It's fiction, people

[SamScribble]

This may not be the best place to bring this up, but here goes.

Lately, I have been reading more than a little comment about how this movie or that book shouldn’t be considered for an award because the writers and/or directors erred from the politically-correct line.

The latest was ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’. I haven’t seen it. Yet. But I'm pretty sure that I will before too long. However, a vociferous group tells me that it needs to be barred from all honours because a racist cop is permitted redemption.

Do these people not understand that fiction is fiction?

 

[NotWise]

Do these people not understand that fiction is fiction?

They have other agendas.

I'm not familiar with the movie, and I can see scenarios where "racist cop" is totally not the worst bad guy.

 

[RetroFan]

I agree with you about the left-wing PC SJW brigade getting so upset about works that were either written a long time ago or set a long time ago and contain content that derail their delicate sensitivities so much. They even get upset about literary classics such as John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice & Men' and Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' because of the racism aspects in the novels. Guess what? Both works were written decades ago, both were set in the 1930s when attitudes like those depicted in the books were common and Steinbeck and Lee portray racism as a bad thing.

Writing most of my stories set in the past, perhaps I should write one about a white family set in the South during the 1950s. The eldest daughter goes out on dates with her Negro (sorry African American) boyfriend, and at high school the two of them walk around holding hands and all the other teenagers think it is swell and so do both sets of parents and everyone else in the community. The eldest son is openly gay and dates his gay Jewish boyfriend, and once again, nobody has a problem with that. Finally the younger son Joseph is transgender and is transitioning into a girl named Josephine, wearing a poodle skirt and blouse to high school, where all of the students and teachers support this as do people in the community and his parents.

The strange thing is, I think left wing SJW types might genuinely like such a story.

 

[YDB95]

The strange thing is, I think left wing SJW types might genuinely like such a story.

I probably meet your definition of "Left wing SJW", but it doesn't sound like I'd be able to suspend disbelief long enough to like that story. I do love stories set in the '50s (I've written several of my own), but your description just smacks of politically correct revisionism.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I agree with you about the left-wing PC SJW brigade getting so upset about works that were either written a long time ago or set a long time ago and contain content that derail their delicate sensitivities so much.

...meanwhile right-wing folk freak out about black Santas, "Happy Holidays", and the word "Easter" not being in large enough font on their chocolate eggs.

Fragile sensitivities galore on both sides of the aisle, my dudes.

Meanwhile, may I commend the Politics forum to your attention for this kind of discussion?

 

[ausfet]

Assuming that anyone who ever wanted anything banned is one homogenous mass with the same expectations and desires is a little amateur. I would draw a large difference between mindless racial insensitivity versus a blunt portrayal of society at a set point in time. Hell, I just wrote a piece (not submitted to lit... and I'm still considering it for this very reason) in which a character makes a statement using extremely racist language.

According to my (brief, internet) research on the TBOEM, the issue that people are taking with it is that it is very forgiving towards a racist cop. I think you'd have to be missing a sensitivity chip to see why that 'non-PC' storyline would grate.

 

[lovecraft68]

I looked on the Shape of water hashtag on twitter briefly

Third tweet is a link to an article where one actress used her 'white privilege' to help a black actress get the recognition she deserved.

I Clicked off.

The liberals are destroying this country and as they throw the word Nazi around and somehow think the GOP wants to ban freedom of speech they are guilty of both. They're sickening and whats worse is this started because idiots catered to them with their apologies and "oh, of course we'll remove that'

And as the OP stated its even spun into fiction.

 

[YDB95]

The liberals are destroying this country and as they throw the word Nazi around and somehow think the GOP wants to ban freedom of speech they are guilty of both.

This belongs in the politics room. I'll be more than happy to debate it with you there, but keep it out of here.

 

[EquinoxRising]

The way the elements weave into one another in that movie is excellent.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Nah, this definitely does belong in here because it affects all writers - and ESPECIALLY, writers/creators.

You can sure, go too deeply down the path of 'merely' discussing/arguing the sheer politics and yes then maybe that side of it could go over to the 'politics' board.

But there is a problem and the problem is not a political one - it is about the authenticity and integrity of the creative act; of the actual writing itself.

I mean seriously - the stuff that is going on is not writing anymore; it's just propaganda. It isn't entertainment and most of the 'product' is not entertaining... Up to a point you can still make 'voluntary' or competing 'propaganda' because that's what commercial advertising is, and you can still make it entertaining - but it (current Hollywood merchandise) isn't (voluntary OR entertaining).

I've been in pretty big time merchant banking and corporate finance the whole of my life - don't let the propaganda fool you: where this will all end up is that Hollywood will literally fold, die, go bankrupt versus the China market and the film makers there, and even the Indian but English-language film makers. People will not buy Hollywood movies, or... ...else they will and then you will have a different problem - good commercial and creative writers will simply, just like they do in Iran and Turkey and all the worst kinds of totalitarian places, find ways to unleash their talent inside the strictures that the producers force on them.

In the end the resolution is always about the money. With corporate media behind it Hollywood has had the money up till now. When corporate media makes a classic miscalculation and LOSES the (flow of) money, then Hollywood either quits this current nonsense or it dies. The end.

Or, if people still BUY, PAY FOR, the rubbish that is currently being foisted onto them, then the corporate media has NOT made a miscalculation.

As a creator, a writer, you have to decide which eventuality you are going to prepare for.

All forced-marches end up in disaster but it can take some time during which phase everything lives in denial and pretends 'things are great.' That's what happened in the Soviet Union and everything was 'great' until it wasn't and everything dead stopped all of a sudden.

I am not 'preparing' for the scenario in which the corporate media and Hollywood wins, simply because the difference between the Soviet Union and here is that here, we pay for stuff.

So the end will come sooner.

This is not a political thing; this is a maths and calculation thing. This is a thing about the preparedness of writers to do whatever 'they are told...'

Won't happen. Writers of all people never do what they are told. Ask any publisher. Ask any editor. Ask any agent.

And there is the exception which proves the rule of course, except I think he's dead. The one I'm thinking of at least. Sure you can get AI machines to 'write.' And you will have the appearance of product. That's what Hollywood's been doing, and that's why it's dying.

And I won't buy any more BS from those who want to jump in now and say 'oh but this flick was good/okay/whatever.' They were not. None of them have been for a long while.

Even the half decent ones were riddled with flaws. Even Disney's patchily very good Beauty and the Beast had too many idiotic ensembles and bad, turgidly long songs just so that the dance studios could have their kids stay longer on screen. Tail wagging the dog. Bad bad all bad.

Hollywood = terminally sick = dying = dead.

 

[SimonDoom]

It seems very unlikely to me that Hollywood will ever die, because regardless of the economics there's too much talent and creativity there, and those people aren't going to simply disappear. Hollywood likely will remain in existence for the same reason Silicon Valley will -- there's a concentration of talent, and talented people like to be around one another. It creates synergies and economies of scale, and gives rise to more creativity and invention.

We also have to be careful about assuming that whatever political trends are present in movies now will continue indefinitely. This may be a phase. Things may change a lot. No one knows the future.

As a young person several decades ago I would never have guessed that our cultural/political climate would be what it is today. I suspect that things 20 years from now will be just as unpredictably different.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hell the same thing happen here. People believe everything on lit is an actual account of a real life event...even if you tell them upfront it's fiction.

 

[SimonDoom]

Hell the same thing happen here. People believe everything on lit is an actual account of a real life event...even if you tell them upfront it's fiction.

This is a very good point, and it's even more true here than in the real world. "Out there" one can say, at least arguably, that a movie maker can and should be criticized for making a movie with an irresponsible message. But here, the whole purpose of the site is to create a space for wild fantasies. It's extremely unlikely that even the most objectionable stories written on Lit would have bad consequences in the real world. But plenty of people do criticize stories because, they claim, the stories aren't like the real world or because their authors must have some sicko desires that they foist on the world out there.

I haven't seen that movie but it sounds like a silly criticism.

 

[Kojak01]

And I won't buy any more BS from those who want to jump in now and say 'oh but this flick was good/okay/whatever.' They were not. None of them have been for a long while.

If the age you have set in your profile is correct (59) I think this whole ramble is mostly a case of 'in my youth everything was better'.

I will always think that the music of my generation was the last really worth listening to (80s). "They just don't make music like *enter-name-of-favourite-artist* did anymore."
But so thinks every age-group. One day, I will hear somebody say "You know, Justin Bieber was the last one who made really good music. Everything since is reprocessed garbage."

The same goes for movies. One day I realised that, even when something totally new comes out it's just a variety of something that has been done before. It may be a bit more obvious nowadays with "Fast and Furious 29", "Rocky 15" or "Die Hard 34" but corporations tend to do what has most chance of success with the lowest possible risk. That's the way it was earlier and that's the way it is now.
Take the James Bond series as an example. It started aeons ago and the basic elements of every movie is the same as of the one before: Culprit wants to destroy earth/become rich/blackmail the free world, Bond kills the bad guy and nails a couple of girls on the way. And also, the bad guy could just have disposed of Bond with a simple bullet to his head at least once along the way but always chooses to kill him somehow special, giving Bond the opportunity to flee and get back in the game.

 

[SimonDoom]

But Bond is a good counterexample to the notion that movies get worse. Casino Royale, which effectively rebooted the franchise with a grittier, more modern, and more realistic Bond, was the best Bond movie since the early Sean Connery movies. It was far more intelligent, better scripted, and better acted than anything that came out when I was growing up.

Since The Sopranos, television shows have been far better and more interesting than what came before it. Sitcoms may not be quite as good as before, and reality television is a scourge, but dramas are far more interesting now than 30-40 years ago.

Things change, for good and bad. If you pay attention you can see both.

 

[8letters]

It's extremely unlikely that even the most objectionable stories written on Lit would have bad consequences in the real world. But plenty of people do criticize stories because, they claim, the stories aren't like the real world or because their authors must have some sicko desires that they foist on the world out there.

It's not the stories that are "out there" that are the problem - is the plain vanilla ones that repeat over and over again the same stereotypes/misconceptions that are. Off the top of my head, I can name five stereotypes/misconceptions that I think are destructive or factually wrong but that I see constantly in I/T stories. It's their constant repetition by a variety of writers that make them seem true even though they aren't.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's not the stories that are "out there" that are the problem - is the plain vanilla ones that repeat over and over again the same stereotypes/misconceptions that are. Off the top of my head, I can name five stereotypes/misconceptions that I think are destructive or factually wrong but that I see constantly in I/T stories. It's their constant repetition by a variety of writers that make them seem true even though they aren't.

I/T stories are a good example of what I mean. I/T in Lit is mostly fantasy, and somewhat absurd fantasy. It bears no relation to 99% of the incest that actually happens. But so what? How is it destructive? I don't see how it is. It's just fantasy, and there's nothing wrong with fantasy, in my opinion. It's only destructive if one believes that people read stories here on Lit and then act out those fantasies in the real world in ways that are destructive, and 1) that strikes me as improbable, to say the least, and 2) whether or not you agree with me, no one here likely has any evidence to the contrary. Criticism is based on biases and hunches, not evidence.

It just seems very much a stretch to me to argue that because someone reads a mom-son story on Literotica they're most likely to abuse their kid. So I don't see the harm.

 

[8letters]

I/T stories are a good example of what I mean. I/T in Lit is mostly fantasy, and somewhat absurd fantasy. It bears no relation to 99% of the incest that actually happens. But so what? How is it destructive? I don't see how it is. It's just fantasy, and there's nothing wrong with fantasy, in my opinion. It's only destructive if one believes that people read stories here on Lit and then act out those fantasies in the real world in ways that are destructive, and 1) that strikes me as improbable, to say the least, and 2) whether or not you agree with me, no one here likely has any evidence to the contrary. Criticism is based on biases and hunches, not evidence.

It just seems very much a stretch to me to argue that because someone reads a mom-son story on Literotica they're most likely to abuse their kid. So I don't see the harm.

It's not the mom-son part. People know that's fantasy. It's the stereotypes/misconceptions that people don't realize are wrong that are the problem.

For example, let's say a virgin eighteen-year-old male reads lots of stories about a virgin eighteen-year-olds who, after a lot of sexual tension and then foreplay, fucks his mom. And in all those stories, the virgin lasts a long time - so long that the mom comes simultaneously with him. That reader isn't going to fuck his mom - he knows that part of the story is a fantasy. However, he is going to fuck a girl some day. And when he does, he's expecting to last a long time - so long that the girl will come simultaneously with him. And when he comes right away, he's going to be embarrassed and disappointed. "There's something wrong with me." "I'm a lousy lover."

 

[oggbashan]

... However, he is going to fuck a girl some day. And when he does, he's expecting to last a long time - so long that the girl will come simultaneously with him. And when he comes right away, he's going to be embarrassed and disappointed. "There's something wrong with me." "I'm a lousy lover."

That is true of almost all porn on whatever media. The expectations of a first time teenager are always unrealistic compared with the reality. Chick Lit with intelligent women and thoughtful sympathetic men is as unrealistic as Macho Man action heroes who save the world before bedding the girl.

Cervantes, when writing Don Quixote, was parodying the unrealistic Knightly romances that were as formulaic as dime westerns of the 1920s. Cervantes was saying 'Sorry folks! The world isn't like that. My hero will try to live one of the romances - see where it gets him.'

 

[SamScribble]

To those of you who are saying this should have been posted on the politics board: my point was not politics. My point was people's apparent inability to distinguish fiction from non-fiction.

And thanks for the contributions of those of you who realised this.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's not the mom-son part. People know that's fantasy. It's the stereotypes/misconceptions that people don't realize are wrong that are the problem.

For example, let's say a virgin eighteen-year-old male reads lots of stories about a virgin eighteen-year-olds who, after a lot of sexual tension and then foreplay, fucks his mom. And in all those stories, the virgin lasts a long time - so long that the mom comes simultaneously with him. That reader isn't going to fuck his mom - he knows that part of the story is a fantasy. However, he is going to fuck a girl some day. And when he does, he's expecting to last a long time - so long that the girl will come simultaneously with him. And when he comes right away, he's going to be embarrassed and disappointed. "There's something wrong with me." "I'm a lousy lover."

Well, again, it's seems like a real stretch to me to think that an 18 year old boy is going to be gulled into believing that anything here is real. And if a few do, well, that's their fault, not the author's. A community that likes to enjoy fantasy shouldn't have to temper its fantasies out of a worry that a few gullible readers might think some of this is true.

That issue aside, I think it's true that fantasy works better when a little verisimilitude is mixed in, and plenty of the stories on this site are missing that. But I think that because of its impact on the story itself rather than because of its possible impact on the reader's real world behavior.

 

[8letters]

Well, again, it's seems like a real stretch to me to think that an 18 year old boy is going to be gulled into believing that anything here is real. And if a few do, well, that's their fault, not the author's. A community that likes to enjoy fantasy shouldn't have to temper its fantasies out of a worry that a few gullible readers might think some of this is true.

When I first had sex, I knew how to make the girl cum. Why? Because I had read porn. I believed I should last as long as the guys do in stories because (1) everything about the foreplay experience tracked what I had read in stories and (2) porn stories were my only source for a detailed description of sex.

There are lots of aspects of sex where places like Literotica are the only place most readers see it discussed. If something is presented over and over again as being true, then readers will think it's true.

 

[Gentleman_G]

When I first had sex, I knew how to make the girl cum. Why? Because I had read porn. I believed I should last as long as the guys do in stories because (1) everything about the foreplay experience tracked what I had read in stories and (2) porn stories were my only source for a detailed description of sex.

There are lots of aspects of sex where places like Literotica are the only place most readers see it discussed. If something is presented over and over again as being true, then readers will think it's true.

The problem is that many people will read the stories where they can get to a climax fast, because that's what they're here for. Not everyone's willing to invest in a story that involves romance, build-up, foreplay and whatnot. I believe most of us on this forum have a love for reading and writing and might look for more content, rather than a quick climax. We prefer reading about (realistic) people, compelling stories, but that might not be how everyone else looks at stories. And if you have limited ways of finding things, you might not even know there are other stories.

A common trend nowadays (and I'm not saying only the past few years, although it has gotten more extreme) is how people watch music videos which are mainly focused on 'sex sells' and people start to believe that in real life they should behave like the ones they see in those videos. In those videos most girls wear skimpy clothes and most men sexualize their women. Yet, young people are getting to believe that that's reality and start acting similarly.
In a way that's similar as you describe for stories. If it is displayed in every story, people might believe that's normal.
That's why porn can actually hurt your take on life. If everything you see is people meeting up and shagging on the very first date, you will expect that that is how everyone does, because all porn movies show that it works that way. There is not much in the way of content, because people want to cut to the actual action. And from watching that, you're not learning how things work. porn is a fantasy, not to be confused with reality.

 

[Bramblethorn]

To those of you who are saying this should have been posted on the politics board: my point was not politics. My point was people's apparent inability to distinguish fiction from non-fiction.

Neither of the "take it to Politics" comments were directed at your original post. I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about whether ethics should inform porn (and if so, how) but generic "people I don't like are destroying America!" rants aren't adding value. The discussion you wanted to have will go down the toilet very quickly if everybody just takes this as an opportunity to drag out their personal hobbyhorses.

Now that I have some time to address the OP: pretty much everybody understands that fiction is fiction. The argument is more about whether "it's fiction" should be enough to end the conversation.

Nothing is ever just fiction. Every story contains a large percentage of truths about the world, or at least things that the author believed to be true, and even when it's clearly labelled as "fiction" the audience will take things away from it. (cf. 8letters' post above.)

"Uncle Tom's Cabin", "To Kill A Mockingbird", "Atlas Shrugged" - all of those are works of fiction that have historical and political clout. Some of the most influential and memorable parts of the Bible are the parables, where Jesus told fictional stories like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son as a way to convey religious messages.

Even in our little backwater, I've had occasional readers tell me that things in my stories changed how they thought about one issue or another. So I do take that into consideration when I write - why wouldn't I?

With minor power comes at least minor responsibility.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I mean seriously - the stuff that is going on is not writing anymore; it's just propaganda. It isn't entertainment and most of the 'product' is not entertaining... Up to a point you can still make 'voluntary' or competing 'propaganda' because that's what commercial advertising is, and you can still make it entertaining - but it (current Hollywood merchandise) isn't (voluntary OR entertaining).

Well, it's not entertaining for you. But possibly you're not the target audience.

I'm not either, for about 99% of it. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining somebody out there.