The point is that it won't be decent eventually due to them canceling decent things for being politically incorrect and promoting bad things that are ticking all the boxes. The american comicbook industry is suffering from this right now for example. And it's not as if there's a general lack of interest in them either since manga is doing just fine, both here and in Japan (it's actually up compared to last year in the US too).
So yeah, again, the best way to make more money in the long run is to be more meritocratic even if that entails being less politically correct.
While I find it annoying that a lot of mediums are trying to present themselves as woke in cheap token ways that undermine the story...
I find that's honestly more the fault of bad writing and people not knowing how to not be jerks (or just trying to cash in on the woke train in a cheap an easy way) instead of the fault of...You know, trying to be inclusive or trying not to be jerks.
Also, a lot of comic fans (and game fans) seem to have this WEIRD hangup where the second you have a minority involved, they reflexively think "politics ruining my medium!" but don't bat an eye at actual political stuff. I literally don't get why. See the people mad that there's a very muscled lady in The Last of Us 2 and decrying it as "SJWs ruining believability!" when the entire point was obviously to make a female character that looked physically intimidating.
It's also possible to be politically incorrect without being a jerk. Just...You know, don't be a jerk? You can make a story that makes you go "oooh, that's...That hurts, yo" without perpetuating tired bigoted tropes and stuff, or at least examining them in a way that doesn't make it look like you condone it or whatever.
But hey, Writing is Hard, and Art is Subjective, people interpret it differently, so it's always going to leave someone super jazzed and another super upset, that's how art is.
I agree with this definition but I also see it as an abuse of the boycott. The intended use is something like for example the thing that happened when Capcom cancelled Megaman Legends 3. It's something that happens when an artistic issue is had and you want it to be corrected for the betterment of the medium as a whole. What we have is the tyranny of the minority in a commercial sense here. Just because the people who wanna cancel this thing complain it doesn't mean they represent the majority of the fanbase of a thing so they shouldn't get to speak for them or control what they get to experience.
Ok, see, I find this take VERY confusing.
So, you're saying boycotts are intended for "Hey I want this thing to do better, so I'll not support it", purely for artistic reasons for the medium's improvement...And shouldn't be applied to, say, more social stuff that impacts people's lives?
Why not? If a work of art is doing something shitty, people shouldn't say "You know, that's kind of shitty. I don't like it. I'll stop supporting it because of that, unless it stops being shitty"? Which is, in effect, what cancelling is? A whole lot of people saying "I don't like this". That's...Freedom of speech in action, no?
What recourse to they then have for this thing that's being shitty to them, aside from somehow getting the funds and people together to make the thing themselves and somehow rivaling the people who currently Make The Thing, and hoping that they're able to somehow supercede it, even though the thing being shitty to them has probably years or even decades of a head start?
And again, unless the quality drops off, the "silent majority who don't give a damn" won't really care about the stance taken, because they don't care. So why are the people who don't care either way being treated as the default group that needs to be pleased when it comes to specifically issues that impact minorities?
Though I will say that I am firmly for separating the artist from the art. I don't know how that isn't left wing either, maybe it's centrist now, but in any case, I just literally don't care about you as a person.
I generally try to do the same, but there does come points where any enjoyment I can get out of something starts to get outweighed by the artist being a jerk.
Like, I justify my love for Borderlands by being like "it's a game made by a lot of people who clearly love this universe, it's not a pure product of one lying asshole CEO". Same with "LA confidential", yeah, Kevin Spacey's done some horrible stuff, but he's ONE actor in a movie that a lot of people made.
Now, for an actually interesting example....Lovecraft? He's long since dead and his works are open source. I can recognize his amazing literary contribution, acknowledge he was a horrible bigot for most of his life, and then proceed to use his nifty genre to create stories that have all the cosmic horror, but none of the bigotry.
But with cases like JK Rowling, who is the sole creative voice behind the entire series of books? And she's still around? AND she keeps meddling with her artistic creation years after the fact? AND is being a phenomenal jerk? Suddenly there's a lot more of a connection between the art and the artist. And even so I was willing to give her a mountain of benefit of the doubt at first, but after the extreme level of pettiness and so on, I find it really hard to enjoy the books knowing that the creator is a petty, mean-spirited person who keeps saying things that are dangerous to some of my friends as a whole.
Hell, I used to LOVE Razorfist on youtube despite the fact I opposed his politics, and only dropped him once his behaviour just hit a certain critical mass that I could not endure anymore, and overwhelmed any joy I could get out of his content.
We all have a line somewhere.
To tie it down with our base moral concerns of the moment feels sacriligious, it reminds me of those isis people who were destroying assyrian statues that were like 5000 years old to erase pre-Islamic history and enhance their faith.
Aside from the fact that it's not always a "base moral concern of the moment", but rather a continuation of bad behaviour that certain groups have been suffering for a VERY long time...
We don't want to destroy the previous works though, nor are we trying. The overwhelming majority of people who have beef with JK at this point have the opinion of "Just stop being a massive asshole on twitter! Please! I want to still love your books!". There isn't some kind of mass book burning movement around her books, and if there was I'd be opposing it. I just
don't think that "She's a jerk, I don't want to support her anymore, I'll find another better series to use to introduce my own kids o the joys of reading" is the same as the ACTUAL destruction of culture.
(Sidebar, this does not apply to stuff like confederate statues, which were literally placed in majority black districts during the civil rights battle purely to intimidate black people and remind them of "who's boss" by celebrating and uplifting the very people who kept them literally enslaved. Those you can move to a museum or some other place that's not the public square if you want to preserve them for historical value, but the point of them wasn't artistic joy or history)
In a liberal and open minded society, the correct ideal to strive for is "I hate you as a person, but I am big enough to acknowledge that despite your horrific acts, your work in this one sector of existance is worth praise". Any movement that can't do this much is not truly left wing or liberal in the real sense of the term, especially if they can't do it due to an ideology blinding them into instantly hating something a "bad person" did just because of who it was that did it, before they even gave it a fair shot to amaze then.
We all have lines in the sand somewhere, where we get turned off by something a creator does.
Might I advise you to speak to people who are impacted? You know, people who feel their lives are at risk because of people's bad behaviour? Like...Ask trans friends if they still feel "sublime" reading Harry Potter, knowing that the author personally has disdain for them and keeps perpetuating bad tropes that may in fact lead to them being hurt?
If someone is being a massive jerk to you, you will inherently feel less "sublime" feelings from their art. Because you know the person who made it hates you for things outside your control. Likewise, if you're friends with people who are impacted by it.
If you want to separate art from the artists in all cases, even the most egregious, sure, go ahead. That's your right.
But you should try to understand why certain people CAN'T.
Personally, I try to let the art speak for itself...But I have limits. There comes a point where any "sublime artistic value" gets corroded and I can't help but keep being reminded that the creator is a total asshole.
Dangit you put it better than I could, much more succinctly. Why you do this to me? XD
