JCC Senate What is the most problematic media you consume?

Rowling is probably going to loathe the Hogwarts Legacy game out next year.

 

Is she getting royalty payments from it?

If so, I'm sure she's perfectly happy

 

I think Rowling is the example of how money doesn't buy happiness or contentment, given what she's become. She'll make money from it but it won't do her any good.

What I'm getting at is it has a character creator that allows for a lot of options and it's standard for these games to enable character changes at any point. That's what won't be liked.

If I was WB I'd be emphasising the separation of the game from Rowling as much as possible.

 

She gives us trans people "Prince John" vibes. More recently, we've shared GIFs of PJ sucking his thumb. It's reminiscent of rich but unhappy Rowling's whining on Twitter.

 

She's flat out said she doesn't care if her bigotry alienates people so long as she still gets paid.

 

Sad but not surprising. She's on the Lucas path but worse where she'll keep trying to tell the fans what Harry Potter is only to be told to feck off by them.

 

At least Lucas learned that his unconscious racism was wrong. I bet he also learned that how he wrote Padme in AOTC and ROTS was not-so-good. I'll never forget that interview he gave during which he said that his rich friends reprimanded him for giving nearby land to folks down on their luck. Overall, he's still a bit too moderate and affluent for my preference, but I think he's a better person than Rowling. The old EU had its problematic elements, whereas the new one (aside from Epodes 7 and 8) seems to have removed most of those issues in terms of protagonists. While he wasn't involved in that, I believe letting go of his sweeping creation was a good thing.

Having said all that, I don't believe that we'll have a full picture of Lucas until biographies are written about him after he passes. I will say this. I would most likely enjoy a visit with him, whereas I would probably do one of my pacifist chalk protests in front of Rowling's castle. Let's say I was in Cali. If I ran into Lucas, I'd be nervous and excited. If I was in Great Britain, and I ran into Rowling, I'd turn in the opposite direction. She's friends with some pretty extreme people who are homophobic, anti-abortionist, and racist. Lucas is married to an African American.

 

I was using Lucas in a pretty narrow sense, of seeing SW as purely his when it had become so popular it no longer was. Go wider and it breaks down pretty fast.

 

The problem is at a certain point it doesn't matter how unpopular you make yourself. if you have a suitably large and beloved franchise then it'll make money no matter what.
Harry Potter will still be big long after Rowling is dead, she can be as offensive as she wants and that won't change.

She's smart enough to have weighed up the pros and cons of going public with the views she has. If it was financially disastrous to do it, she wouldn't have

You could say that about almost every character he wrote for the Prequels, that's a big factor in why they are as they are.

 

When you have millions, nothing is financially disastrous. She's insulated from everything except poor opinions of her work.

It is kind of impressive I suppose to get a new series to the level of mass success akin to SW and ST, then come out with personal views so bad the company and main actors of the films disavow her.

 

Doesn't mean much if the next Fantastic Beasts movie and her next crime novel still do well.
After all, she will be reviewed on her ability as a writer not her personal beliefs.
Which is as it should be

 

As a kid I hated Harry Potter. It just wasn't for me at all. I watched the first movie and never bothered with the rest as they were coming out (someone did eventually show them to me as an adult and I was, frankly, bored to tears watching them... though I will admit that whichever one it was that Alfonso Cuarón did was pretty well directed, especially in comparison to all the others), and I gave the books a look over and then moved on to titles that I just found more appealing to me at the time. I'm right in the appropriate age range where all of my peers grew up obsessed with it (I'm 28 now) and I just.... didn't care about it at all. So coming at it from my perspective, with me finding her writing to be junk followed by her subsequently revealing herself to be such a vile, hateful person, it's been pretty easy for me to just not tune in to any of her stuff or financially enable her.

 

When I was around nine, I was very into it for a bit. I'm glad that phase wore off long before she turned out to be a monster and also before I had the reading comprehension for things like the happy slave race to stick out so much. Now I just get to laugh at terrible Fantastic Beasts sequels.

To the topic of the thread, I don't know I can say any singular most problematic thing, but I liked Top Gun this year - a military recruitment ad led by a cult figurehead.

 

Yeah, I agree. I've avoided anything by Cruise for years, but Top Gun: Maverick took me right back to my teens. I also avoid John Travolta's work for the same reason, and Mel Gibson's because I find his opinions hateful.

 

Is Scientology inherently bad?

I think it's nonsense, but I can't say I've ever seen or heard anything that makes me think Cruise isn't a good person.
He has a very positive reputation in Hollywood compared to many others.

 

Yes. It is an inherently abusive organization that charges people for religious "insight". But more importantly, they literally make members do slave labour and be detained against their will.

And where is Shelly Miscavige?

Scientology is absolutely inherently bad. Watch some docs.

 

Yep I still loved Maverick and Mission Impossible but Cruise is terrible as a person.

 

Harry Potter
Christopher Hitchens
Friends
Professional wrestling
Soon the 2022 World Cup

 

I recommend Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright. I think it got turned into a documentary series by Alex Gibney, but I never watched it. But the book is just riveting reading.

 

Yes they made a documentary for Going Clear. Also Leah Remini had a great miniseries documentary as well talking to former members about the abuse.

 

Another one for me is the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Marvel contracts out crappy companies that don't pay their VFX artists fairly, and the overall ethos of the MCU mythos is typical ****lib status quo BS--sometimes with blatant moments of copaganda (looking at you season finale of Ms. Marvel!).

But even though it gets dunked on around here (and for good reason)... I love it. I have ever since the first Iron Man, and I have yet to experience the burnout a lot of other fans are feeling. I eagerly devour each new series and movie that comes out. I like the interconnectedness of it, the multiplicity of genres, all the variety of characters--and yes, the quips too. It's like the superhero universe I wanted as a kid but only got from the Christopher Reeve Superman and Michael Keaton Batman movies.

I know we're never going to have a major corporate blockbuster film about a superpowered comrade bringing about the revolution and overthrowing the bourgeoisie, but I still enjoy the "fantasy" of the MCU's status quo actually being a good.

 

are: Cruise and Scientology, a former member of the church’s inner circle said Miscavige once told him that Cruise is the only other person he would trust to run the church. He’s definitely a guy who knows where the bodies are buried.

 

What.

Either you extoll virtues, or you say **** them. This makes it seem like you both say: we have morals, and we make a big deal of them, but entertainment is more important.

 

Yes.

One can be a member of an evil cult and still generally act as a decent person while they promote a cult that does a huge amount of harm.