Things you like that have..."questionable" messages

[Vault101]

somtimes when you think about things (songs/movies/whatever) the message...or at least the messge you seem to get seem a little...iffy

for example this song:


a nice little country-rock down to earth song about poverty is all good and well....though I get the impression the message is [b/]the way out of poverty is to be pretty and marry a rich man[/b]....ooohhkay

[b/]the parent trap [/b]
divorce isn't even a thing! if your cute enough and try really hard through deception and trickery your parents will get back together...and your step mums a *****...no exception

[b/]The Incredibles[/b]
don't try and be special CAUSE YOU AIN'T!

ect

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Hmm, probably anything by Grand Supreme Blood Court (Dutch death metal band). While the lyrics are mostly written in a humorous manner, the underlying theme is pretty real, I think. A lot of torturing and executing of undesirable members of society like murderers and rapists, et cetera. As someone against capital punishment, it rubs me up the wrong way a little, though the lyrics are certainly well written.

 

[Vault101]

Hmm, probably anything by Grand Supreme Blood Court (Dutch death metal band). While the lyrics are mostly written in a humorous manner, the underlying theme is pretty real, I think. A lot of torturing and executing of undesirable members of society like murderers and rapists, et cetera. As someone against capital punishment, it rubs me up the wrong way a little, though the lyrics are certainly well written.

kinda of like Eminem

I know that "its just his persona" might seem a reasonable defense...but I get the impression the guy has (or had) enough baggage to make me think he reeeeaaally has some issues with women, I mean not just he "usual" mysogany is rap but he actually has issues

 

[Elfgore]

Not the American Average by Asking Alexandria is all about a guy having a one-night stand with a woman. When she fails to satisfy him, I'm pretty sure he either starts to beat her, verbally abuse her, or murder her. I'm not really sure. The last fifteen seconds of the song is nothing but him screaming "You stupid fucking *****!"

Carnival of Souls by Nightmares is another song with either eh lyrics or really bad. I've been debating myself on it. One side isn't bad, the song's about a guy who was friends with a girl who started being flirty and stuff to get things from him. Causing him to leave. The other is about a guy who's angry about being in the friendzone, granted she did mislead him, and he leaves. Both are a little neck-beardy.

The Black Company books by Glen Cook kinda trivialize rape. Like a prisoner breakout happens and two girls get raped. It may just be Glen Cook's style of writing, but he just mentions this in two lines. "During the breakout, two of the girls were raped." and then he never brings it up again. No soldier is punished and we never see the victims complain about it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, most things have at least the odd questionable bit.

Lovecraft comes to mind. Tolkien to an extent.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Hmmm... I'm going to have to say a lot of anime. I love the medium and enjoy watching a variety of it, but the way it tends to sexualize characters that are often supposed to be very young (or makes older characters appear very young) makes me a little uneasy.

 

[Zhukov]

Depends if we're talking possible interpretations or messages that were intentionally put in there by the author/creator.

I know it seems that a lot of stories have heroes who are the hero because they were chosen, or destined, or born into it, or somehow bestowed with greatness, while the villain started with fuck all and worked their way into power with nothing but ruthless determination, strength and intelligence. And we're expected to go for the one who had their specialness dropped into their lap because they smell better.

 

[JimB]

"In My Head," by Jason Derulo. The song is about a guy who thinks it's lame that he should have to talk to women to get to have sex with them ("some dudes know all the right things to say, but when it comes down to it it's all just games"), so he decides to go up to a virgin ("I'll be your teacher, I'll show you the ropes; you'll see a side of love you've never known") and hit on her by telling her he's having pornographic fantasies about her. That will surely make her panties fall right off under the weight of all the girl-jizz flooding them. Nevertheless, I enjoy the song. It's catchy.

Hm, what else...I guess we could say the original Star Wars trilogy, which apparently takes place in a galaxy populated by only three women (Princess Leia, Mon Mothma, and Aunt Beru) and one black dude, but that seems like kind of a low-hanging fruit, and I'm not sure it counts anyway since "Hooray for white men!" is not the message but just something he ends up saying with his casting choices.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I know it seems that a lot of stories have heroes who are the hero because they were chosen, or destined, or born into it, or somehow bestowed with greatness, while the villain started with fuck all and worked their way into power with nothing but ruthless determination, strength and intelligence. And we're expected to go for the one who had their specialness dropped into their lap because they smell better.

Argh, yes. And anyone who disagrees with the chosen one is wrong.

Hm, what else...I guess we could say the original Star Wars trilogy, which apparently takes place in a galaxy populated by only three women (Princess Leia, Mon Mothma, and Aunt Beru) and one black dude, but that seems like kind of a low-hanging fruit, and I'm not sure it counts anyway since "Hooray for white men!" is not the message but just something he ends up saying with his casting choices.

Well, in of itself, no, but taken in conjunction with demographics of other films of that period/now, then there's an issue, yeah.

 

[Daniel Janhagen]

Old James Bond movies/books.

Examples:
There's no such thing as a lesbian, only women that haven't met a real man.
Homosexuals (male) are evil, and cannot whistle.
Women are hysterics and need to be slapped around once in a while. Also, they're kind of useless (except for sex - see above!).
Smoking, drinking and gambling are about the coolest things you can do.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Well, a lot of Eminem's songs, I guess.

 

[Loonyyy]

"In My Head," by Jason Derulo. The song is about a guy who thinks it's lame that he should have to talk to women to get to have sex with them ("some dudes know all the right things to say, but when it comes down to it it's all just games"), so he decides to go up to a virgin ("I'll be your teacher, I'll show you the ropes; you'll see a side of love you've never known") and hit on her by telling her he's having pornographic fantasies about her. That will surely make her panties fall right off under the weight of all the girl-jizz flooding them. Nevertheless, I enjoy the song. It's catchy.

Hm, what else...I guess we could say the original Star Wars trilogy, which apparently takes place in a galaxy populated by only three women (Princess Leia, Mon Mothma, and Aunt Beru) and one black dude, but that seems like kind of a low-hanging fruit, and I'm not sure it counts anyway since "Hooray for white men!" is not the message but just something he ends up saying with his casting choices.

And the wonderfully romantic sentiment "Get down to business and skip foreplay, yeeeeeeeah"

OT: 300's definitely up there, it's hardly a healthy message. Avatar: The Legend of Korra told us that it's abhorent to remove the powers from those who have superpowers by birth, even if those people use their powers to subjucate and denigrate their fellows. "Project X". Get wasted and destroy neighbourhood, apparently makes it a cool party and rescues our poor heroes high school popularity (Because that matters).

There's plenty of music that's rather unwholesome or violent I listen to, but I don't particularly think it's all that questionable, since it's more about taking on a role or presenting something, and I don't think it particularly promotes it (Dillinger Escape Plan, The Killing Tree). Not that you can't do it, but I don't really enjoy it that much if I can't stand the message (AC(Grindcore Band), or Eminem).

 

[JimB]

Hm, what else...I guess we could say the original Star Wars trilogy, which apparently takes place in a galaxy populated by only three women (Princess Leia, Mon Mothma, and Aunt Beru) and one black dude, but that seems like kind of a low-hanging fruit, and I'm not sure it counts anyway since "Hooray for white men!" is not the message but just something he ends up saying with his casting choices.

Ironically, the Empire is supposed to have this whole "master race" thing going on, but most people never notice it because there's no real racial diversity among the Rebellion either.

Was that intended in the original trilogy? I thought that was something Timothy Zahn added in his Thrawn series, as a way of explaining why the Empire is evil and of excusing how the budget limited the species the movie could portray.

 

[Lieju]

Eh, most things have at least the odd questionable bit.

Lovecraft comes to mind. Tolkien to an extent.

Yes.
Although Lovecraft's work doesn't bother me much, because of how the characters tend to be presented. They are ordinary people, and their views are not generally presented as the 'message'.

There's the idea of primitive cultures worshipping weird gods and being horrible, but the white civilization is in fact just more deluded than them and ignorant of the truth.

There are stories about the horror of higher human being mixing with monsters, but even if the writer was thinking, at least on some level, about the mixing of races, people have their own standards where they draw the line, so it's easy to read as horror against bestiality or something similar.

I'm not excusing Lovecraft's opinions, and if he lived today I wouldn't support him by buying his works. But I'm not bothered by most racism in his works. At the most it will make me think the character is a racist jerk.

With LOTR, though, where we are supposed to think of them as the good guys, it's different.

I'm especially bothered by the gender politics.
For example, the valar are mentioned not to really be male or female, they just take those kinds of forms.
And yet they form male/female pairs?

Wouldn't want to seem gay or anything?
And why did all the wizards take male forms? They aren't really male or female either.

And don't get me started with female representation...

I love LOTR, but I acknowledge it's issues.

 

[briankoontz]

It's very difficult to read into authorial intent from fictional content. An artist creates a world and expresses the worldview of *that world*, not his own worldview. I don't know anything about Ian Fleming's personal life, but there's no reason to believe that he was a globetrotting womanizing egomaniacal sociopath just because James Bond is. There's also no reason to believe that James Bond is Ian Fleming's ideal self - it's more likely that Ian Fleming was responding to the cold war paranoia-fueled McCarthy-era world in which he lived and wanted to show through fiction what the world of the rich and powerful was like, but even that is speculative.

Serious artists are always influenced by the act of producing their own works - Marlon Brando is a classic example of someone influenced more than a bit too much by his own acting. But it's foolish to presume that they *become* their own art as if art was a demonic influence.

A story that trivializes rape doesn't imply anything about the author except that he is presenting a world that trivializes rape, meaning one not too different if at all from our own.

If any judgments could be made about an artist, it's judgments about how they view the real world derived from why they create the fictional world that they do. So while a heavy metal band probably aren't harshly brutal as their music might imply if taken entirely straightforwardly, they are most likely cynical with a negative view of humanity, in order to wish to create art that expresses harsh brutality.

 

[lacktheknack]

Well, I like Mario... /sarkeesianbomb

Seriously, though. I love Tomb Raider. Everyone loves Tomb Raider, right?

...in all of its ancient-artifact-destroying murder-all-the-dudes-who-got-here-first glory?

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's very difficult to read into authorial intent from fictional content. An artist creates a world and expresses the worldview of *that world*, not his own worldview. I don't know anything about Ian Fleming's personal life, but there's no reason to believe that he was a globetrotting womanizing egomaniacal sociopath just because James Bond is. There's also no reason to believe that James Bond is Ian Fleming's ideal self - it's more likely that Ian Fleming was responding to the cold war paranoia-fueled McCarthy-era world in which he lived and wanted to show through fiction what the world of the rich and powerful was like, but even that is speculative.

Serious artists are always influenced by the act of producing their own works - Marlon Brando is a classic example of someone influenced more than a bit too much by his own acting. But it's foolish to presume that they *become* their own art as if art was a demonic influence.

A story that trivializes rape doesn't imply anything about the author except that he is presenting a world that trivializes rape, meaning one not too different if at all from our own.

If any judgments could be made about an artist, it's judgments about how they view the real world derived from why they create the fictional world that they do. So while a heavy metal band probably aren't harshly brutal as their music might imply if taken entirely straightforwardly, they are most likely cynical with a negative view of humanity, in order to wish to create art that expresses harsh brutality.

Not so sure about that.

While it's true that authors often depict things that they don't personally approve of, surely their disapproval should come through in their work?

 

[Casual Shinji]

[b/]The Incredibles[/b]
don't try and be special CAUSE YOU AIN'T!

Well, no not really.

The message of that movie was 'Don't let your talents go to waste for fear of not fitting in.' Rather a good one actually. The "Don't try and be special CAUSE YOU AIN'T!" was its criticism against the 'everyone's a winner/attendance award' mentality. If you teach kids that it doesn't matter whether you win or lose and that everyone is special, what drive will they have to make something of themselves and actually become special?

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Well, I don't personally like it but I have heard the Robin Thicks "Blurred lines" is extremely catchy, if nothing else.

Luckily, Weird Al has since risen back from obscurity to present us with this little gem.

Not so sure about that.

While it's true that authors often depict things that they don't personally approve of, surely their disapproval should come through in their work?

Why does that have to be the case?