Quote: (09-04-2015 08:45 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:
Critical theorists' relationship to the world comes from the stereotypes learnt from media consumption, not personal experience and observation.
Growing up in the 90s I remember watching these TV shows and other media where I would be constantly bombarded with depictions of big, mean, physically imposing bullies that would rain down hell on these helpless nerds with hearts of gold. As a little kid taking in all these sitcoms I remember being constantly fearful that upon ending up in high school I was gonna end up getting constantly being stuffed in the locker by the football players and popular kids and (insert 90s high school sitcom trope here).
Upon entering high school I noticed that the jocks and popular kids weren't the monsters they were depicted as. They either were nice and pleasant enough or they simply didn't care about you. I noticed that the people who tended to be the biggest assholes were typically the people on the lower end of the high school social totem pole - people that weren't on the absolute bottom but were at the borderline. To play armchair psychologist for a moment, I would say this was because the position of these people were precarious they felt more threatened and had to make it absolutely clear that there were people below them in the pecking order. If you were one of the popular kids, your position is secure and there's no need for you to make an example of someone to display your status.
All of this made me think that the behind behind these shows and involved in the creative arts in general are suffering from a huge case of sour grapes. Even after growing into adulthood, they still have a chip on their shoulders after years of seeing themselves as outcasts and perpetual losers and the works they create reflect this. Kids grow up consuming these works and end up becoming the SJWs you see today.
I think the growing popularity of geek culture is a big contributor to the current rise of the SJW politics. The fandoms surrounding comic books, sci-fi/fantasy, video games and the like have always been strongly aligned with SJW values, especially the pro-LGBT stuff and I think it's due to the reasons I stated above: lots of the people involved in these fandoms whether it the creators or consumers feel like they're being oppressed by people who by traditional standards would be considered to be more beautiful, more attractive, more competent so in the works they both create and consume they invert these values. And as much as these people would love to think they are so much more free thinking and intelligent then the average person who watches cable TV I think if anything they are bigger slaves to and more easily influenced by pop media since they are much bigger consumers of it. Who's going the bigger media whore, some guy who watches some reality show once a week or a guy who obsessively learns every detail of the latest Avengers movie?
A good example would be in the comic shown in this thread: take something that has been depicted as a positive force in society in this case the nuclear family and twist it around to show it as hypocritical and phony. Why do a lot of these people have the neon-colored hair along with the piercings and stupid ass tattoos while whining incessantly about "unrealistic depictions of women" and what "real beauty" should be? Because they know they don't live up to those standards. But instead of making any attempts at self-improvement they instead throw their energy into changing the standards so that it just happens to glorify the traits they possess....then they act like they are doing it out of pure altruism and that they derive no benefits from it.