s one of the softest magic systems ever written, so I’m going to criticize Harry Potter’s magic system (you know, in addition to everything else).
But if all media is a reproduction of ideology it’s still the same no? Something more “grounded” is still built upon innumerable fictional meta narratives that we convince ourselves to believe every day. Something more fanciful and “out there” is still built upon the exact same things and merely adds some superficial differences like putting up a different color of wallpaper. Not to be all
about it but I think those are all just different aesthetic presentations of the same thing that require an equal suspension of disbelief
Okay, but I think misrepresenting how, say, forensic technology works is more likely to have more immediate negative impacts on society than how a warp drive works. I’m far more likely to interact with the former than the latter.
This is totally fair but the sci-fi props aren’t just potatoes in a sack. They are part of a cohesive whole that is unified with an ideological, meta-narratory paste. The warp drive isn’t just a warp drive, it’s a symbol of the capacity of future technology to bridge space and time: will it be used to bring all intelligent life together? Will it be used as a tool of space-faring imperialism? These considerations inform how the narrative goes on to shape reality when it is consumed as mass media.
The interesting thing is that it doesn’t require suspension of disbelief to consume ideology you already fully believe and are submerged in.
I do agree but would prefer to say that the disbelief still exists, it just becomes reflexively directed outwards. When someone who is fully bought into ideology is confronted with contradictions it’s the external evidence that is somehow wrong. The disbelief is always still there but their conviction to ideology is strong enough to deflect and refuse to engage honestly with anything that questions it. Consuming the ideology, of course, comes as naturally as breathing but in the context of fiction such things can be examined and engaged with from a more comfortable perspective. You are examining a fictional world where you can at least pretend to be a neutral observer free from the ideological convictions of that world. By putting up sci fi themed wallpaper we are able to ever so slightly distance ourselves from the reality that the fictional ideology presented is simply a mirror of our own and explore various contradictions without truly confronting our own ideological convictions. I think the degree to which fiction is “grounded” is simply a tool to help the audience distance themselves from their ideology a tiny bit more but the most important thing is that it’s all still fiction where discussion and examination of ideology can exist without disrupting the viewer’s own personal beliefs.
Idk I’m just spouting bullshit in the badposting comm, I’m still like a little baby when it comes to understanding ideology
That’s an excellent observation, and I think it ties very neatly with comrade @ReadFanon@hexbear.net’s own observations about how liberal cultural hegemony is actually a negative form of cultural hegemony.
Where do you stand on “There was room for both Jack and Rose on that door. Jack didn’t need to freeze to death in the Atlantic” discourse?
While set in a historical setting, Titanic is a melodrama, Jack has to die at the end. Plus I don’t think misleading people on door buoyancy is going to have much negative affect on society, unless you and your partner end up in a freezing body of water with a door as your only flotation device.
I’d say a bigger inaccuracy in Titanic that is actually bad and worth criticizing is that one crewman who shot a dude and then killed himself. He was based on an actual crew member of the ship but in reality neither shot anyone or killed himself, his family was pissed about that.
On the other hand, if you’re claiming to be making hard scifi about an alternate completely realistic and plausible historical timeline then put the Space Shuttle Orbiter in lunar orbit, you are a hack and an idiot.