It is possible to tell stories that are legitimately disruptive and challenging to patriarchy and to toxic masculinity. They don’t come around very often though. One way you can recognize them is they tend to make patriarchal men kind of uncomfortable.
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Carolyn Petit Retweeted BILL RYAN
Like, can’t we acknowledge that Goodfellas and films like it are not exactly doing wonders for our patriarchal culture without that being equated with calls for censorship?https://twitter.com/faceyouhate/status/1181664830819897345?s=21 …
Carolyn Petit added,
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Replying to @carolynmichelle
Scarface is probably an even more blatant one. Yes, you can see it as a parable of how drugs and obsessive ambition destroy his life and everything he cares for, but then you just have all the fanbros shouting "Haha! Say hello to my leetle friend! The world is yours! Awesome!"
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Replying to @MockWooloo @carolynmichelle
And of course the game even has him killing all his enemies at the film's end, and going on to basically become the Badass King of All Crime.
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Replying to @MockWooloo @carolynmichelle
The problem, see, is that people are fundamentally misunderstanding these movies. For example, you say that at the end of SCARFACE, Tony Montana kills all his enemies and goes "on to basically become the Badass King of All Crime." Here's how SCARFACE actually ends.pic.twitter.com/BJdlShWnj5
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Replying to @faceyouhate
Oh, I agree. I just think it's a reality that people will misunderstand these films, will be far more moved by images of excitement and glorification during a film than any consequences characters may ultimately face as a result of their actions.
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Replying to @carolynmichelle @faceyouhate
And so *if* a film wants to function as a critique in terms of its cultural impact (which it's under no moral obligation to do), then the filmmakers need to understand and account for this about humans and how we collectively respond to images and narratives.
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Replying to @faceyouhate
By not inadvertently glorifying the behaviors they actively intend to critique. But that's hypothetical. Scorsese makes movies because he wants to tell certain kinds stories, not because he wants to actively critique or actively glorify certain kinds of masculinity.
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Replying to @carolynmichelle
I think that's an extreme reduction of what Scorsese does. Do you really not see GOODFELLAS as a critique of those characters?
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I absolutely do. As an individual. Do I think it worked that way in terms of its cultural impact, that by and large patriarchal men left the film feeling a little uncomfortable, a little disrupted, a little challenged in their worldview? No. I sure don't.
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Replying to @carolynmichelle
This is, of course, impossible to know, even with the hazy "by and large" qualifier. But either way you think Scorsese should "account" for this "by not inadvertently glorifying the behaviors they actively intend to critique." Which is asking him to be a worse artist.
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Replying to @faceyouhate @carolynmichelle
It is, essentially, asking him to signal his critique more blatantly, which is, again, essentially what the Hays Code demanded filmmakers of the era do when making movies like this.
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