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Snak posted:I think they mean that the Joi advert being nude was unnecessary.
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Oct 22, 2017 20:24
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ah an naked lady... clearly this denis fellow is a creep and a sleaze. i didn't know i was going into see a pornographic
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Oct 22, 2017 20:30
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Ersatz posted:The nudity and grotesque sexuality of advert-Joi is intentionally unnerving. I mean, I'm not agreeing that it's unnecessary. I was just saying that I don't think Not So Fast was saying that there shouldn't have been advertisements for Joi in the movie....
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Oct 22, 2017 20:41
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Snak posted:I mean, I'm not agreeing that it's unnecessary. I was just saying that I don't think Not So Fast was saying that there shouldn't have been advertisements for Joi in the movie.... I was directly quoting a post talking about the nudity in the scene, so I didn't think it was necessary to repeat, but yes I was talking about the nudity itself. The advert as a whole is an important part of the movie and K / JOI's relationship, but the nudity did not add anything to it beyond driving home how exploitative the product is.
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Oct 22, 2017 20:47
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Ersatz posted:Yeah. I'm straining to recall a single "gratuitous" shot of nudity in this film. That word has meaning, and that meaning isn't "made me uncomfortable." Ersatz posted:The nudity and grotesque sexuality of advert-Joi is intentionally unnerving. Bottom Liner posted:Too many people are too quick to cry offense at the first sign of being challenged by art these days, to the detriment of real issues and real offenses. Vhak lord of hate posted:"The JOI advert was unnecessary" is probably the most "I missed the point of the movie" thing I've seen so far Vhak lord of hate posted:ah an naked lady... clearly this denis fellow is a creep and a sleaze. i didn't know i was going into see a pornographic  it's a giant hologram advertisement. I think this is where we're hitting an impasse. The unnerving thing about it is what K takes away from it. You all seem to be aware of this and yet somehow think it's like super super important that it's naked and that anyone questioning that doesn't understand the scene. The amount of gratuitous butt (both clothed and unclothed) shots throughout the film is definitely noticeable to some people or this conversation wouldn't be happening. The idea that it's a challenging scene or uncomfortable in a way it wouldn't be based on the ads state of dress is a stretch.Snak posted:I think they mean that the Joi advert being nude was unnecessary. This. And personally it just seemed silly (especially for how much the setting establishes that there's an entire replicant and real human sex industry that's way more open in general). You could almost call it.......gratuitous. Like people are really having an issue with the notion that to me Blade Runner: 2049 is a 9.5 out of 10 instead of a 10/10 because Villeneuve is occasionally indulgent. Seriously? Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 20:48
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But, but you run into the problem of "real adverts for porn and sex toys in the modern day have nudity, so why does the dystopian future not?" It's essentially a real doll ad. It makes 100% sense that it would have nudity. It would actually be strange if it didn't. edit: Also it's thematically relevant. There's a big undercurrent of "what makes someone real" in the film. Most of our discussion has been about feelings and thoughts. But many characters in the film are obsessed with physical reality. Joi's holographic body is what makes her more than a chatbot. Joi purchases the use of Mariette's body to "become real for K". We see nude replicants many times as a way of reinforcing that they posses the human form. Showing Joi's "nude body" reinforces that she is made in the image of the human form. It's like the nudity in Westworld. The Westworld androids don't sit naked as a way to show us more nudity, it is to simultaneously reinforce their human for and their dehumanization by the other characters. Snak fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 20:50
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Snak posted:But, but you run into the problem of "real adverts for porn and sex toys in the modern day have nudity, so why does the dystopian future not?" The nudity itself also furthers the gut punch involved in K realizing that his waifu is gone forever, and that this excremental and soulless sex-hologram is all that remains. The nudity of the sex hologram is in bad taste, which is part of the point. Compare that to what we saw from K's point of view in the syncing scene.
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Oct 22, 2017 20:56
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Snak posted:But, but you run into the problem of "real adverts for porn and sex toys in the modern day have nudity, so why does the dystopian future not?" I have to question this though because on a wide scale (like a huge ad in a public place) it's incorrect. Like look at a massive advertising platform like YouTube which has a massive amount of nudity-free pornographic advertising on it. I think this also misses something important about JOI, is that other than the nudity, she's not marketing for real doll purposes at all. Like I said in my last post, look at how easily and openly you can gently caress around in the setting with a human or replicant. JOI is closer to and marketed more like a Gatebox by today's standards. It's selling the experience of companionship, if all JOI had going for it was "you can have an image of a hot babe walk around you" it would have been discontinued. The advanced way it chatbots it up and manages your home while doing that is that people are paying for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkcKaNqfykg You could say (and I'd agree) that it's important that we get a gutpunch of JOI being stripped naked both "physically" as well as emotionally, but again that's like 101 level stuff that I think is below what the rest of the film accomplishes. Westworld is probably my favorite thing ever for having as absurd a quantity of nudity as it does in it without it ever feeling out of place, which really impressed me for a full season of TV with its premise and themes. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 21:01
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Neo Rasa posted:I have to question this though because on a wide scale (like a huge ad in a public place) it's incorrect. Like look at a massive advertising platform like YouTube which has a massive amount of nudity-free pornographic advertising on it. 2049 Earth doesn't look like it's the place to raise a kid. Any touchy-feely "won't someone think of the children" sentiment would be largely absent in favor of raising your kid on Mars or another off-world colony and away from a dying, corrupted Earth. It's likely a free-for-all now in 2049's Earth-bound media. Even the part with the orphanage made it clear that kids are a discarded commodity, not something to be treasured and protected.
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Oct 22, 2017 21:12
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MY office is in a loving swimming pool, can u believe it??! This is an awesome movie though it kinda drags and I still cant figure out the plot. Hope its not still doing terribly at the box office!
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Oct 22, 2017 21:13
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I hadn't commented on it before, but that Gatebox ad is strong and sad evidence that we are presently living in a cyberpunk dystopia. It's right up there with the fact that the people behind 2049 felt the need to dial things up to full-on eco-collapse in order to present conditions that are believably worse than what we're already slipping into.
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Oct 22, 2017 21:14
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Neo Rasa posted:I have to question this though because on a wide scale (like a huge ad in a public place) it's incorrect. Like look at a massive advertising platform like YouTube which has a massive amount of nudity-free pornographic advertising on it. I'm gonna disagree on almost every point here. The Joi ad is basically the future version of a giant neon stripper sign. You're right that currently there isn't much nudity in public advertising, but we're talking about the future here, and giant neon stripper signs are definitely a thing. The selling point of Joi is 100% her sex appeal. If you didn't want that you could probably get the same AI suite in a "Harold" who's like, Morgan Freeman or something. The idea that a 3d interactive pornographic projection would be a commercial failure is ludicrous. Of course the real value of Joi is her mind. Just like a real person. But they're using her body to sell it.
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Oct 22, 2017 21:15
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Ersatz posted:I hadn't commented on it before, but that Gatebox ad is strong and sad evidence that we are presently living in a cyberpunk dystopia. Philip K. Dick once again knows what's up. A lot of the visuals and signs of the collapsed environment are almost 1:1 from the book. I was really happy with that because the video game tried to throw in a lot of stuff about that from the book too but with mixed results. Snak posted:The selling point of Joi is 100% her sex appeal. If you didn't want that you could probably get the same AI suite in a "Harold" who's like, Morgan Freeman or something. The selling point is that it's everything you want to see, want to hear, etc. that JOI is a blank slate you can mold to whatever you want to have. The personalized customization is the selling point. I don't think there's a "Harold" AI suite, but rather you buy a JOI and then customize it to whatever you want (you can see settings along these lines briefly when K synchronizes JOI to the emanator). Snak posted:The idea that a 3d interactive pornographic projection would be a commercial failure is ludicrous. Consumer level 3D porn literally already failed in real life several years ago and AR/VR stuff is already DOA (again).
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Oct 22, 2017 21:26
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Neo Rasa posted:The selling point is that it's everything you want to see, want to hear, etc. that JOI is a blank slate you can mold to whatever you want to have. The personalized customization is the selling point. I don't think there's a "Harold" AI suite, but rather you buy a JOI and then customize it to whatever you want (you can see settings along these lines briefly when K synchronizes JOI to the emanator). quote:Consumer level 3D porn literally already failed in real life several years ago and AR/VR stuff is already DOA (again). The reasons that consumer level 3d EVERYTHING always fails is because the tech is more trouble than it's worth. There's a thing called science fiction, wherein a story posits what the world would be like if a troublesome tech was convenient.
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Oct 22, 2017 21:31
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While I take the side that the sexualization present in the film is thematically and aesthetically relevant and was handled in a way that purged it of its more unseemly titillation-potential that lesser directors may have fumbled, the condescension by some people against those who voice their discomfort with how it's handled is a real bad look, especially telling people that they just "don't get it." Maybe some people don't, but a lot of them (especially, you know, women) do. It's especially glaring when you have people condescending to Zoe Kazan, who, of all people, might know a thing or two about the objectification of women in the service of creative expression. At its worst the tone of the argument just conveys someone who has the luxury and privilege to treat their aesthetic consumption and interpretation as an abstracted game that is completely disconnected from lived experience. Like, there's the overawe and doubling-down defense of "Oh, in this fictional world we really get to explore the philosophical ramifications of this scenario where women are treated as disposable sex objects and reduced to images of body parts, and if you don't think this fifteen-second rear end shot is totally meaningful then you just don't get it," and actual women, who, you know, in this actual moment in time might be thinking more than ever about the relationship between sexuality, power, and perceptions of human dignity, and who have day-to-day experiences that inform how they engage with these images and the images like them that have come before in a never-ending stream of male gaze for literal centuries, are well in their right to say "Are you for loving real" CharlieFoxtrot fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 21:36
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Snak posted:The reasons that consumer level 3d EVERYTHING always fails is because the tech is more trouble than it's worth. There's a thing called science fiction, wherein a story posits what the world would be like if a troublesome tech was convenient. Of course, but we're on this tangent because you were basing your argument on how stuff works in marketing today. Looking at it through what the story posits...is what I was doing. Like to me I just think if replicant prostitutes are so easily legally available that your JOI can bring one home for you right on time when you get home from work, it makes me question if there'd still really be a market for an untouchable version. It might be time for us to agree to disagree. Young Freud posted:2049 Earth doesn't look like it's the place to raise a kid. Any touchy-feely "won't someone think of the children" sentiment would be largely absent in favor of raising your kid on Mars or another off-world colony and away from a dying, corrupted Earth. It's likely a free-for-all now in 2049's Earth-bound media. This is a really good point and something the first movie is a little inconsistent with compared to the book. Both movies have several compelling characters so it can be hard to remember sometimes that everyone on earth is, on some level, a loser that wasn't good enough to leave earth or a victim of said losers. It's something the movie handled very effectively about the rights replicants now have in 2049. Like they don't have a limited lifespan, and they're allowed on earth again, to lead lovely lives of servitude forever again, thanks humans. I also liked how they made this very "natural" room for Wallace to hang out in on earth, but he himself is also the first cybernetic dude we see across both movies (unless you count Roy but he's a replicant, according to the commentary track the marks on his chest are "insert here" points for the interface with a powered armor suit). CharlieFoxtrot posted:While I take the side that the sexualization present in the film is thematically and aesthetically relevant and was handled in a way that purged it of its more unseemly titillation-potential that lesser directors may have fumbled, the condescension by some people against those who voice their discomfort with how it's handled is a real bad look, especially telling people that they just "don't get it." Maybe some people don't, but a lot of them (especially, you know, women) do. It's especially glaring when you have people condescending to Zoe Kazan, who, of all people, might know a thing or two about the objectification of women in the service of creative expression. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 21:42
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Neo Rasa posted:Like to me I just think if replicant prostitutes are so easily legally available that your JOI can bring one home for you right on time when you get home from work, it makes me question if there'd still really be a market for an untouchable version. There are legal forms of sex work all around you right now - exotic dancers, cam performers, pro doms, etc - and for some reason people still buy hentai games on Steam and jerk it to bad Poser models and stuff. There are a lot of economic, social, and personal reasons people would buy Joi - even if she's more expensive than a new phone or something, which she may well not be - in a world where prostitution is more normalized. CharlieFoxtrot posted:While I take the side that the sexualization present in the film is thematically and aesthetically relevant and was handled in a way that purged it of its more unseemly titillation-potential that lesser directors may have fumbled, the condescension by some people against those who voice their discomfort with how it's handled is a real bad look, especially telling people that they just "don't get it." Maybe some people don't, but a lot of them (especially, you know, women) do. It's especially glaring when you have people condescending to Zoe Kazan, who, of all people, might know a thing or two about the objectification of women in the service of creative expression. Agreed. Blade Runner 2049 is not a sexist or particularly problematic film, broadly speaking, but I also don't begrudge somebody being uncomfortable with it or whatever. I don't know why people have such a hard time reconciling those two things, as long as the person leveling that criticism doesn't go so far as to call it an objectively bad film or whatever - and both the friends I have who've said stuff about BR2049's depiction of women also said they thought it was a good movie overall.
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Oct 22, 2017 22:05
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wizard on a water slide posted:Agreed. Blade Runner 2049 is not a sexist or particularly problematic film, broadly speaking, but I also don't begrudge somebody being uncomfortable with it or whatever. I don't know why people have such a hard time reconciling those two things, as long as the person leveling that criticism doesn't go so far as to call it an objectively bad film or whatever - and both the friends I have who've said stuff about BR2049's depiction of women also said they thought it was a good movie overall. I think it's because the two are so intertwined. How can you disconnect the way it portrays women and both praise and criticize it's use of feminine imagery?
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Oct 22, 2017 22:08
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wizard on a water slide posted:There are legal forms of sex work all around you right now - exotic dancers, cam performers, pro doms, etc - and for some reason people still buy hentai games on Steam and jerk it to bad Poser models and stuff. There are a lot of economic, social, and personal reasons people would buy Joi - even if she's more expensive than a new phone or something, which she may well not be - in a world where prostitution is more normalized. Of course there is right now, but there's nothing in the world even close to what replicants are in the movies. We never see what life is like off-world but from what little we see of how literally every confirmed human in the film behaves I doubt there's any social anxiety about loving a replicant. Joshi even considers getting K to gently caress her, and the conversation indicates that she likely wouldn't have done that if he were a naturally born human. Bottom Liner posted:I think it's because the two are so intertwined. How can you disconnect the way it portrays women and both praise and criticize it's use of feminine imagery? It's hardly a Herculean feat to do this with any media and I will never understand why it's an impossibility to some. Like I unironically enjoy the film Street Trash, but by that logic I "should" hate it because of my thoughts on Blade Runner: 2049. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 22:12
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Bottom Liner posted:I think it's because the two are so intertwined. How can you disconnect the way it portrays women and both praise and criticize it's use of feminine imagery? I understand your point, but even if they just think it fumbled the sex/gender stuff completely, it's a 3-hour film about a lot of other things, too - class conflict, all that philosophical stuff about consciousness and agency, the impact of advanced technology on individuals and society. You could still declare the movie as a whole "pretty good" or "worth watching" or whatever on balance.
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Oct 22, 2017 22:13
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Of course, anyone at any time has the right to ask me "are you for loving real?" But I have no problem in answering that I am for real when I suggest that nudity in 2049 serves multiple purposes, and that I find it unfortunate that so many people find it so difficult to look past their personal discomfort with the subject matter, and instead falsely label the nudity in the film as gratuitous. It's not altogether uncommon these days for a faux-progressive to shut down conversation by suggesting that it might possibly make someone, somewhere, uncomfortable, and that's almost always bullshit. See, for example, Serf's earlier suggestion that we shouldn't question Joi's personhood since that might possibly make disabled people (such as myself) uncomfortable. It's a stance that reeks of privileged people having paid money to other privileged people to be told how best to feel bad about their privilege, and then refusing to ever consider whether what they've been sold might possibly be wrong. For fucks sake, liberalism used to be about bravely speaking your mind, and not about shutting down conversation to paternalistically provide protection to people who don't need it.
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Oct 22, 2017 22:15
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An rear end shot is a unit of expression and people want to have a conversation about how well that is used or not used. Telling people that you possess the correct reading of something and that their personal lived discomfort is incorrect and needs to be suppressed in order to get to the real important work of abstract theorization, is shutting down a conversation.
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Oct 22, 2017 22:20
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Ersatz posted:Of course, anyone at any time has the right to ask me "are you for loving real?" Yeah I'm really shutting down the conversation about a movie I like a lot and have been talking about in this thread for almost a year straight because I nitpick some shots and scenes in it, while at the same time you're repeatedly telling me and anyone else doing that that what we're saying is invalid and we unfortunately can't look past our "personal discomfort with the subject matter" (???) and that somehow that makes our posts objectively false. Literally shutting down the conversation. Are you for loving real?
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Oct 22, 2017 22:23
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Neo Rasa posted:Yeah I'm really shutting down the conversation about a movie I like a lot and have been talking about in this thread for almost a year straight because I nitpick some shots and scenes in it, while at the same time you're repeatedly telling me and anyone else doing that that what we're saying is invalid and we unfortunately can't look past our "personal discomfort with the subject matter" (???) and that somehow that makes our posts objectively false. Literally shutting down the conversation. Are you for loving real? I also wasn't directing that post to you specifically. But, there does seem to be some general confusion about whether it's OK for art to make people feel uncomfortable. Yes, it absolutely is OK. The fact that the nudity in the Joi advertisment makes people uncomfortable isn't a problem with the film.
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Oct 22, 2017 22:31
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:An rear end shot is a unit of expression and people want to have a conversation about how well that is used or not used. There are rich layers of meaning that are being missed by people who take offense at advert-Joi's gigantic rear end, and then stop engaging, instead of questioning why it's being presented in that manner. Ersatz fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 22:33
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Ersatz posted:Yes, I am for loving real. Yes, and the fact that you claim the position of understanding how that discomfort works better than the people who voice that discomfort effaces and erases the very clear and different discomforts that are present here. There is the discomfort and the uncanny that the filmmakers intend with specific aesthetic choices to communicate their themes of artificiality, simulacra, and empty sexuality. Then there is the distinct, separate, and palpable discomfort that someone might feel based on the fact that yet another grand vision of human nature inscribes women's bodies on the screen as tools for that message in the same ways that other films and other directors have done before, some of them better. You claim a position of knowledge mastery because you have unlocked the deeper meaning through your detached analysis and have thus found these specific choices to be urgent, necessary, and without alternative. The people who disagree with you disagree with you because they know there are alternatives and they dispute the urgency of these choices. Your argument that the people who are uncomfortable with these images just need to "engage" and think about it more belies the assumption that those who disagree are having an emotional reaction that will be unfounded in the clear light of rational thought
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Oct 22, 2017 22:42
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Yes, and the fact that you claim the position of understanding how that discomfort works better than the people who voice that discomfort effaces and erases the very clear and different discomforts that are present here. There is the discomfort and the uncanny that the filmmakers intend with specific aesthetic choices to communicate their themes of artificiality, simulacra, and empty sexuality. Then there is the distinct, separate, and palpable discomfort that someone might feel based on the fact that yet another grand vision of human nature inscribes women's bodies on the screen as tools for that message in the same ways that other films and other directors have done before, some of them better. I'd also suggest that there's nothing "grand" about 2049's vision of human nature. The small points of light in an otherwise oppressively dark film are at a very personal level, and relate to K's decision to spare Deckard (a stranger) and reunite him with his daughter, after having experienced the loss of love himself. That's quite similar, of course, to Batty sparing Deckard (an adversary) after recognizing the preciousness and fragility of life. These are small scale decisions, and all the more potent because of that. Ersatz fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 22:46
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Snak posted:I'm gonna disagree on almost every point here. I think the brilliance of the JOI shot is that it would be a titillating scene if we already had not met "his" JOI and come to accept her as a virtual person, but once she is humanized the billboard version is off-putting and skeezy. That the shot is disturbing is a success. Once you ... un-dehumanize? ... people (or replicants, or artificial intelligences) you really start to notice the injustices thrust upon them.
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Oct 22, 2017 22:47
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Ersatz posted:On the contrary, I'm arguing that the emotional reaction should be harnessed to further understanding of the film. Why do you suppose that their opposing argument and formulation hasn't come from a reasoned assessment of their own feelings? Why do you assume that someone criticizing the sexualization has immediately refused to engage with the film because of those specific aesthetic choices, when in fact most of the people who bring that up clearly state that they think the film is very good and understand the reasoning behind those choices that they disagree with?
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Oct 22, 2017 22:53
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Not So Fast posted:The JOI advert and the Las Vegas statues are unnecessary IMO, they don't really add much beyond "this future is exploitative of women / sexuality", which we already knew But it takes only an instant's consideration to recognize the importance of the Joi advertisement in furthering K's characterization and the themes of the film. And there's a not so subtle message being conveyed by the supposedly offensive Las Vegas statues, which foreshadow the empty and grotesque sexuality of the advert, being surrounded by radioactive desolation. Again, think Ozymandias. The irony is that both of these images are presented in ways that undercut the superficial content in order to further feminist themes, but a lot of people seem to be caught up by the offensiveness of that content, and thereby miss the potential for deeper meaning.
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Oct 22, 2017 23:11
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Neo Rasa posted:
I wonder if this nudity issue is an American thing because I’ve seen posters of naked women all over the place in tons of countries. Boobs on adverts in Paris, german tv shows with boobs all over, I once went into a hotel in Medellin with giant paintings of naked chicks all over the walls. Nobody batted an eye except for me going “uhhhh wtf”. JacksLibido fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 23:30
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What is the correct raise response to "I found this offensive"?
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Oct 22, 2017 23:38
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Arglebargle III posted:What is the correct raise response to "I found this offensive"? To say “there were a lot of boobs” and then when people say “nuh uh” you respect their opinion like they did yours and drop it. JacksLibido fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Oct 22, 2017 |
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Oct 22, 2017 23:43
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 This Greek statuesque shot was great too
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Oct 22, 2017 23:49
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exmarx posted:
how gratuitous
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Oct 22, 2017 23:50
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JacksLibido posted:I wonder if this nudity issue is an American thing because I’ve seen posters of naked women all over the place in tons of countries. Boobs on adverts in Paris, german tv shows with boobs all over, I once went into a hotel in Medellin with giant paintings of naked chicks all over the walls. Nobody batted an eye except for me going “uhhhh wtf”. yeah, I don't know if it's just Americans, but they certainly seem to be the biggest society where the first, and sometimes only, reaction to nudity is "uhhh, isn't this wrong?"
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Oct 23, 2017 01:13
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:You claim a position of knowledge mastery because you have unlocked the deeper meaning through your detached analysis and have thus found these specific choices to be urgent, necessary, and without alternative. No, you are retreating into inaccessible ‘deep’ inner feelings to avoid basic ideological critique, when we already have a pretty clear picture of how things break down along ideological lines. The liberal/centrist reading is obviously (and expectedly) preoccupied with Joi’s clothing and make-up. This is the humanist position: that Joi is (most) real when she wears a tasteful sweater and leads her boyfriend on adventures. From this standpoint, the nudity is unnecessary/gratuitous - an unnatural imposition by sexist people. Joi ‘should be’ exemplary of female identity, inspirational to young girls - a Strong Female Protagonist, etc. This reading, as I’ve noted, downplays or ignores that Joi’s body is a cellular phone being bought and sold; the liberal stance is that Joi’s holographic interface should be ‘gender neutral’ or promoted to girls equally. Replace the naked woman with Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, and you would certainly eliminate any objections. And I’ve outlined the leftist/progressive reading earlier - but it’s necessary to emphasize that Joi’s clothes are not actually important. The debate over whether she should wear a bikini or a burkha is a distraction from the fact that both types of clothing are violently imposed. Joi is a slave. And once you actually think about the factories where the cellphones are built, then you can think about workers seizing the means of production.
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Oct 23, 2017 01:54
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Hi SMG. Zizek's brand of ideological critique is a fun game but it is inert and solipsistic and itself reproduces discursive power relations that it claims to combat by enshrining an illuminated priesthood. Every day that passes where he is considered more academically outre makes my work easier and my daily life more pleasant
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Oct 23, 2017 02:06
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:At its worst the tone of the argument just conveys someone who has the luxury and privilege to treat their aesthetic consumption and interpretation as an abstracted game that is completely disconnected from lived experience. Its the exact opposite; films like this depict exploitation, objectivization, and dehumanization precisely because they are real issues. Portraying real issues is how the film connects with lived experience. There's this attitude that makes no sense to me. Let's take it away from Blade Runner for a second, and bring in a different example. Spousal violence against women is bad, I think we can all agree on that. So a movie comes along that depicts spousal violence, and some people will automatically decide well the movie depicted something bad so the movie is bad. Well, no. Its no automatically a worthwhile depiction or a good movie, either, of course. But no progress is made by not talking about issues, and art is one way that people talk about issues. Its that simple. I don't really think this movie is a super great example at exploring the themes in question. But another recent, and imo better, example of dealing with some of the same themes is Neon Demon and yes it definitely needed to be as explicit and uncomfortable as it was. CharlieFoxtrot posted:Your argument that the people who are uncomfortable with these images just need to "engage" and think about it more belies the assumption that those who disagree are having an emotional reaction that will be unfounded in the clear light of rational thought Yes. Well actually feelings of discomfort are not really a problem. And they don't need to be reasoned away. Making people uncomfortable is one of the things art is good at and good for, and that's what people should realize by thinking about it more. Neo Rasa posted:You all seem to be aware of this and yet somehow think it's like super super important that it's naked and that anyone questioning that doesn't understand the scene Yes. CharlieFoxtrot posted:Hi SMG. SMG is writing on a casual movie forum, it has nothing to do with academic fashions. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Oct 23, 2017 |
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Oct 23, 2017 02:27
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Lord Krangdar posted:Its the exact opposite; films like this depict exploitation, objectivization, and dehumanization precisely because they are real issues. Portraying real issues is how the film connects with lived experience. It is not the exact opposite. I prefaced this entire line of discussion by saying that I agreed with the reading of the sexualized depictions in this film in the first place, and of course I understand that depiction does not equal endorsement, which is why I also specified that part and also pointed out that many of the people who are critiquing those depictions also understand that. I am not disputing the idea of film texts as works of ideology and that they are worthwhile to read for that ideology, and that just because something is uncomfortable does not make it bad. I have stipulated all of this. At the same time, this does not mean that if you intend something politically positive with depictions of violence, exploitation, and dehumanization, that your intent automatically serves as justification and that your stylistic choices are irrelevant because you're "talking about issues." The point of my initial comments was simply to critique the condescension that comes with framing critiques of specific stylistic choices as the other misunderstanding elements, suffering under ideological blinders, or otherwise intellectually deficient in comparison to the scene's defenders. Film stylistics are a matter of extremely subtle choices, where literally several frames longer or shorter will change one's perception of the emotional valence of meaning of a scene. Ersatz, for example, mentioned that the sync sex scenes were "tasteful" because of how they were framed, which is a specific value judgment that comes from determining that the camera angle choice made that scene acceptable to their sensibilities, and for them (and me, and assumedly you) that was fine, and the other scenes that used bodies as their material were also fine. Great. And there are indeed antagonistic readings of the film that claim to be nominally feminist but do not actually engage with concretely critiquing the film. I would dispute those readings and argue for the value of the film's choices. But there are valid critiques of these choices, in terms of framing, and in terms of storytelling structure, that should not be easily dismissed out of hand. And the defenses of those choices that rest on saying "I understand this scene better than you, and your lived experience of, say, how a woman's body exists in the world and how its images percolate through society and how its value is judged, those things which may affect how you feel about the depictions here, those are all irrelevant because I solved the puzzle of the filmmaker's political intent," I would dispute those too.
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Oct 23, 2017 02:54
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