this thread is funny because I both highkey agree with a lot of what it's saying, but also, enjoy misery when it's what I know I'm signing up for; a lot of the most emotionally satisfying media I've ever consumed has been absolutely harrowing.https://twitter.com/clairewillett/status/1281339393500835840 …
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Replying to @segfaultvicta
The woman writing it identifies as a "Catholic feminist" and her overall argument seems to be pretty pro-uwu so frankly I'm tossing it in the trash and blocking her
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Replying to @BootlegGirl @segfaultvicta
it's hard to evaluate her thread since it's pretty lacking in concrete examples but then, if the real conclusion isn't "there must be a happy ending," if it's just "i prefer it when creators take their work seriously and create good stories," then that's nearly a tautology
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Replying to @perdricof @BootlegGirl
"people should write stuff that emotionally satisfies someone, somewhere, even themselves" is -fairly- so-obvious-as-to-state-nothing except that it relies on a concept of 'emotional satisfaction' that I feel like I can make hay out of somehow
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I'm trying to grapple with her meaning; I'm having trouble thinking of concrete examples of "deliberately emotionally unsatisfying to the audience" from TV/movies/games but it is something that comes up regularly in opera staging, probably other live theatre as well
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Replying to @patiencemosher @segfaultvicta and
like, Eurotrash opera/Regietheater is alllllll about il faut épater les bourgeois and yes, I personally hate it even though it often gets great reviews from critics I do not agree with even a tiny little bit
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Replying to @patiencemosher @segfaultvicta and
Rejecting the Greek principles of mimesis and catharsis as unhelpful to making revolutionary art was the whole Brechtian project
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Replying to @arthur_affect @patiencemosher and
This idea that if you're actually satisfied and happy after watching the play, "I'm so happy this completely imaginary person achieved his imaginary goals", then you're less likely to get off your ass and do something to change the world than you were before
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Replying to @arthur_affect @patiencemosher and
Catharsis as the opiate of the masses He was big on the idea of the play constantly reminding you that it's not real and that it's only referring to things bigger and more important than it is (the "distancing effect")
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Replying to @arthur_affect @patiencemosher and
Me, I don't particularly care about whether art is politically useful (Brecht sure as hell didn't actually succeed at preventing the Nazis or the Holocaust) But I like the meta stuff reminding me everything I'm investing in is imaginary and fake because, well, it's true
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I mean I definitely think his critique has merit when we're looking at popular entertainment today The need for catharsis is especially pernicious in fiction that purports to be history Any true story, by its nature, can't have had a happy ending because it DIDN'T END
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Replying to @arthur_affect @patiencemosher and
The whole thing about how it's almost impossible to find one of those inspirational based-on-a-true-story movies whose ending isn't immediately undermined by just asking what happened next in real life
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Replying to @arthur_affect @patiencemosher and
my first ever extremely impassioned essay was an argument concerning why Apollo 13 was, by virtue of the historical context around its status as an event that happened, and then stopped pretty much optimally, uniquely satisfying as cathartic historical fiction
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