Seeking meaningful advice from atheists

[Belacqua]

gary stu

I'd never heard "gary stu" before. I like this! 

As I say, I haven't watched all of these shows, but I expect you're right about the drop in quality. The first Star Wars really struck a chord with people, and all Hollywood knows how to do is try to repeat the unrepeatable phenomenon, with decreasing success. 

Probably really little kids enjoy all of the different Star Wars products, and don't care that there's no reasonable character development, or anything like that. To me, part of the problem is that people haven't grown out of the things we're supposed to grow out of. Movies like this are never any more than kid stuff, and we can only expect childish writing.

It's the same with the endless Batman re-makes. The concept of Batman is ludicrous, and the increasing efforts to make the character more "gritty" and adult-oriented is a sign that grown-ups these days haven't really grown up. All that stuff has illogical premisses and impossible situations baked into it. Criticizing it for being childish is just naming it accurately. 

(And I understand that grownups can enjoy silly stories in their down time. Nobody can read Dostoevsky all the time. But silly is silly.) 

You are right, though, that all of these consumer products sell an ideology. Whether or not it is well-considered, every song, painting, and movie has a subtext and a message. And we are right to explicate that. It really is propaganda, and it really is changing how people think.