I don’t know how to feel about the fact that “popular culture” has replaced “meaningful political action”. It’s probably because we all live with the knowledge that nothing can change for the better in any meaningful way unless we actively choose to do something more than “post online” and that’s actually kind of hard so instead we are trapped, stuck to live “inside a system”. Which is fine. Or I guess, it’s not fine, but it’s just sort of reality right now.
But what really drives me crazy is when people who actually “control the system” decide to come down and slum it with us losers who can’t effect change directly. People who we all should look at and say “wait, why are you also participating in this facade of control? You have actual control!”
And it’s the reason why an ex-President releases a year end list of their favorite albums. Didn’t quite get free healthcare but at least we can all agree the new Olivia Rodrigo album “is a banger”.
So we’re all stuck, scrutinizing our weekly screentime reports, mad that a movie about a toy that included an extended GM product placement scene didn’t get enough nominations for an award broadcast on ABC, upset that a movie we thought had quote unquote good politics isn’t properly being celebrated by a ceremony that for a long time was being openly manipulated by Harvey Weinstein.
We took the embarrassing practice of trying to objectively declare a yearly “best director” or “best actor” and instead of saying “who cares” we said “we need to make sure that the arbitrary process of appraising art is properly reflecting our politics”. That’s the societal value of art now, a reflection of your beliefs and politics that you can show off like the DSA membership card I got in the mail in 2017 and immediately hid away in my wallet never to touch again.
It’s 2024 and it’s an election year.
