honestly though this ties into a bigger thought i’ve been gnawing on lately that the more and more the entertainment industry gets entwined with capitalism the worse stories are gonna get because there is no purely consumable and agreed upon conflict and hero/antagonist dynamic
what i mean by this is like. stories are told in a way that helps children (and people in general) form opinions and a moral compass with which they navigate the world. who the villains are in these stories will effect who those children become and, who the villains are often reflects the perspective of the storyteller/who has persecuted them personally.
while individual people do write the stories studios produce, and teams of people working on one story can typically agree on who to make their antagonists, capitalism relies on ever-growing audiences and consumer bases in order to be considered ‘successful’. a growing audience means eventually, you are going to reach people who do not agree with what your idea of 'evil’ is.
additionally, the wealthy/minority group’s oppressors are very often the villains in the stories they tell because those people specifically have antagonized the story teller’s lives. but with media production, those in executive positions are very often wealthy, white, cishet men. so naturally, stories with those groups as the antagonists will not get greenlit, but it’s becoming less socially acceptable via audience pressure to demonize the minority groups they antagonize instead, so you get progressively vague-er and watered down villains as time goes on.
u have said something beautiful and true my friend…
