seconded
There’s a certain type of joy (some may call elevated haterism, idk) in critically consuming media. There’s “criticism” that reads like critic is doing “this is badism” (of which I can’t wash my hands of, especially when it comes to picking up and smelling dubious content. In my defense, sometimes you gotta sniff shit to remember what it smells like. Maybe conspiratorial but, hey, $1.6 billion towards anti-china media is going Somewhere, and it’s not just right-wing rags. However I will defend myself here in differentiating trying to figure out who’s behind writing these “leftist” articles, articles that ‘actual’ western “leftists” are taking as some kind of veritable authority and source on info in China;; versus someone (repeatedly) criticizing Pentagon-funded Marvel flicks, which I think, to most people who find themselves in this neck of the woods, has a forgone conclusion)…
…and then there’s media crit for the joy of it. There’s envisioning how the media could be better, even given the circumstances. There’s separating the threads of “applicable to my social fabric/this moment-at-this-time situations” and malarkey - for example, I think The Substance picks up on relevant topics to this era but uncritically touches on plenty of other things I find to be just as concerning. Yes, if you’re not in whatever specific industry, most likely your opinions won’t go anywhere relevant towards improving said media but::
Art isn’t isolated, art is a medium that relies on there being a relationship, a communication, between artist and audience. And artist and audience aren’t mutually exclusive groups!! And as such, art is usually part of a continuum of other pieces of art, being relational to other pieces of art/artists; a myriad of relationships such as responses, push/pull, part of the same movement, inspire each other (very much includes orientalist european art, and I say this with the most neutrality I can: example Van Gogh & other europeans having some source of inspiration from Japanese blockprint), responding or reviving other pieces, antagonism of competing art movement in same era, etc etc etc. In this era of capitalist society that continuum is commonly “hey this thing made a lot of money so I will try to do something similar to get same result”, but even so relationships between specific pieces of media or even whole art movements aren’t simply one type of relationship.
All that to just say: being an audience of art, regardless of individual politics, means you are part of what “makes” art. IMO being thinky about it makes it better; like, I have an affection for films that are “so bad it’s good” but absolutely detest slop although I sometimes find slop very funny. beatboxing puppy. Although more often than not, being a communist sympathizer (being realistic/vulgar materialist especially to my locale) living in the west just means there’s a lot of media around me that have messages I find from bad to flawed, but that doesn’t stop me from recognizing other areas it does well or enjoying that.
Personally I think 100% divestment is a mistake, no you don’t need to be actively constantly consuming everything presented, I think it’s worth at least being aware especially if it’s in your surroundings. It’s like critically reading or exposing yourself to liberal mainstream news media; it’s just in the air you breathe, and I get it, it might get tiring smelling the stench 24/7; but it’s still valuable to be able to glean useful information and understand what particular angles are frequented, and better yet if you know other info and see what’s being purposefully omitted.
yeah their discord has been really quiet until they released this most recent PV. I wondered if the devs bit off more than they could chew.