In this first edition of The CineMasoCast Tease, Drew Russom takes a hard look at the current societal dismissal of movies that embrace progressive ideas.
Throughout the history of cinema, a symbiotic relationship has formed between the silver screen and the many facets of our real world: politics, social discourse, and even enlightening the masses. This is not a unique concept to this generation of film making, but it does seem to be more vocalized in this day and age. Some section of the populous credit this same concept, but with a negative outline to social justice warriors, or SJWs. On Wikipedia, the definition of an SJW is “a pejorative term for an individual who promotes socially progressive views, including feminism, civil rights, and multiculturalism, as well as identity politics”. This title as an SJW has taken on some multiple connotations, some negative, and methods that have been viewed as counter intuitive to their goal of inclusion to all peoples.
Film studios have come under fire over the past few years with accusations of appealing the SJW with several films that include many characters of varying genders, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientation, but with no narrative or appropriate characterization. With this mind set, some people would just pass on a film just by the trailer, but is this entirely fair? A quick story, in my late teens the Twilight saga began its long arguably notorious reputation if you ask outside the film’s core demographic. I myself made fun of the series without any actual evidence to prove their inadequacy, so I decided to change that sentiment. I now have seen Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and some of Breaking Dawn part one, and can definitively breakdown what I do not like about those movies.
I will not bore you with a long, and arduous retread of what has already been expressed by many critics, but the short version…. READ MORE