Could be? Obviously, they want the widest possible audience… but given the narrative arc, I think that Gilligan was pushing for a particular understanding of that narrative arc…
Sure, but that’s tied together yeah? I guess I have an inherent critic of that kind of mode of thinking about the media, that’s it’s top-down product making, and that artistry is often neglected it not outright rejected… That was very much the view of folks like the Frankfurt school, who looked down on all mass culture, without any real differentiation (with the except of Walter Benjamin). But I think that the concept of a web rather than a top-down pyramid makes more sense to me, at least in how the mass media has actually functioned in history. It’s true that there are attempts by power brokers to control the masses, but that has not always worked out the way that they expected. If jazz (famously Adorno sneered at jazz) was a musical form meant to soothe the working classes and turn them from class struggle, bebop turned that on its head and fueled the Black freedom struggle. You can say the same of other folk musical forms that the industry attempted to commodify… it’s never really fully worked. People find their own uses for culture…
But there you get into the intent of two different authors… Palahnuik and Fincher… And what about the death fo the author, too? Like, if both intended a critique of violence, is it entirely their fault if it’s not taken in that manner?
Oh, certainly. I think it’s frustrating that the mass media does tend to still center white, hetero men over the rest of us. We certainly need more diversity in storytelling. There is getting to be some diversity behind the scenes in media… is it enough? I don’t think so, but it’s there. I think, despite all it’s many failings, social media has helped in that regard? It’s been interesting to see someone like Abigail Thorn, for example, go from being a youtuber and stage actor to now showing up all over the place (Star Wars, apparently in House of the Dragon), as well as her and Jessie Gender having their own works getting a higher profile thanks to Nebula…
I don’t disagree. I just don’t think we should dismiss the attempt at a critique out of hand. And while certainly some views read into these shows a message that confirmed their own views about themselves and the world, plenty of others read it in different ways, including as a critique of toxic white masculinity.
TLDR: I’m all for greater diversity in mass media, for more diverse kinds of stories, for less centering of whiteness… but some of these aren’t to be dismissed out of hand, I think?