I watched the TV show a few times, and initially expected to be amused by a scathing social satire of white people, and failed to connect with the show. That shouldn’t be seen as a criticism, and I don’t think it’s any kind of objective evaluation. I had a similar experience with HBO’s Girls. I assumed those shows were good, I watched a few episodes, and i couldn’t really figure out how i was supposed to react to either show. I should acknowledge that I’m okay with the idea that i just wasn’t the target audience. It’s also possible that both represented a new approach to storytelling that blends comedy and drama and satire in a way that I couldn’t understand.
I only saw the earlier seasons of “Girls” and I appreciated it, though I was twice removed, by gender and age, to really get all of it. It’s interesting that criticism is built on the very concept of “getting it”, and I think it has shamed regular people into thinking that “not getting it” is a sin. Which makes sense considering that early pop culture critics were overwhelmingly straight white males.
As someone who is American, straight, male and of a certain age, I’m actually kind of bothered by how much I “do” get, how much is made for my demographic. I’m in my fifth decade, why is so much aimed at my tastes? When I was a kid, it was easy to justify what I enjoyed to older people who rolled their eyes. That’s the way it’s supposed to be! Why are the things I enjoyed in my youth still so prominent today? Why are you making sequels to things I enjoyed as a kid?
You single out “Girls” and “Dear White People”, but think about it — sociologically, shouldn’t MOST of the shows on TV fail to speak to who you are and what your life is? And yet, they don’t. Most of it is pretty easy to grasp from your perspective, right? Seems like a glitch in the matrix, so to speak.
Sure, that makes sense. I’m not sure I agree, but you’re bringing me up short with an intriguing idea I never thought about before.
I will say this— a pretty big chunk of Hollywood and TV output is stuff that doesn’t speak to me at all, and that’s been true for a long time. I don’t tend to think of it as stuff I don’t get, but rather as stuff that would have appealed to me when I was a kid. (Superhero stuff, endless Star Wars variations, inane action films, etc. )
I would argue while that last paragraph you're talking about what doesn't appeal to you (which, same), you're also referring to studios' ATTEMPTS to appeal to you and I. Think about it like this - have you noticed the studios have totally ceded all access to the teenage/young adult audience? They'll always make stuff for little kids, but every other movie feels like it's geared (sometimes ineptly) to people our age and with our temperament. Stuff like Top Gun Maverick only emboldens this stupid approach.
Like, a mass-appeal action movie in the vein of Die Hard and The Killer sounds great to us. But it's actually not mass-appeal anymore. Young people don't necessarily want to see that. I think Hollywood knows that, but they don't have the ability to change this thought. So they'll just keep pitching stuff like that to demographics who are getting older and older.
I apologize if this all feels like a buzz kill. I am old, and I assume you are... Similar. I am not THAT old, but I am outside of relevance.
I think I’m older than you (I’m 58) and I hear what you’re saying. I also think it’s generally true that Hollywood is slow to adjust its formulas, and there’s long been a chicken-or-the-egg question about whether this is driven more by audiences or by the dubious art-by-committee approach that poisons Hollywood product.
It’s going to be hard for me to not include your premise in my analysis from now on; I’ll cheerfully grant you that! I’m smart, maybe, but I’m wary of confirmation bias and while I prefer my social-critic colleagues to agree with me about everything, I do think you’re onto something.
A point in your favor: I have to admit that my perception of what young people want is shaped largely by what’s given them. Thus, I’m on considerably safer ground when I’m evaluating what I see as the effectiveness of a work of art, and I don’t advise anyone to trust me when it comes to the question of what young audiences (or any audiences!) are thinking. Your guess is as good as mine, and quite possibly better.
Kindly received! I’m only 40, and often I read or see things aimed at the youth. My first thought is usually, “I don’t get this!” But the second thought is, “I probably shouldn’t!” Let the kids, and/or different and diverse populations, have their things, you know?
I just remember growing up in a world of movie stars and pop stars and such. And now, I see studies where they ask young people who the most famous people in the world are. It’s never mainstream celebrities, it’s all internet people, streamers, vloggers, etc.
I’m of two minds about this. One, that the mainstream media completely ignores this ecosystem that plays to young people, like it’s icky and irrelevant when it’s not, and in a way it’s a form of ageism. But two, the young people are lacking the tastemakers of our youth, many of whom had corporate interests at heart, but some that helped us legitimize and delegitimize certain voices. What’s left is that you’re asking parents to monitor the media that kids consume, which is much harder today than yesterday, and it lets nihilism thrive whereas it was once marginalized to an extent.
In other words, I think paying attention to what teenagers and young adults consume will help them ultimately be a little choosier and more circumspect about what they digest. But today’s wealthiest middle-agers have too much clear contempt for them, particularly in Hollywood, where studios still assume our biggest stars are people from twenty years ago who are entering their fifties.
Mind you, what’s lost in that big superhero boom of the last decade-plus is that nearly all those characters were the product of the sixties and seventies. Kids today do not read comic books!
I watched the TV show a few times, and initially expected to be amused by a scathing social satire of white people, and failed to connect with the show. That shouldn’t be seen as a criticism, and I don’t think it’s any kind of objective evaluation. I had a similar experience with HBO’s Girls. I assumed those shows were good, I watched a few episodes, and i couldn’t really figure out how i was supposed to react to either show. I should acknowledge that I’m okay with the idea that i just wasn’t the target audience. It’s also possible that both represented a new approach to storytelling that blends comedy and drama and satire in a way that I couldn’t understand.
I only saw the earlier seasons of “Girls” and I appreciated it, though I was twice removed, by gender and age, to really get all of it. It’s interesting that criticism is built on the very concept of “getting it”, and I think it has shamed regular people into thinking that “not getting it” is a sin. Which makes sense considering that early pop culture critics were overwhelmingly straight white males.
As someone who is American, straight, male and of a certain age, I’m actually kind of bothered by how much I “do” get, how much is made for my demographic. I’m in my fifth decade, why is so much aimed at my tastes? When I was a kid, it was easy to justify what I enjoyed to older people who rolled their eyes. That’s the way it’s supposed to be! Why are the things I enjoyed in my youth still so prominent today? Why are you making sequels to things I enjoyed as a kid?
You single out “Girls” and “Dear White People”, but think about it — sociologically, shouldn’t MOST of the shows on TV fail to speak to who you are and what your life is? And yet, they don’t. Most of it is pretty easy to grasp from your perspective, right? Seems like a glitch in the matrix, so to speak.
Sure, that makes sense. I’m not sure I agree, but you’re bringing me up short with an intriguing idea I never thought about before.
I will say this— a pretty big chunk of Hollywood and TV output is stuff that doesn’t speak to me at all, and that’s been true for a long time. I don’t tend to think of it as stuff I don’t get, but rather as stuff that would have appealed to me when I was a kid. (Superhero stuff, endless Star Wars variations, inane action films, etc. )
I would argue while that last paragraph you're talking about what doesn't appeal to you (which, same), you're also referring to studios' ATTEMPTS to appeal to you and I. Think about it like this - have you noticed the studios have totally ceded all access to the teenage/young adult audience? They'll always make stuff for little kids, but every other movie feels like it's geared (sometimes ineptly) to people our age and with our temperament. Stuff like Top Gun Maverick only emboldens this stupid approach.
Like, a mass-appeal action movie in the vein of Die Hard and The Killer sounds great to us. But it's actually not mass-appeal anymore. Young people don't necessarily want to see that. I think Hollywood knows that, but they don't have the ability to change this thought. So they'll just keep pitching stuff like that to demographics who are getting older and older.
I apologize if this all feels like a buzz kill. I am old, and I assume you are... Similar. I am not THAT old, but I am outside of relevance.
I think I’m older than you (I’m 58) and I hear what you’re saying. I also think it’s generally true that Hollywood is slow to adjust its formulas, and there’s long been a chicken-or-the-egg question about whether this is driven more by audiences or by the dubious art-by-committee approach that poisons Hollywood product.
It’s going to be hard for me to not include your premise in my analysis from now on; I’ll cheerfully grant you that! I’m smart, maybe, but I’m wary of confirmation bias and while I prefer my social-critic colleagues to agree with me about everything, I do think you’re onto something.
A point in your favor: I have to admit that my perception of what young people want is shaped largely by what’s given them. Thus, I’m on considerably safer ground when I’m evaluating what I see as the effectiveness of a work of art, and I don’t advise anyone to trust me when it comes to the question of what young audiences (or any audiences!) are thinking. Your guess is as good as mine, and quite possibly better.
Kindly received! I’m only 40, and often I read or see things aimed at the youth. My first thought is usually, “I don’t get this!” But the second thought is, “I probably shouldn’t!” Let the kids, and/or different and diverse populations, have their things, you know?
I just remember growing up in a world of movie stars and pop stars and such. And now, I see studies where they ask young people who the most famous people in the world are. It’s never mainstream celebrities, it’s all internet people, streamers, vloggers, etc.
I’m of two minds about this. One, that the mainstream media completely ignores this ecosystem that plays to young people, like it’s icky and irrelevant when it’s not, and in a way it’s a form of ageism. But two, the young people are lacking the tastemakers of our youth, many of whom had corporate interests at heart, but some that helped us legitimize and delegitimize certain voices. What’s left is that you’re asking parents to monitor the media that kids consume, which is much harder today than yesterday, and it lets nihilism thrive whereas it was once marginalized to an extent.
In other words, I think paying attention to what teenagers and young adults consume will help them ultimately be a little choosier and more circumspect about what they digest. But today’s wealthiest middle-agers have too much clear contempt for them, particularly in Hollywood, where studios still assume our biggest stars are people from twenty years ago who are entering their fifties.
Mind you, what’s lost in that big superhero boom of the last decade-plus is that nearly all those characters were the product of the sixties and seventies. Kids today do not read comic books!