Gaslighting is one of those asinine words invented by Lefties. It is a noun turned into a verb, like scapegoat or 'conversate' and has really only been a thing since about 2010 according to Wikipedia. Taken from the film Gaslight in 1944, it is a pernicious form of lying in which the liar tries to deceive their target by making them question their own reality.
Leading us to
today's example from the Daily Kos:
Right-wing trolls accusing science fiction of being 'woke' are messing with my childhood.Specifically, people don't like the new Lord of the Rings TV series and the Wheel of Time TV series because the shows don't follow the existing cannon of the books.
Yes, no kidding. We've
seen this show before.
Here's the gaslighting, courtesy ofDaily Kos 'staffer'
Christopher Reeves:
Wait, what? I've read almost all of Tolkien. I've watched every Star Trek series. I've read some of Ringworld, and in general, I devoured science fiction. What on Earth are these fans so upset about? What am I missing here? I decided last night to do a little bit of looking, and I regret some of the time I sacrificed but it certainly left me with some thoughts. I can always tell things are going wrong when people use terms like "woke" which is just one of those right-wing slurs that they use to replace "compassionate" or "reasonable" it seems.
Yes friends, there is no Woke agenda to putting black actors in the Lord of the Rings series. This is just people being compassionate and reasonable. Y'all are racist trolls!
Wow, this response is not in any way kidding. YouTube videos are attacking diversity left and right, offended that Black actors have roles in science fiction and fantasy when the roles were not specifically played by white actors or noted as being white in the book, novel, or previous filmed version. The hatred at times is pretty intense:
Yes friends, there was more making the Teen Titans series a garbage fire than the casting of Starfire. But ignoring the entire cannon of DC Comics Teen Titans regarding the character Starfire was certainly part of the garbage that was on fire. Best not to mention though, because that's racist.
What I was reminded of reading through this was a moment I particularly enjoyed from maybe my favorite series of Star Trek, Deep Space Nine.
Yes, Star Trek, the series that started out as Liberals in Space and just kept getting more Woke for 60 freakin' years. (Who drops an antimatter powered warship out of warp space -inside- somebody else's solar system, blythely takes an orbit around the inhabited planet, and then acts surprised when the locals fire on them? The Federation, that's who.) And DS9 was Woke before the word was coined.
The heart of all science fiction has been to understand each other, to venture into what could be, what is, and how things can be better or worse. My dad is far from being a progressive; hell, as far as it goes politically, we don't agree on a lot. But we both love science fiction, despite his mixed reviews on the newest variants. As a kid, if I asked him he would have said without a hesitation that Star Trek 2, 4, and 6 were the best movies. What themes were in them? Environmentalism. Genetic engineering and privilege. Profiteering off of war.
I hate to break it to all of the fan boys who think they should be upset at the casting of shows: You have it all absolutely wrong. That isn't to say I'm going to love the new Amazon series, or that I thought their Ringworld series was the best—it was okay in my opinion—but it is to say that the criticism over companies making science fiction woke? That this is so new it never happened before?
Yes, this is nothing new, my friends. Science Fiction was always Woke, even before there was Woke. You're imagining all this. It's only a TV show, just relax.
Gaslighting.
Meanwhile, in other news,
Netflix issued an interesting memo to its staff.
First reported by Variety, Netflix has added a section on "Artistic Expression," that commits to allowing audience members make their own choices.
"We program for a diversity of audiences and tastes," the statement reads. "And we let viewers decide what's appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices. "
The memo goes on to say that employees may have to work on content that they "perceive as harmful," warning that if this is difficult for them to accomplish, "Netflix may not be the best place for you."
This is because Netflix is shedding subscribers due to being full of nothing but Woke horseshit like the aforementioned Teen Titans tv show, and because the Woke-ists tried to jack up the company over Dave Chappelle making a trans joke on his fabulously successful comedy show. This is the company telling them to settle the fuck down and get back to work.
It's people assuring me that the Vikings were multiracial (modern sense) that make me roll my eyes
ReplyDeleteFrom gatomalo's substack, woke is the ideology caused by the insertion of non- interrogatable payloads into post-modern discourse
ReplyDeleteIt weaponizes intersectionality by turning deconstructionist modalities into a "punch-no-punchbacks" cult.
It's unfair, excluding, and pisses everyone off whether they can define it or not.
"...the insertion of non- interrogatable payloads into post-modern discourse."
ReplyDeleteOr, as I like to say, it's bullshit. ~:D
I'd argue that post-modernism as a whole is a "non-interrogatable payload" dumped into intellectual discourse. Post-Modernism is a non-disprovable conjecture just the same as social Darwinism. Very handy for sneering at people, not so great at measurable results.
Witness the current CRT freakshow of mathematics and measurement being decried as racism and "whiteness". So convenient for whipping up a mob, eh?
Mary said: "It's people assuring me that the Vikings were multiracial (modern sense) that make me roll my eyes."
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly that. The part I like the best about all this is that you and I are racists for pointing that out.
Were there American Indians in the American contingent in Europe in WWI? Yes. Historical record says that is true. Very, very few.
Were they wandering around wearing feathers etc. like the character in the Wonder Woman movie? No. Nuh uh. They were wearing the uniform just like everybody else.
I can take one or two of those in a movie without caring that much, if there's something else of interest going on. Generally though that one out-of-place character is the whole point of the thing, and that's where I have a problem.
Particularly when the source material is the Lord of the Rings, or a comic book where the characters and their looks are firmly established. You do not swap Johnny Storm with Michael B. Jordan and expect it to work.
So racist, right?