Watch something else? There's a functionally infinite amount of content out there, and most of it isn't about billionaires.
this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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NoYank. Remove All American Media And Culture From Your Life
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Remove All American Media And Culture From Your Life
Anti-imperialist comm to help you in your personal journey of cultural anti-imperialism.
American culture has spread all over the world, it has dumbed down and impoverished our variegated pre-colonial and non-capitalist cultures. Every time you yank yourself, a bit of their culture worms its way into your mind. Sometimes it's explicit propaganda like Top Gun, but sometimes it's subtle: the contempt shown for the poor, the celebration of selfishness, the value-system of their empire.
All inputs enter the mind, are absorbed, and blossom as thoughts and deeds. Mass-produced culture dulls you and makes you a boring, mass-produced personality. And nations are losing their personality by letting one imperial power do this to them.
That the empire is doing this as a more-or-less deliberate tool of influence doesn't need stressing.
Stop doing this to yourself. Don't watch their television. Don't watch their films. Don't read their stupid news and politics: ABC and CNN and NBC and the rest. Don't be so fucking boring. You don't have to be boring and stupid. Turn off your TV. Pick up some of your country's classic books, or listen to African funk, or go to a storytelling night.
Examples of posts that are welcome
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Give recommendations of internationalist media. Discuss alternatives. 🎶🎥📺🎮📰
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Bookclubs for anti-imperialist books or just any non-american books
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Complain about americanised people and culture.
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Talk about your motivations. Share your personal journal of de-americanisation.
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Only way to write characters with agency these days
Watch Fleabag.
It does seem like all the stuff that's pushed most in popular culture is about "special" people or groups. Whether it's billionaires or the whole superhero trope about about some kid realizing they are super, i.e. better than everyone else.
I see it as part of capitalist culture to promote the idea that you are not enough and should aspire to be like these special people. It's part of the mechanism for creating "temporarily embarassed millionaires".
The Last Jedi tried to go with "anyone can be a hero" and hoo boy were people not happy.
Movies are not always about billionaires, so your premise is incorrect.
Here's a short list off the top of my head ..
- Die Hard
- Rambo
- Rooster Cogburn
- Moana
- Predator
- Star Wars
But movies are often about escapism, and rich people can often do things we can't do.
Also it's a great plot device. Minimum Wage Tony Stark couldn't be Iron Man (despite the fact he built the Mark I suit in a cave).
The fact that Tony Stark is wealthy being imagination helps in the suspense of disbelief. The same could be said about Bruce Wayne.
Haha, one title I was thinking of posting was "When it's not about cops or special forces, it's about billionaires", so you've largely proven my point.
Even then, if you want a struggling superhero, there's Spider-Man.
Rooster Cogburn, the 1975 sequel to True Grit, feels oddly out of place in that list. Blockbuster, blockbuster, serviceable sequel to a genuine classic, blockbuster, blockbuster, blockbuster. I really don't mean to be critical, the protagonist is clearly not a billionaire so it fits, but I am very curious as to the reasoning.
Let's be fair to usher. It is about a family of billionaires dying.
I feel like this is pretty flawed. You basically have collected four tv shows from the same ‘rich family drama’ genre and then asked “why are all these rich family dramas about dramatic families with lots of money?”
And even then glass onion barely feels like it stands in the list you’re trying to make because there’s plenty of crime and detective dramas that don’t focus on the super wealthy.
And even then glass onion barely feels like it stands in the list you’re trying to make because there’s plenty of crime and detective dramas that don’t focus on the super wealthy.
This is incorrect. It's a convention of the genre that an heiress/tycoon gets murdered and the detective tries to solve it, typically in a mansion.
This goes back to Agatha Christie, unlike OP was saying, but it seems pointless to deny the class bias exists. Obviously the class bias exists.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/a_murder_at_the_end_of_the_world — "A Murder at the End of the World is a limited series about a Gen Z amateur sleuth and a billionaire's guests who...."
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/arrow — "When presumed-dead billionaire playboy Oliver Queen returns home..."
Just skimmed thru a list of slop: Schitt's Creek, Gossip Girl, The White Lotus, Below Deck all seem to be about the haute bourgeoisie.
What are you trying to claim? That they're not overrepresented ?
I’m not trying to claim anything. I’m saying, to my ears, it sounds like you’re just complaining that a genre of storytelling and that tropes within certain genres just exist.
Why not try promoting the work you feel is underrepresented? What are some ‘better’ things we could be watching instead of the ‘slop’?
Why not try promoting the work you feel is underrepresented? What are some ‘better’ things we could be watching instead of the ‘slop’?
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I’m saying, to my ears, it sounds like you’re just complaining that a genre of storytelling and that tropes within certain genres just exist.
I am yeah.
Glass Onion is easy: annoying tech guy trope (musk, zuck, SBF)
Loot is obviously a reference to Melinda Gates/whoever divorced 
I'd say so much billionaire content because our society pays a lot of attention to billionaires. It's not like we have Royals anymore. Wealth/power fantasies.
Even in the fictional worlds, they make them about kings/emperors etc. (Game of Thrones etc.)
I’d say so much billionaire content because our society pays a lot of attention to billionaires.
exactly: it's an example of how the media indoctrinates those values
Watch some copaganda with corrupt cops that almost exclusively do illegal and abhorrent things but are still somehow the good guys / stars of the show!
(In other news I can recommend this season's The Apothecary's Diaries anime about a common girl who is a herbalist that gets kidnapped and sold into the royal palace in fantasy China and solves assorted mysteries and intrigues there. There might be a billionaire / royal love interest but I hope it doesn't come to that. Atm she always gags or shudders when he tries to flirt with her 👌)
Drama has these things called "stakes."
Money's an easy one.
A lot of money is an intensifier.