SPEAKING EASY - Yes, Politics Are in Everything
(By Melody Werner)
Over the past few years, we have seen lots of people bemoaning a perceived heightening of political messaging in entertainment. From fans to creators, this sentiment is seen as self-evidently true. Now, I'm an overtly politically active person, so no matter what I say a certain subset of people who believe in this hogwash will consider my points void regardless of what they are, and I am under no illusions when it comes to how this piece will be viewed by them should it reach more than two people. But I still gotta take a sledgehammer to this nonsense.
Yeah, not every piece of media is intentionally politically tinged. No, that doesn't matter when we are talking about if a given piece has political elements. Every single one does, no matter how we attempt to deny it. Whether we're talking about the defense of monarchy and xenophobia that is The Lion King (yes, because not everything has to be a culture war--we can enjoy things that have politics we vehemently disagree with), the Puritanical anti sex work/open sexuality argument that we see repeatedly with the succubus character archetype (which, pro-tip, is pretty much the only way that character type is ever used), the pro-multiculturalism of Pacific Rim, the glorification of militarism seen in Captain America and Captain Marvel, the commentary on nuclear devastation that was the original Gojira film, the argument for revolution and against headlong rushes into transhumanism that encompass the cyberpunk theme, etc., any work of art has underlying sociopolitical ideas to it. That is not because every person who crafts these stories has set out to tell their own political ideas. Creatives can believe themselves apolitical (a nonexistent political affiliation, but I digress) and they can make pieces which metatextually argue for things they disagree with (or ones that argue against what they believe in). It's because everything we do is political in nature.
Often people will say these things whenever a creator dares delve into LGBT+ issues in their comics, video games, TV shows, etc.. "Why you gotta put all these politics in?" When the very existence of certain groups is political, it tells us that everything else in our society is too. And let's not fucking pretend that people don't have a damn good reason to get explicitly political when the policies we enact today decide whether this planet remains habitable or not. When the political state of today sees children in cages, thousands dying because elites can't be bothered to pay their fair share of taxes, and we're still arguing over shit that is undebatable, like abortion.
Politics are in everything because everything is politics.
Over the past few years, we have seen lots of people bemoaning a perceived heightening of political messaging in entertainment. From fans to creators, this sentiment is seen as self-evidently true. Now, I'm an overtly politically active person, so no matter what I say a certain subset of people who believe in this hogwash will consider my points void regardless of what they are, and I am under no illusions when it comes to how this piece will be viewed by them should it reach more than two people. But I still gotta take a sledgehammer to this nonsense.
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| RUINER (2017) |
Yeah, not every piece of media is intentionally politically tinged. No, that doesn't matter when we are talking about if a given piece has political elements. Every single one does, no matter how we attempt to deny it. Whether we're talking about the defense of monarchy and xenophobia that is The Lion King (yes, because not everything has to be a culture war--we can enjoy things that have politics we vehemently disagree with), the Puritanical anti sex work/open sexuality argument that we see repeatedly with the succubus character archetype (which, pro-tip, is pretty much the only way that character type is ever used), the pro-multiculturalism of Pacific Rim, the glorification of militarism seen in Captain America and Captain Marvel, the commentary on nuclear devastation that was the original Gojira film, the argument for revolution and against headlong rushes into transhumanism that encompass the cyberpunk theme, etc., any work of art has underlying sociopolitical ideas to it. That is not because every person who crafts these stories has set out to tell their own political ideas. Creatives can believe themselves apolitical (a nonexistent political affiliation, but I digress) and they can make pieces which metatextually argue for things they disagree with (or ones that argue against what they believe in). It's because everything we do is political in nature.
 |
| Captain Marvel (2019) |
Often people will say these things whenever a creator dares delve into LGBT+ issues in their comics, video games, TV shows, etc.. "Why you gotta put all these politics in?" When the very existence of certain groups is political, it tells us that everything else in our society is too. And let's not fucking pretend that people don't have a damn good reason to get explicitly political when the policies we enact today decide whether this planet remains habitable or not. When the political state of today sees children in cages, thousands dying because elites can't be bothered to pay their fair share of taxes, and we're still arguing over shit that is undebatable, like abortion.
Politics are in everything because everything is politics.
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