I know I talk a lot about Critical Theory (CT) and its spawn… but try to see things from my point of view:
Not just every public intellectual but every comedian, and many directors, novelists, scientists, etc. that I love and respect are sounding the alarm about recent changes, which all originate with CT.
More and more university departments and fields of study are infested with ideas that, once established, are beyond any debate. The two fields most important to my future plans (Social Work and Teacher Education) are among the most thoroughly saturated. The admissions committees and accreditation boards and faculty are basically all now CT ideologues (or marching along with them in silent assent).
I see two dozen bad and resentment-building and historically ignorant ideas spreading like wildfire among young people. It turns out that most Americans are, at some point in young adulthood, mediocre college students so if you can transmit your dogma to this group you’ve scored a major victory.
Now even our fantasy and fictional worlds are falling, bending the knee to the same weird identitarian political impulses and cultural hegemony that dominate professional sports, entertainment studios, corporations, universities, government agencies, etc. and yet still claim to be the voice of the marginalized (!!!).
When I was a boy fantasy was very important to me. I was a cerebral and somewhat strange kid and always enjoyed stepping through my own Lewisian wardrobe, which was my imagination. I would sit and read for hours and hours (which I still do but now my reverie is ominously interrupted by an urge to check my phone). I can’t think of a single major fantasy or science fiction universe that I didn’t explore, mostly through reading but also through art (I highly recommend the picture book Dinotopia to anyone trying to engage children) and FILM.
The Lord of the Rings; C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy; Cities of Gold and Lead; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Dune; Star Wars… the Indiana Jones trilogy
I mention that last item (and it WAS a trilogy, by right) because it’s the most recent IP in a long procession of wonderful and compelling stories ruined by bad modern ideas. I couldn’t tell you how closely CT is implicated in the degradation of the Indy franchise but there are some pretty clear signs:
Politically charged statements by producers and cast before the release
The reduction of a beloved male hero to a broken shell
The promotion of a new female protagonist
The absence of any real struggle or character arc for that female character; she’s amazing and trouncing villains early on in the film and does the same at the end; she learns almost nothing because she knows the truth from the outset
The confusion of the traditional ‘Hero’s Journey’ wherein a young character is called to go on a great quest, learns and grows, and returns with a ‘boon’ (Read Joseph Campbell for the rest…); flat or branching or ‘meta’ narrative arcs and character development
This issue isn’t primarily objectionable to me because of its political aims. There have been a hundred different fantasy/sci-fi creations with strong female leads who weren’t ridiculous archetypes of aggressive perfection: Terminator, Alien, Ladyhawk, The Ghost in the Shell, etc. etc.
It’s offensive because it’s a radical re-imagining of stories that have been dear to me my entire life and these mutated forms are definitely inferior. There has to be some negative effect of the new writers’ quotas in the industry or something because these stories suck. Try writing a protagonist who’s amazingly skilled from the beginning and who never seems in real danger from the antagonist. It’s boring, it’s incompetent, and by now it’s predictable. There are films displaying the much-mocked ‘girl boss’ archetype which aren’t bad (like the new ‘Predator’). I don’t mind them.
These are the fictional worlds and stories which have been butchered in the 5 ways described above, to the dismay of true fans of all kinds, just in the past 2-3 years:
DC comic universe
Marvel Extended Universe (in over 15 films and shows; ALL have seen every change I listed)
Willow
Star Wars
Tolkien’s Legendarium
Indiana Jones
I’m sure I’m leaving many out. I’m writing this quickly with no preparation or reference. I will write something elsewhere about Amazon’s abortion of Tolkien’s creative vision (the ‘Rings of Power’ miniseries). The last 3 (in bold) are particularly egregious cases, for me and for millions of fans. If none of these stories have captured your imagination it may be difficult to grasp what I’m talking about. I want to be clear: these were magical stories for me, and the works created were-in a sense-as real and dear to me as places I visited and people I knew in my youth. They didn’t just fire my imagination… they taught me the virtues of bravery and curiosity and heroism as epic stories have been doing to children for 50 thousand years.
The most recent franchise to fall was Indiana Jones. I’m joined in my disgust by a million other cinema nerds and boyhood adventurers-of-the-mind. What do the ideologues and the studios gain from these diminutions? Certainly not money. Kathleen Kennedy (George Lucas’ predecessor as the head of Lucasfilm Studios) has now driven every IP created by Lucas over decades into deep financial failure and aroused the ire of an entire world of fans. ESG rules on studios and corporations are probably a part of the calculus, and I do think the writers and producers believe that their vision is a vision of the future and of progress. I just wish they would stop hijacking the beloved stories of my boyhood for their political project. If Indy is such an orientalist and a chauvinist why would you want his name on the marquis of your new film? Probably because NO ONE would watch any original films by these writers. Nevertheless, I urge them: tell your own damn stories and stop ruining ours.
Share this post
Requiem for Indiana Jones
Share this post
I know I talk a lot about Critical Theory (CT) and its spawn… but try to see things from my point of view:
Not just every public intellectual but every comedian, and many directors, novelists, scientists, etc. that I love and respect are sounding the alarm about recent changes, which all originate with CT.
More and more university departments and fields of study are infested with ideas that, once established, are beyond any debate. The two fields most important to my future plans (Social Work and Teacher Education) are among the most thoroughly saturated. The admissions committees and accreditation boards and faculty are basically all now CT ideologues (or marching along with them in silent assent).
I see two dozen bad and resentment-building and historically ignorant ideas spreading like wildfire among young people. It turns out that most Americans are, at some point in young adulthood, mediocre college students so if you can transmit your dogma to this group you’ve scored a major victory.
Now even our fantasy and fictional worlds are falling, bending the knee to the same weird identitarian political impulses and cultural hegemony that dominate professional sports, entertainment studios, corporations, universities, government agencies, etc. and yet still claim to be the voice of the marginalized (!!!).
When I was a boy fantasy was very important to me. I was a cerebral and somewhat strange kid and always enjoyed stepping through my own Lewisian wardrobe, which was my imagination. I would sit and read for hours and hours (which I still do but now my reverie is ominously interrupted by an urge to check my phone). I can’t think of a single major fantasy or science fiction universe that I didn’t explore, mostly through reading but also through art (I highly recommend the picture book Dinotopia to anyone trying to engage children) and FILM.
The Lord of the Rings; C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy; Cities of Gold and Lead; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Dune; Star Wars… the Indiana Jones trilogy
I mention that last item (and it WAS a trilogy, by right) because it’s the most recent IP in a long procession of wonderful and compelling stories ruined by bad modern ideas. I couldn’t tell you how closely CT is implicated in the degradation of the Indy franchise but there are some pretty clear signs:
Politically charged statements by producers and cast before the release
The reduction of a beloved male hero to a broken shell
The promotion of a new female protagonist
The absence of any real struggle or character arc for that female character; she’s amazing and trouncing villains early on in the film and does the same at the end; she learns almost nothing because she knows the truth from the outset
The confusion of the traditional ‘Hero’s Journey’ wherein a young character is called to go on a great quest, learns and grows, and returns with a ‘boon’ (Read Joseph Campbell for the rest…); flat or branching or ‘meta’ narrative arcs and character development
This issue isn’t primarily objectionable to me because of its political aims. There have been a hundred different fantasy/sci-fi creations with strong female leads who weren’t ridiculous archetypes of aggressive perfection: Terminator, Alien, Ladyhawk, The Ghost in the Shell, etc. etc.
It’s offensive because it’s a radical re-imagining of stories that have been dear to me my entire life and these mutated forms are definitely inferior. There has to be some negative effect of the new writers’ quotas in the industry or something because these stories suck. Try writing a protagonist who’s amazingly skilled from the beginning and who never seems in real danger from the antagonist. It’s boring, it’s incompetent, and by now it’s predictable. There are films displaying the much-mocked ‘girl boss’ archetype which aren’t bad (like the new ‘Predator’). I don’t mind them.
These are the fictional worlds and stories which have been butchered in the 5 ways described above, to the dismay of true fans of all kinds, just in the past 2-3 years:
DC comic universe
Marvel Extended Universe (in over 15 films and shows; ALL have seen every change I listed)
Willow
Star Wars
Tolkien’s Legendarium
Indiana Jones
I’m sure I’m leaving many out. I’m writing this quickly with no preparation or reference. I will write something elsewhere about Amazon’s abortion of Tolkien’s creative vision (the ‘Rings of Power’ miniseries). The last 3 (in bold) are particularly egregious cases, for me and for millions of fans. If none of these stories have captured your imagination it may be difficult to grasp what I’m talking about. I want to be clear: these were magical stories for me, and the works created were-in a sense-as real and dear to me as places I visited and people I knew in my youth. They didn’t just fire my imagination… they taught me the virtues of bravery and curiosity and heroism as epic stories have been doing to children for 50 thousand years.
The most recent franchise to fall was Indiana Jones. I’m joined in my disgust by a million other cinema nerds and boyhood adventurers-of-the-mind. What do the ideologues and the studios gain from these diminutions? Certainly not money. Kathleen Kennedy (George Lucas’ predecessor as the head of Lucasfilm Studios) has now driven every IP created by Lucas over decades into deep financial failure and aroused the ire of an entire world of fans. ESG rules on studios and corporations are probably a part of the calculus, and I do think the writers and producers believe that their vision is a vision of the future and of progress. I just wish they would stop hijacking the beloved stories of my boyhood for their political project. If Indy is such an orientalist and a chauvinist why would you want his name on the marquis of your new film? Probably because NO ONE would watch any original films by these writers. Nevertheless, I urge them: tell your own damn stories and stop ruining ours.