Thinky thoughts and why some people call me a Marxist

[psuedo_catalyst]

Which I'm not, by the way. I don't consider myself well educated or well-versed enough to call myself an anything-ist. All I have is a part way finished liberal arts degree made of classes at two different schools, my own reading, of which there is plenty, but it's far to spotty and unsystematic to count for much, and then my own thoughts and

Comments

[la_dissonance]

I think you have a really good point here about the way the concept of "normal" is shifted to reflect the experience of the wealthier segments of society (rather than, say, the most statistically common experience). And definitely it seems that the wealthy themselves view their quality of life, level of consumerism, etc, as the norm, at least if you go by what gets portrayed in the media. I'd be curious to see how much of this attitude prevails in other cultures/places - how much of it is the american dream mythology and how much is it just a side effect of capitalism? I have no idea! I am not nearly well enough traveled or read to begin answering that question.

From a more personal point of view, it's definitely not just you noticing the thing with suddenly-rich fictional characters. I guess I get the urge to read/write something like that from a fantasy fulfillment point of view (if I had a million dollars...!) but the kind of thing you mentioned has never been my fantasy. If *I* got a million dollars, I'd probably get a slightly

[psuedo_catalyst]

Yeah, I was wondering how this kind of conversation would look in other countries and cultures, too. I've never actually left the US, so I haven't got a lot of perspective there

[la_dissonance]

I feel like there might even be more of a projection of wish fulfillment--what the writers assume their viewers would want, if they were put in that situation.

YES YES YES THIS. Or what they *should* want, if they're to be functional cogs in the capitalist machine. Show people a character acting a certain way enough times, and eventually they'll just assume it's the normal way to act in [situation], right? Not that I think this is an actual conspiracy going on in the TV writers' rooms across the country, but if the system is set up to behave in a certain way... *shrug*

I think fiction can definitely reflect reality with a critical slant - like, look, this is how I think things are, and this is what I think it does to people - or do you think that would count as writing to change the reader's mind. Where's the line, with that?

*bops the opinion-ball along*

[psuedo_catalyst]

YES. A reinforcement of normalcy-as-it-benefits-capitalism which, yeah, I guess, may not be an actual, well set up conspiracy, but is certainly a value which it benefits huge, corporate interests, including tv stations, I bet, to promote. I guess that falls under the umbrella of 'using fiction to change the world,' too, right? Not as idealistically as I meant when I first typed the phrase, but perhaps more effectively?

And yes, I think accurate reflections of reality can have a critical slant, certainly, but I think that can get into matters of degrees, and the more implicit the criticism is, the more easily it can be ignored or reinterpreted by critics, as I said, running the risk of reinforcing that reality.

[daisysusan]

You've touched on something that has grated on me slightly in the past, though never enough for me to think about it at this length -- people don't just suddenly lose their habits, and lifestyle is a habit. For instance, my mother grew up in a lower middle class family (they were never hungry, but they certainly weren't going on fancy vacations or eating gourmet food). And her mother grew up during the Depression, so she's always been ... financially prudent. And it took my mom a really long time, despite my parents having been comfortably upper middle class since before I was born, to get over habits of thriftiness that I know she picked up as a kid

[psuedo_catalyst]

It definitely makes sense! It's a large part of what I was trying to talk about, though I guess one of the things I meant that I maybe didn't articulate so well is also the part where even if a character is portrayed as not 'adjusting' right away, it seems like the implication from the other characters, and the setup from the narrative, is that this is a problem, something that they need to get over. That may actually reflect societal attitudes pretty well, but it sort of makes me cringe. It almost makes me feel like the characters in question are being shamed into materialism.

I don't know, though, maybe it's not an attitude that's as drawn from life as I thought--your story about your parents makes it sound like if they ever faced the kind of attitude I'm describing, it didn't make much of an impact :D