Last week, I asked you if you think
creators or media have some sort of responsibility
to be accurate.
We talked about "Jurassic World", "CSI",
and Neil deGrasse Tyson ruining everybody's space fun.
Let's see what you had to say.
Spinfuzz on the subreddit brings up
Tolkien's idea of secondary belief, which is really great
and definitely a part of this conversation--
this idea that one does not need to actually believe
that elves are real, for instance,
in order to fully buy in to a story.
And they talked about this idea of earning the things that
are not necessarily true or possible in the fictional
stories that we read, that creators
have to earn these things that are not factual in some way.
And I think that this is a great way to put this idea.
srpilha, in their comment, which is great
and I highly recommend reading the whole thing,
also talked about the sort of Tolkien aspect of things
and how these fictional stories kind of are teaching us
about themselves while they are doing the world building.
And so there is some sort of education and responsibility.
But again, it all comes into place of entertainment.
So it's important to consider that as well.
Rolondicus also on the subreddit writes about their experience
as a historical fencer as it relates to violence in media.
And I am not even going to attempt
to summarize what is said because this is so interesting
and I think that I have a policy now that when someone says
they are a historical fencer, I am going to stop talking
and just listen.
Because this was great.
Rallah, this is a family program.
How dare you!
Anja Boskavich and a bunch of other people
seized onto this idea that the problem of accuracy
in a lot of media is maybe a marketing problem--
that if a story can somehow indicate
to you that is coming from a certain kind
of fictional place, then it is much easier
to forgive its inaccuracies.
But if it is based on a true story
or sort of wears the clothes of something that
seems like it's based on a true story,
it becomes harder and harder to forgive
these things that diverge from facts of the real world.
And I think that this is probably really
the heart of the problem, Matt.
When we go and see something like "Jurassic Park,"
we have this general understanding
that it is, as far as movies go, kind of accurate
about dinosaurs but that it is also a big blockbuster motion
pictures, you know, nonstop thrill ride.
And so that is that tension.
It's almost a marketing tension.
And I think, yeah, it's a great way to put this problem.
Eric Murray talks about how his experience being in the army
makes it hard for him to suspend his disbelief watching action
films.
And this makes me wonder what professions
have the sort of, like, highest incidence
of not being able to watch particular movies
or genres of movies because of how often they just
get it completely wrong.
And I would guess that service member
is really high on the list as well as astrophysicist.
[INAUDIBLE] comment really seizes on something
that I've been thinking about since we've
made this episode, which is situations where being faithful
to reality is actually a slightly more or significantly
more creative decision than what is natural in cinema, which
is a really weird thing to think about-- things where what would
actually happen or what science has said is true
would seem stranger to us in a film than what films
have taught us is the case.
Geezersonthego asks a really great question,
which is essentially if we are concerned about movies being
accurate, whose accuracy is i?
Now you're figure like Idea Channel.
That's a really good question.
That is the handle of Idea Channel's director Morgan.
Boom.
[INAUDIBLE] 21 raises the really important question of accuracy
as it relates to representation in media.
And I think this is a massive and very
important and endlessly fascinating conversation
and there have been all kinds of people
like Mindy Kaling, Margaret Cho, who have talked about sort
of getting back to this question of whose accuracy counts
as accuracy when portraying different races
or orientations in media.
And I think yeah, this is definitely an important part
of this conversation-- one that's big, interesting, very
complicated.
Michael Miller comment responds to another comment written
by Wesley Whiteside about the comic book
side of this question-- whether or not
things like comic book movies have a responsibility
to accurately portray the universes that they
are referencing and sort of gets into the talk of intention
and what the intention of the studios
are when they're making these kinds of movies.
And this is just-- I just want to highlight this because this
is a great comment.
So links to this one and all the others in the doobly-do.
That's all for comment responses this week.
Our first separate comment responses video,
so if you want to write comments but not about the comments
that I have just responded to, you
could write comments about how we are now doing comments.
I would love to know what you think because I respect you
and your opinion.
So thanks.