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the old take i had on this was: if you tell people not to create the Torment Nexus all they'll remember is how cool the Torment Nexus was but i have a new take, which is: actually the guy who wrote Don't Create the Torment Nexus fucking loves the Torment Nexus too https://t.co/XcB5uX3FQw
(yet another use-case for multi-QTs, i really wanted to QT this thread simultaneously with the above, plus the torment nexus tweet really, which is at least linked below) https://t.co/dL5PgdGvMN
âfocus your energy on what you want to see more ofâ has some distressing implications for the whole genre of dystopian fiction. it suggests that dystopian fiction doesnât successfully act as a warning, and if anything makes dystopias look cooler, more familiar, more thinkable
Jurassic Park pretends to be a criticism of hubris or the perils of technology or w/e but even a little kid knows the actual message is "dinosaurs are fucking rad as hell and if we could bring them back we 100% should" same with Fight Club: https://t.co/AXNFHv2OtS https://t.co/Wli8Yk1WIk
I usually refer to this as the Fight Club Effect, but is there another name for it?: Basically, that the Message of your story isnât what you can argue in a paper, or how you wrap up the last 5 minutes or whateverâthe Message is whatever most peopleâs takeaway is.
(it may be significant that both of these films are adaptations of books. possibly the original books functioned more like the criticisms they're supposed to be but that they were chosen as books to adapt to film mostly because then the film could be full of cool shit)
the pattern is: there's something really cool and sexy but it's shadowy so you're not allowed to enjoy it openly. so instead you *pretend to criticize it* while actually depicting it in lurid, graphic, loving detail, for your enjoyment and the audience's https://t.co/Wu5hUpMgqX https://t.co/SaqCfetGYC
nowhere is this more obvious than when people pretend to criticize sex work there's a 2015 netflix documentary called Hot Girls Wanted. it pretends to be a criticism of the porn industry but notice the preview image straight up makes it look like porn itself. and: https://t.co/KyRIFXqONY
this take apparently goes back in some form all the way to francois truffaut in 1973: "I don't think I've really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war." people condense this to "there's no such thing as an anti-war film" https://t.co/1m4RvwXbgP
truffaut also said "to show something is to ennoble it" https://t.co/opcqesqMPC https://t.co/DzBLulZcpy
in conclusion, as usual, say it with me now (but again, with the shadowy twist: if you're focusing your time and energy on it, then... perhaps... on some level... you want to see more of it) https://t.co/OIHXg9rcZs
@QiaochuYuan i saw an amazing exchange on twitter a while ago like A: saving private ryan's opening scene is so brutal it's anti-war B: half the guys I knew in my small town who watched Saving Private Ryan went on to join the army A: well the other half were deterred it's good deterrence
@QiaochuYuan Christian Bale on Wall St bros loving Patrick Bateman https://t.co/ESKmG0QFzQ
@QiaochuYuan https://t.co/H4Lx8SjkSd
haha yeah https://t.co/8P3S78OoJz
@QiaochuYuan welcome to Strauss club, we're meeting between the lines https://t.co/zf2nnRinlR
@QiaochuYuan https://t.co/8kFhEqDWTQ