askchapo

Big Joel talked about this in a video about the Lion King. He went on for like 15-20 minutes about how messed up it is that the hyenas are portrayed as naturally evil, basically a plague of locusts that, if allowed into your territory, will turn it into a barren wasteland and how this is just how they are. How they're a horde of violent savages that must be kept out of lion territory, and the story validates this by showing that once Scar takes over and the hyenas are allowed in, it is indeed turned into a hellscape with no food left over for anyone.

And then he says "But here's the thing: The Lion King objectively slaps".

I want to disagree with the general vibe that it is the job of fiction to be perfect and unproblematic in every way.

I don't think anyone here declared that desire, let alone intent. You're condemning something that isn't happening in this thread.

It really is possible to enjoy something while also accepting that it has problematic elements. You claim you are already doing that, yet you're also claiming (falsely) that people here are demanding "perfect and unproblematic" fiction, which is nowhere to be found in this thread.

but it doesn't inherently make any fiction objectively 'bad'.

There's some pretty bad literature out there that has affected people in a bad way more than it did in a good way and has had a distinctly lasting negative impact on the societies that consumed it. Mein Kampf, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Atlas Shrugged all come to mind.

No one is immune to propaganda, and trying to stop people from criticizing entertainment is itself a political statement in support of the status quo by trying to omit dissent and critique.

EDIT: As one more example, yes I will say it's probably "objectively" bad when 4ch!n fascists goad impressionable young people into binge watching gory snuff films to "numb" them in exchange for social acceptance there.

The issue for me is that a lot of the media is targeted at kids, who do not view things critically or "in context". This "it has to be viewed in context" is one of the greatest cop-outs in my opinion, because it makes consuming entertainment media an academic exercise, which it won't be 99% of the time. People will defend Herge's comics for example as "a product of its time and it has to be viewed in this context" which is true on its surface, but then those comics are still found in the childrens comic book section at the library, because those are the only ones who are interested in them.

And it really is everywhere this messaging, and it's impossible to protect your child from it because it will be confronted with it by means of parents who don't inspect the media their kids consumes as critically. Or maybe they're even onboard with the cute messaging of paw patrol or whatever.

If a piece of media addresses problematic themes (via fiction or other) it must be in an age-appropriate manner than sets it in context itself and shouldn't require secondary literature to understand the background.

Also I hate watching childhood shows and having the memory of them marred by realising the fascist messaging in them.