I’m gonna (yeah, “I’m gonna”) put these two beside each other for minute.If I understand her correctly, @constancegrady's thesis isn't just that these are works that happen to have come out when Barack Obama was president that she now thinks are bad, she's saying they specifically reflect the badness of Obama-era liberalism.https://t.co/PNQzh0mwza
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 29, 2021
Aaron remembers John Madden for the video games his name was attached to for marketing purposes. Then he mentions Madden the color commentator. Madden the football coach? Probably too before his time.RIP John Madden. One of my most enduring memories of his series of video games is players getting run over on the field by an ambulance. More importantly he was a phenomenal broadcaster. pic.twitter.com/cCBOHpGPHC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 29, 2021
As for “Obama-era liberalism,” Bloom would call this “the anxiety of influence.” Everything old is threatening, especially the recently old. So we must kill the father (yes, Freud. Mea culpa). Many a revered artist/novelist /playwright, while alive, faced harsh criticism of now revered works. And after death they all face re-evaluation: some become canonical, some disappear for centuries (Shakespeare, v. Donne, who was revived by Eliot and is now canonical). So it goes.
The dumbest part of this critique seems to be calling the Harry Potter novels “Obama-era,” largely because it fits the thesis and J.K.Rowling is not entirely sympathetic to trans issues. Her Harry Potter novels were published from 1997 to 2007. Obama was President from 2009 to 2017, so… not even close.
Anyway, it’s all the usual muddle of what someone grew up on no longer being the adult (and therefore god-like) authority they thought it was. And being unable to face that simple truth (all such authority is replaced by responsibility as you become an adult), you must “kill” the “authority.” Same as it ever was. Or, in the example of Madden, you don’t know why they had any authority in the first place. Part of being an adult is learning what you didn’t know, and taking responsibility for your ignorance. Well, rather than blaming the world for not being what you thought it was.
Although I did see the movie version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s predecessor play to “Hamilton.” He is too goddamned earnest.
Message musicals intend to preach a sermon. The ones who will get it only have their previous positions supported, the majority will notice the singing and dancing and the plot and whether or not they thought someone in the cast was sexy. One of the dumbest ways to try to say something ever invented by show-biz folk pretending they're doing something important.
ReplyDeleteAnd they so seldom bother to get the facts right, to start with.