Driving Blind: The Humanities Die and Superman Returns

Ethan Gach

I write about comics, video games and American politics. I fear death above all things. Just below that is waking up in the morning to go to work. You can follow me on Twitter at @ethangach or at my blog, gamingvulture.tumblr.com. And though my opinions aren’t for hire, my virtue is.

Related Post Roulette

4 Responses

  1. BlaiseP says:

    MSNBC can’t pull an audience because it won’t get beyond the cheap-ass Roundtable Discussions with the Usual Suspects. What the hell are they thinking?

    If I ever see ol’ Rev. Sharpton again, it will be too soon.

    And Ed Schultz, everyone’s favourite loquacious dipsomaniac from down at that crappy bar where the old duffers wax maudlin about the days when the unions were cranking out cars that broke down so often every gas station needed a mechanic. At least Ed’s been shuffled off to the weekend.

    Rachel Maddow’s schtick is gettin’ Kinda Old. Snark is a spice, not a main ingredient.

    If MSNBC wanted to get Liberals to start watching again, they’d bring in some of the producers from PBS Frontline and do some serious reporting. Less filler, more substance. Liberals have moved out to the Internet for most of their substantive opinion. Do what TV does best: bear witness, not trot out opinions.Report

  2. LeeEsq says:

    Last time Anita Sarkessian (sp?) came up on this blog, I noted that the idea of rescuing a damsal in distress is a very old and compelling one for men and women despites its problems. I think that a lot of the problematic tropes in popular culture, video games, comic books, movies, are because the media aims for a broad rather than elite audience. Its given the audience what they want and more than a few men have fantasies about rescuing a girl/woman and getting romance/sex for their efforts. Many women also have romantic and sexual fantasies that are somewhat anti-feminist as the romance novel industry or 50 Shades of Grey demonstrate.

    There isn’t a good way to deal with this problem. Previous elites attempted to deal with the problem by censorship, by having the creators of culture conform to the proper ideology even if it went against the desires of the masses. Religious elites did this, Communists did this, and even we Americans did this with the Hayes Code and Comics Code. This hasn’t worked. The other solution, hoping that people will be responsible about their popular culture consumption is not going to happen.

    I think we that we are going to have to live with the fact that a lot of people have some rather problematic fantasies.Report

  3. Jaybird says:

    Alienated/indifferent makes sense, kinda. I mean if you wanted to agitate against (insert illiberal Obama policy here), you’d find yourself with bedfellows strange enough to make you just want to stay home in the first place.Report