Offensive Media and You

[Something Amyss]

It's difficult to take offense from people who are trying so hard to give it, try-hards just test the extent of one's pity for twats.

What was that game about an angry white boy shooting things up on Steam that was so controversial? The Hatred or some such? I remember looking at the ad and thinking "oh dear...tjhey're plahying this straight, aren't they?"

But then media that doesn't realise it might be offending some due to old fashioned sensibilities tends to come off more as quaint and out-of-touch.

Tis is more what I originally had in mind for the topic. Less the "I'm so edgy, are you triggered?" sort of crap, because that just...bores me. More stuff that happens to come up. Even the Kate McKinnon example strikes more more as someone doing a dumb than being intentionally hateful or whatever.

To go with the above example of Meliodas, I doubt that Seven Deadly Sins is trying to be offensive, and I'm not even sure from Japan's perspective this is considered "date", given how bad the groping problem in Japan still is overall...it's still creepy from where I'm sitting. Just, apparently, not a dealbreaker for me.

There have been moments of quitting media if it does that, one particular example was a Christian propaganda film disguised as an apocalyptic disaster movie.

There are a lot of those, but was it by chance Left Behind? I picked up the first book in a used bookstore because the premise sounded interesting. Too bad the writing wasn't. I didn't hear the hype about the series, so i didn't know any better. Idon't even mind the Christian preachiness, it was just...dull.

One of the things that's always amused me is a certain set of Christians who seem to think all atheists will recoil like a vampire if you do something like say "Merry Christmas" or "God bless." Tis is lkess about propaganda and more that first example about trying hard, but I only thought about it because you referenced a Christian propaganda movie, which made me think of the horrible strawman movies like "God's Not Dead" where pretty much everyone else in the world is villainised, and I went on from there.

My first band was mistaken for a Christian group. While our guitarist was a Christian, I was the principle songwriter. It seems to blow some folks' minds that that's a thing, specifically because of the rhetoric out there. I like Christmas music. Well, some of it. I have a nice long Christmas playlist I run between Thanksgiving and Christmas. People say "God bless" I say "thank you" because I assume it comes from a place of kindness. Etc.

And while that's not the media I had in mind, I bring all this up because...I'm not offended by the God's Not Dead movies. They're not offensive to me, they're kind of funny. Well, funny enough. There are some serious tryhard moments in the movie where I'm not sure if they're trying to preach or to attack atheists, but the bit where the atheist is asked why he hates God or whatever and he's all "BECAUZ HE KILT MUH DADDY!" has me rolling on the floor.

I doubt the creators would appreciate me thinking of it as comedy but it is what it is.

I wasn't offended by being considered part of a Christian group, incidentally. It did throw me, though, because I never thought of what I wrote as having any religious significance.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I've not once in my life considered any piece of media as "offensive media" nor have I ever been actually offended by any form of media either. I do consume media with lots of controversial themes, rudeness and bad behavior, as cathartic entertainment.


I think getting offended by such things shows you have growing to do and are still immature. If you feel like you might be offended by something, that means you're not in the mood for it or it's not to your taste. Anything I see being referenced here as supposedly being offensive registers to me as being merely entertaining and fun.


As for ghostbusters, I think people boycotted it for reasons outside it being offensive, reasons now shared by the fans and actors of that film since another one is being made and that one is not going to include them and their stories. If only they could extend empathy to those people instead of calling them sexist because 2% of them sent them mean messages on the internet, alas, hindsight is always 20-20.

 

[Erttheking]

Not really, if only because I tend to steer away from things I know won't be to my taste in the first place. I suppose I enjoy watching youtube videos and I tend to click off of them if too many homophobic slurs get thrown around.

I think getting offended by such things shows you have growing to do and are still immature. If you feel like you might be offended by something, that means you're not in the mood for it or it's not to your taste. Anything I see being referenced here as supposedly being offensive registers to me as being merely entertaining and fun.

*Recalls all the times Drieko has complained about Japanese imports being "censored"*

Yeah, off the high horse, you haven't earned it. You don't get to call everyone immature for the crime of not liking media that you do.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I think getting offended by such things shows you have growing to do and are still immature.

Wow, that?s a smug and broadly sweeping statement. I?m not offended by much, but I?m fully aware that things CAN be offensive to others. I think anyone who thinks being offended makes one immature is pathologically disinhibited and woefully unaware that the world is a much larger and varied place than the space inside his or her own skull.

If you feel like you might be offended by something, that means you're not in the mood for it or it's not to your taste.

Is it possible ?not to your taste? could be that broad umbrella that includes media that makes you mentally uncomfortable or is an affront to deeply held tenets, y?know, what?s the word? Oh yeah, OFFENDED.

Anything I see being referenced here as supposedly being offensive registers to me as being merely entertaining and fun.

?Registers to YOU.? Because by simply labelling anything as ?entertainment? or ?fun? makes it such and therefore beyond subjective scrutiny?

 

[Saint of M]

There are going to be somethings we will find problematic because of value disonese. What's acceptable in one contry for little kids to watch is adults only in another.

Other times you really have to look into the character of the people making it.

For me personally, I am typically ok with Matt Stone and Trey Parker when they poke fun at my Latter Day Saint faith, because they tend to be, for lack of a better turn, having good clean fun with it, and as much hay is weird, but at least its fun weirdness. Even when I heard about the Book of Mormon Play, a quick Wikipedia skim and I am going: Ok, the two missionaries no one wants to work with. The Holier than though type and the one that knows absolutely nothing about his religion (to the point he mixes and matches Lord of the Rings with Book of Mormon).


Other times, I put my foot down. No matter what others say about their qualety, I do not plan to see Clockwork Orange, the origional Birth of a Nation, or Cannibal Holocaust.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

*Recalls all the times Drieko has complained about Japanese imports being "censored"*

Yeah, off the high horse, you haven't earned it. You don't get to call everyone immature for the crime of not liking media that you do.

I'm not offended by censorship though, I don't think I ever claimed I was. It's more like feeling patronized and talked down to by it, if anything. You can acknowledge something sucks without being offended by it.

And no, I don't particularly like the things I see here spoken of as though they're offensive. I just consider them to not be offensive is all. A lot of them are things I actually dislike or find boring and so on. It's a pretty big leap to assume I like it lol.

Wow, that?s a smug and broadly sweeping statement. I?m not offended by much, but I?m fully aware that things CAN be offensive to others. I think anyone who thinks being offended makes one immature is pathologically disinhibited and woefully unaware that the world is a much larger and varied place than the space inside his or her own skull.

Being offended fundamentally comes from a place of lack of understanding. It's the equivalent of an instinctual fear response in a conceptual sense. The way to assuage fear is to learn more about the thing and through understanding it you will feel less offended and more X which is the actually appropriate response, with X being any of a number of things such as disgusted or saddened or horrified (which I of course have felt from various media). Being offended like the late Hitchens said literally means nothing.

Is it possible ?not to your taste? could be that broad umbrella that includes media that makes you mentally uncomfortable or is an affront to deeply held tenets, y?know, what?s the word? Oh yeah, OFFENDED.

Something being not to your taste is not a statement about the thing but you yourself. It means you are incapable of appreciating it like others are. Hence, you can't ascribe traits to the thing based on you, since you are not it. In a sense, being offended by something is describing your own weakness as that thing's concept. It is not describing that thing as this transgressing force that is acting upon you, like some people seem to use the term as.

?Registers to YOU.? Because by simply labelling anything as ?entertainment? or ?fun? makes it such and therefore beyond subjective scrutiny?

Subjective scrutiny can never yield the result of X media being "offensive media" since that's an objective statement about said media. I was talking about the objective nature of media as being just entertainment or fun, incapable of being inherently offensive due to someone's subjective take on them.

 

[Erttheking]

*Recalls all the times Drieko has complained about Japanese imports being "censored"*

Yeah, off the high horse, you haven't earned it. You don't get to call everyone immature for the crime of not liking media that you do.

I'm not offended by censorship though, I don't think I ever claimed I was. It's more like feeling patronized and talked down to by it, if anything. You can acknowledge something sucks without being offended by it.

And no, I don't particularly like the things I see here spoken of as though they're offensive. I just consider them to not be offensive is all. A lot of them are things I actually dislike or find boring and so on. It's a pretty big leap to assume I like it lol.

That strikes me as serious hair splitting. Like most people would associate feeling patronized and talked down to as being offensive.

Which, funnily enough, is what you were doing to the entire thread.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

*Recalls all the times Drieko has complained about Japanese imports being "censored"*

Yeah, off the high horse, you haven't earned it. You don't get to call everyone immature for the crime of not liking media that you do.

I'm not offended by censorship though, I don't think I ever claimed I was. It's more like feeling patronized and talked down to by it, if anything. You can acknowledge something sucks without being offended by it.

And no, I don't particularly like the things I see here spoken of as though they're offensive. I just consider them to not be offensive is all. A lot of them are things I actually dislike or find boring and so on. It's a pretty big leap to assume I like it lol.

That strikes me as serious hair splitting. Like most people would associate feeling patronized and talked down to as being offensive.

Which, funnily enough, is what you were doing to the entire thread.

It's really not the same thing though. When someone censors something, he usurps my autonomy to choose for myself what is suitable for me to consume and he presumes to tell me that he knows better than I what I ought to consume. That's not offensive, such a label is messy and imprecise and literally means nothing. What that is is patronizing and belittling. They're violating the spirit of my rights as a human being with an adult mind and freedom. Being robbed of ones autonomy is not in the same ballpark as being "offended". It is part of my human rights to choose what media I want to consume. Being protected from feeling generally flummoxed at something that bugs me is not.


What use do you get from considering being talked down to as offensive, exactly? Isn't that just a catchall that you use to make whoever is transgressing upon you feel as though they did something bad to you? Well, I happen to think people ought to feel that way more heavily when they are told they're being patronizing than when they're told they're being offensive, since that's an actual thing you can specify and correct, so I see no meaning from trying to include any and all sorts of disagreeable conduct under the blanket of being offensive.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Yeah, look, I know you probably assign some definition to the words that makes one totally different from the other, but frankly they come across as both being insulting. Also...someone assuming that he knows better than you do on what to consume...ISN'T offensive to you?

The problem here is that you seem to have a definition that you can only be offended by something if it's some harmless thing, something that's not actually a real problem. As in, you seem to think that if it's a serious problem that infringes on your human rights, you can be offended because it's actually a serious problem. And I generally consider treating human beings as lesser beings to be offensive. So...does that answer your question of what "use" I consider from considering being talked down to as offensive? Oh, by the way.

Being offended fundamentally comes from a place of lack of understanding.

I'm sorry, you don't get to make shit up about definitions. And that's what you're doing right now. Making shit up.

Transgendered people being banned from the military offends me as someone who believes in the equality of human beings. There is no "lack of understanding" there mate.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

I think getting offended by such things shows you have growing to do and are still immature. If you feel like you might be offended by something, that means you're not in the mood for it or it's not to your taste.

Being offended fundamentally comes from a place of lack of understanding. It's the equivalent of an instinctual fear response in a conceptual sense.

I find myself offended by the depiction of animal abuse, do you think that's something I just don't understand? Do you ever find yourself in the mood to watch cats or dogs being tortured? Does not wanting to see other living things being hurt make me immature?

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

The only things I can actually think of that I simply avoid or turn off due to being offensive are primarily old westerns where they depict Native Americans and other minorities in a horrible way or gross stand up comedians. Those and those " British savior" movies where they go into Africa and "save" the uneducated heathen and tame the wild BS. Those are like nails on a chalkboard. That said, I actually like a lot of old films and TV shows, with their 1950's racist shat and all.Even with Lucille Ball's horrific portrayal of Native Americans, and the whole servant housewife role, I still think she is one of the best comedians of all time and I understand why so many comedians that came after her copied her and idolize her and use her jokes even to this day.

Oh and I avoid anything that is remotely like the kardashians, because I find them and the people like them's very existence offensive and grotesque and see that the world would be a better place without them on it.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I think getting offended by such things shows you have growing to do and are still immature. If you feel like you might be offended by something, that means you're not in the mood for it or it's not to your taste.

I think the exact opposite.

If you're not offended by anything, then it means you've never had the experience of being genuinely hurt by something. It means you live in a sheltered world where you don't have to take anything seriously because you've never had to grow up and see that the world is a serious place.

Not being able to understand real consequences is kind of the definition of immaturity. It's why adolescent kids write edgy stories about murdering their parents in the Purge or something, because a child's developing mind can't comprehend real consequences like mortality. To most children (with a few very sad exceptions) things like death, violence and abuse are just fun aesthetics.

And that's fine, because they're kids, and they will eventually figure it out. They will face the reality of death, they will come to understand emotions like grief and suffering, because that's part of what growing up means.

But if you're already an adult, it's not unreasonable to expect you to have an adult view of the world, and that means considering the very real consequences of your fun aesthetics, and not just for yourself. If you laugh at a racist joke because you've never personally experienced the consequences of racism and therefore it isn't "real" for you, then that's really no different from a child not being able to understand the consequences of death.

Now, you can certainly find value or even humour in things which are uncomfortable. Part of living in a serious world is learning to live with a degree of discomfort. But adults have limits. You cannot demand that someone shares your indifference to things that hurt them, that certainly isn't "maturity".

 

[Saelune]

People who ***** about people being offended need to stop being hypocrites by being offended by that.

'I don't care and I need to make sure everyone knows it!'

 

[Hawki]

So, this seems appropriate right now:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/01/blood-heir-ya-book-twitter-controversy.html

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/279806/how-a-twitter-mob-destroyed-a-young-immigrant-female-authors-budding-career

Haven't read any of his books, but Larry Correia sums up my feelings perfectly:

http://monsterhunternation.com/2019/01/31/to-the-book-community-go-fuck-yourself-an-anti-apology/

You can point out that the author withdrew the book at her own volition, and it doesn't prohibit the book from being published at a later date, but that's really beside the point. I find it telling that on Zhao's "twitter apology" that many authors are saying she's made the wrong decision. And as someone who did creative writing courses, who's been in a creative writing group, and has posted stuff on the net for over a decade...obviously I'm not in the same boat as a published author, but I feel terrible for her.

People have the right to be offended. But when your offence comes from misinterpretation of text, and potentially prevents the source of your offence from being published at all, as written by an aspiring author...bleh.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'd find it harder to watch Galaxy Quest because Alan Rickman is no longer with us.

Yeah, but death is a part of life, being a major jerk isn't. Though ofcourse, it depends how the person died - whenever I watch The Land Before Time it always stings knowing the girl who voiced Ducky got shot by her own father.

 

[Saint of M]

I'd find it harder to watch Galaxy Quest because Alan Rickman is no longer with us.

Yeah, but death is a part of life, being a major jerk isn't. Though ofcourse, it depends how the person died - whenever I watch The Land Before Time it always stings knowing the girl who voiced Ducky got shot by her own father.

Gone but never forgotten. Now to carve someone's heart out with a spoon.

There are two things that really tick me off when it comes to films.

Romantisizing or making abuse look heroic. It depends on the film as I am ok with the spanking scenes from McKlintuc, but just hearing the plot synopsis of 50 Shades and the rage barely bridled rage Dom has for it during his reviews on the series on Lost in Adaptation makes me wonder if E.L. James is psycotic.

The concept of the Boudice Ripper as Lindsy Ellis Calls it I also find...disquieting. Basicly in alot of romance novels by women for women, say set in a victorian or earlier erra, you have a forceful mae that doesn't exactly take no for an answer, and its so wrong but feels so right (insert puking sounds). Largly a throw back when women's sexuality and amerous desires were forcably restrained, its still a popular trope. Or was. I don't read alot of woman's romance lit.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I think getting offended by such things shows you have growing to do and are still immature. If you feel like you might be offended by something, that means you're not in the mood for it or it's not to your taste.

I think the exact opposite.

If you're not offended by anything, then it means you've never had the experience of being genuinely hurt by something. It means you live in a sheltered world where you don't have to take anything seriously because you've never had to grow up and see that the world is a serious place.

Not being able to understand real consequences is kind of the definition of immaturity. It's why adolescent kids write edgy stories about murdering their parents in the Purge or something, because a child's developing mind can't comprehend real consequences like mortality. To most children (with a few very sad exceptions) things like death, violence and abuse are just fun aesthetics.

And that's fine, because they're kids, and they will eventually figure it out. They will face the reality of death, they will come to understand emotions like grief and suffering, because that's part of what growing up means.

But if you're already an adult, it's not unreasonable to expect you to have an adult view of the world, and that means considering the very real consequences of your fun aesthetics, and not just for yourself. If you laugh at a racist joke because you've never personally experienced the consequences of racism and therefore it isn't "real" for you, then that's really no different from a child not being able to understand the consequences of death.

Now, you can certainly find value or even humour in things which are uncomfortable. Part of living in a serious world is learning to live with a degree of discomfort. But adults have limits. You cannot demand that someone shares your indifference to things that hurt them, that certainly isn't "maturity".

Dreiko seems to think (well, wants to believe for the purpose of appearing intellectually superior to we plebs) that ?offensive? has an objective definition, i.e.: the words ?offensive? and ?red? carry equal weight in the phrases ?offensive media? and ?red car.? I call straw man; I don?t feel anyone suggested that. Of course whether or not something is offensive is going to vary from person to person. That?s? kinda the spirit of the thread.

But kudos for burning that straw man at both ends; I find your assessment of Dreiko?s assertion offensive in its accuracy.

 

[Baffle]

I'm offended that so many people like Mrs Brown's Boys.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

There are a lot of those, but was it by chance Left Behind? I picked up the first book in a used bookstore because the premise sounded interesting. Too bad the writing wasn't. I didn't hear the hype about the series, so i didn't know any better. Idon't even mind the Christian preachiness, it was just...dull.

One of the things that's always amused me is a certain set of Christians who seem to think all atheists will recoil like a vampire if you do something like say "Merry Christmas" or "God bless." Tis is lkess about propaganda and more that first example about trying hard, but I only thought about it because you referenced a Christian propaganda movie, which made me think of the horrible strawman movies like "God's Not Dead" where pretty much everyone else in the world is villainised, and I went on from there.

My first band was mistaken for a Christian group. While our guitarist was a Christian, I was the principle songwriter. It seems to blow some folks' minds that that's a thing, specifically because of the rhetoric out there. I like Christmas music. Well, some of it. I have a nice long Christmas playlist I run between Thanksgiving and Christmas. People say "God bless" I say "thank you" because I assume it comes from a place of kindness. Etc.

And while that's not the media I had in mind, I bring all this up because...I'm not offended by the God's Not Dead movies. They're not offensive to me, they're kind of funny. Well, funny enough. There are some serious tryhard moments in the movie where I'm not sure if they're trying to preach or to attack atheists, but the bit where the atheist is asked why he hates God or whatever and he's all "BECAUZ HE KILT MUH DADDY!" has me rolling on the floor.

I doubt the creators would appreciate me thinking of it as comedy but it is what it is.

I wasn't offended by being considered part of a Christian group, incidentally. It did throw me, though, because I never thought of what I wrote as having any religious significance.

Hmm *quick Google types* Oh, Left Behind was the Nicholas Cage one, based on many a books, thought it sounded familiar. But nah, the film wished it could be a Cage's lowest career moment. It was an Affirm films production called 'The Remaining.' A producer who specifically deal in cheap Christian...well, their name says it all really. Wait one bias confirming minute...the imdb page is saying Bryan Dechart was in it, who played Android Connor in Detroit: Becoming Cage! Poor lad. The Cage gauge is showing suspiciously high readings on this topic. Best move quickly on!

Song lyrics can and do often meander around abstract, metaphor, spiritual and other styles which one can easily imagine if any person listening to them with a specific set of experiences and bias in belief, would apply their own meaning to them, and then there are people who see god in everything anyway, so maybe you had a writing style that allowed a flexibility for interpretation, moreso than first assumed? I remember that happening the opposite way, where a couple of bands I quite enjoyed had turned out to be self-described Christian bands, and now all those songs once applied my own personal meaning onto all seem less interesting now I can't stop thinking they're probably about Jesus instead. They may not be, but the emotional distance was still unavoidably created by the mere knowledge they very well probably are.

Nevertheless, it is best to see the funny side of all those badly executed propaganda films, it's all they're worth really. Naughty athiests! Have heard some positive rumblings around Aronofsky's Noah, so still intend to give that a go at some point soon. Maybe it strikes a balance, maybe not, as long as it entertains.