MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > I'm getting tired of people complaining ...

I'm getting tired of people complaining about movies because they think there's a political agenda.


Somebody shooting a home intruder doesn't mean the movie is trying to say they are pro-gun. A disaster movie where people try to survive the elements of weather doesn't mean the film is trying to claim it's a global warming film.

I mean, sure there are some obvious example, but so many people are looking for a political complaint in movies like Joker and Inception. Most movies are just trying to entertain you, they're not trying to shove a message down your throat.

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Joker I can somewhat understand, but Inception? What is the political agenda of Inception?? 😮

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If you can find it, I got into a fight with some dude back in the IMDb days. He wasn't even the only one saying it.

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Actually, Nolan is one of the most independents and less political filmmakers right now.

I don't get why he uses Inception as an example of complains about political agenda. Almost every movie nowadays have a racial/political agenda, but for some reason he has chosen one of the few ones that doesn't...

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Just because a film has a woman in it doesent mean its a lesbian man hATING FEMINST PC GONE MAD AGENDA LEFTY COMMIE .
oops caps.
he may have chosen bad examples ,but you are making his point for him



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Huh? You slipped your inner Kowalski out, didn't you?

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?????

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"Almost every movie nowadays have a racial/political agenda"

I'm trying to think of movies i watched recently that are new ,

the ones that come to mind are
Hacksaw ridge
Green Book
BlackKKclansman

now i realsie 2 ot those featue black people, but does that mean they "have an agenda" ?


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Some people feel the need to insert politics into everything. They must not have a life.

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I would put Joker in the "obvious" category. It couldn't be more heavy-handed and on-the-nose with its message.

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Can I ask why? I felt it was a film about a mentally ill man who became an ararchist. He hated the world, and people hated people like him.

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Wayne and Arthur's first victims are the "capitalist pigs" who have dominion while Arthur slips through the cracks of a system that doesn't have enough money to fund his therapy, his therapist, or his medication. A system that let his mother do what she did. The message is that he was determined by his environment. He's a creation who didn't have to turn out that way. That message is aligned with a certain political philosophy. The opposing philosophy is more associated with "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps".

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I don't feel like them being capitalists matter that much. He just was one. I could understand if Arthur started going off of anti-capitalist rants.

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Of course he doesn't. He doesn't know since he's just a domino that fell from preceding dominoes. He's a product. But you didn't read the signs of his followers? It was as much about class struggle as Parasite. The agenda is the usual depiction of "haves and have nots" of a "rigged system" where nothing actually trickles down to those forgotten and on the margins. The film shows how that system created Joker from Arthur.

When some guy in the inner city robs a convenience store, and kills the clerk in the process, what does each side say? One side says "But he came from a broken home, with no father or a step-father who beat him; with a drug-addled mother; with little or no income; with little or no education. The system let him down. It was inevitable he turned out this way." The other side says, "Monster! He knew what was doing. Throw away the key." I'll let you assign the affiliations. But we both know which loves the determinist theme but would hate a rich businessman running for Mayor who lives in a gated estate outside the rat-infested city where he made all his money. The Chaplin film "Modern Times" (its theme and politics) playing isn't a coincidence. The magical interior of the theater where you're seeing where the upper crust being entertained isn't a coincidence. Neither is Arthur dressed as a bellboy caricature to get in. And the inspiration for that first shooting is the Goetz shooting in NYC in '84 -- but instead of shooting would-be muggers, Arthur shot "Wall Street guys" as he describes them in his speech. (which I think is a goof since I don't think Wall Street exists in Gotham)

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Damn, how many times have you seen this movie? I didn't pick any of that up when I saw it.

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twice. once in the theater and again recently on HBO.

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I gotta watch it again. I didn't notice any of that.

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Don't worry. Many professional critics were so fixated on "white male shooter" that they didn't notice those things either.

But pay attention to the clock on the wall during his visit to the counselor.

Then pay attention to the clock on the wall during the flashback of him at Arkham.

that isn't a coincidence either.

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Im sold! Your brain is good. Your reasoning and evidence is so solid.

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Hear, hear! Sure, there are some that are and always have been, but I'm sick of people examining every movie for political messages.

Sometimes a movie's just a movie.

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When True Lies came out, people were offended that it was some right wing attack on Arabs because they were the terrorists in the movie. To me it was just a film when Arabs happened to be the bad guys. How come they weren't complaining about Germans being the bad guys in Die Hard? Weird standards people have.

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Doesn't matter whether people are looking for and complaining about right or left agendas. Same thing, different perspective.

Too many people looking for things to be upset about.

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maybe its just the 'pattern' of arabs just happening to be the bad guys most of the time. i dunno.

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Then it would be more logical call out the entire thing, rather than a specific movie. You call out one, you have to call out all.

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Yes. I can also feel this criticism going a little overboard like a pure excuse to not like a movie just like the woke thing.

I do the feel like the woke movement has gone a little too far however not every film that has female protagonists are woke movies.

I’m not saying it’s the best film ever but Men in Black international was accused by critics of hammering on us the female empowerment but I didn’t feel that. Didn’t give me that vibe. I’ve seen others which I feel like yeah they are right about that and i do dislike the woke thing very much
But people have been throwing the Woke criticism way too much even when it doesn’t apply.

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I agree 100%. Men in Black just added a female character to accompany a male one. A woke movie would be like the Ghostbusters remake. They changed all the male characters to male. The same with Ocean's 8. That is the definition of woke propaganda.

People are also lying to sound woke like when they said Black Panther was the first black superhero movie. did they forget about: Spawn, Blade and Hancock? Hell, even Blankman.

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I agree.

Yes, things have gone too far, to the point where it feels like it's contrived, having a strong female protagonist ("Not that there's anything wrong with that") or whatever other type of character or theme has become currently popular.

I'm so sick of hearing the word "woke," along with "incel" and a number of other popular put-down words.

I didn't see Men in Black International because I loved Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones so much in the first ones. How would you rate it, 1-10?

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I id say the MIB international for me it’s a solid 7.

It accomplished what I was looking for pure mindless entertainment with great eye candy and the chemistry between Thessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth is great. You can believe them they like each other and work together as a team pretty well.

Don’t expect it to blow your mind but it’s a few fun hours in front of your tv. Probably it wasn’t worth to pay for it to watch in theaters but still got what I was looking for when I saw it.

It’s more Of a film to watch in Netflix or any streaming service than watching it in theaters but if you see definitely will have a good time with it

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I'm up for good mindless entertainment, if you consider the first MIBs that, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Happy to hear there's great chemistry between them. That's one of the things I loved so much about the first MIBs; the chemistry between Will Smith and Tommy Lee was great! I was afraid that would be missing.

I only stream anyway, and will see if Amazon Prime has it. Hope so. That'd take care of what to watch tonight :)

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😥 No such luck. I'll have to wait it out.

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Yes we all need some mindless entertainment once in a while.

the films you mentioned definitely count and don’t worry the film one of these days will appear there or you can just google it to watch it online.

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I love those movies, and rate them in the 8s! Raiders may be a 9 or 10. Well MIB1 was pretty great too. Oh, I don't know.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing this as soon as it shows up on Prime :)

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"I'm so sick of hearing the word "woke,""

Then your side should stop using it. The left came up with it as a term of pride.

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Tough shit. If a film has an agenda that gets up my nose, I'm going to complain about it!

Of course that doesn't mean I like it when other people do the same thing.

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If it has an agenda, yes. I'm talking about when people are looking for things in movies that don't have it. As I said, people were saying it with Inception.

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It's true, there are people that will start whining about agendas if people who arent of the same race and sex as themselves have more than a couple of lines.
Tgats who I generally avoid the Star Wars boards, which is a pity as I'd love to actually discuss Star Wars.

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I am watching this series called Homecoming - there's a lesbian couple and one is black and one is Chinese. This will drive some people crazy.

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A lot of people don't like Blasians.

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Even worse, it's Blasbians.

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I don't understand why people get so up in arms about interracial couples. It's just so common here. I had never even thought about it until my partners parents immigrated from South Africa and brought it up. Not in a bad way, but as an observation.

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my son and his friends say jokingly that toronto has a outbreak of yellow fever - white guys with asian girls is the in thing.

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My circle is rather varied, but I've been to some pretty cool weddings that incorporate both side's traditions.

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Are white girls in Toronto chasing Asian guys?

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No one is chasing Asian guys.

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Haha tell me about it. Actually Asian girls chase Asian guys but I’m tired of pulling down an Asian girl’s pants and it’s all blurred. I never know what i’m looking at.

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There is a lot of solid data now because dating sites have been around for a long time. If I remember correctly the most searched out group in the US are white females and the least is Indian men. So Asian guys are at least not at the bottom. Lol

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Indians are Asians tho'.

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That is true

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Posted May 26, 2020 {experimenting with timestamps}

Here's my take: if a film wants to have a message, it has to be art or something much deeper than what it presents on its surface. In the words of Irish playwright, Bernard Shaw, who managed to be a gentle and fair man despite his many strong opinions (always the contrarian), said that art is meant to be didactic, a fancy way of saying 'educational'.

Granted, not everything has to be educational; it can simply be fun or amusing, a way to pass the time - a movie. A movie doesn't have to be art like a film does.

Edit:
A film does better being creative with its message. If it's not subtle or in the background and rather overt, in your face, it will come off looking like propaganda. Even then, propaganda can still be masterpieces despite having an open agenda.

~~/o/

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So what you're saying is that films and movies are different things?

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June 2, 2020 Tuesday 10:10 pm

Not really, unless you find it easier to observe films with different treatments this way. Cinema and Motion Picture also have their own meanings too. I think it depends on the kind of presentation they are more than anything else.

Ideally, every movie is going to have an underlying message in order to tell a story. The other day, I was reading something about the first animated Cars film Pixar made - that it was a wholesome family affair. It was then brought up how it showcased two cars "flashing" themselves to the main car, McQueen, how it promoted uncivil drag racing, destruction of private property, and a close-up scene of a car's tattoo. Talk about an imagination, huh?

P.S.
Didactic can have a negative take on the word as well, being used to refer to something as boring.

~~/o/

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Interesting. What is the difference between Cinema and Motion Picture?

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