Yes, I heard about JLo's production company adapting Emily Henry's Happy Place into a TV series. I am still processing and generally being extremely normal about the development.1
Today, however, I regret to inform you that we are once again talking about media literacy. Don't blame me, blame the Internet.
Earlier this week Fabien Frankel, the actor who plays Criston Cole on HBO's House of the Dragon, decided to limit his comments on Instagram because people were writing things such as these on his posts:
After everything I've seen, it's inspiring, actually, for me to remain capable of experiencing shock upon witnessing people's deranged online behavior, and yet! That is what I felt. Such is my mind's capacity for reinvention.
I haven't yet started watching this season of HOTD, although I do remember turning on this fictional character a few episodes into the first season when it was discovered that his hotness was, tragically, fully offset by his smarminess. And yet I, bravely, recognized that Frankel, the actor, was not the character he played on screen.
Apparently, a lot of people can't say the same.
It's not enough to be shocked. I need to imagine the scenario in which a person, on a Sunday night, watches a show about dragons, incest, bad lighting, and murder, and later — perhaps as they're brushing their teeth, if they even care about dental health — tell themselves, you know what? The group chat is too small: I need to be unhinged on main. Alexa, what's Ser Criston Cole's Instagram? (You just *know* they have an Alexa.)
I wouldn't call my inability to empathize with media illiterate people a tragedy, necessarily, but I really do struggle to understand how someone could so deeply fail to grasp the concept of fiction; of characters; of actors. When Phoebe Waller-Bridge broke the fourth wall, did these people even notice, or were they like, but of course?
And to be so rude and confused in a public forum, where everyone can openly view and mock your ignorance ... when they could be more like the folks who DM me far-right propaganda on Instagram and suffer only a private scoff and a meek block in return (shout-out to Caryn, whose messages I’ve never opened but whose persistence I admire).
Suspending your disbelief juuuuust enough to watch a show about blond people who breed dragons and kill/f*ck each other, but god forbid an actor playing a character you don’t like has a public Instagram account — that is a bridge too far and they simply must be stopped.
We can have a quick laugh about it, because my god, but this lack of media literacy is a huge cause of people's heightened susceptibility to propaganda. We should be worried.
This is not, of course, the first time this has happened. People are having an increasingly harder time differentiating between fact and fiction, between mere portrayal and staunch advocacy. If an actor or director doesn't come out and say "this is a work of fiction and I don't necessarily endorse the actions of the characters on the screen," a certain subset of the general public genuinely thinks they're being bamboozled into promoting a particular ideology (but meanwhile, they'll keep supporting directors who've for decades been credibly accused of harassment and sexual assault).
Remember last year, when people with the emotional range of 2.5 Marvel movies (I'm sorry) exposed themselves to Poor Things and genuinely thought that because the film portrayed the manipulation and hypersexuality of a woman who initially had the mental maturity of a child, it was pedophilia apologia?
It led to opinion pieces such as these, from Dazed:
It also bears repeating that a director’s choice to depict something on screen doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily promoting or glamourising it. It seems obvious, but it’s important to note in the face of puritanical arguments like these that we’re not expected to root for pathetic, sleazy lech Duncan Wedderburn (perfectly portrayed by Mark Ruffalo).
It should bother us that we're wasting valuable Internet space (not to mention brain space, but it’d be futile to place a value on that) to state the obvious, because we've become an audience of adults to whom films have to be explained in clear parables to be understood. We’ve absconded with the practice of thoughtful, contextual interpretation. It's all well and good that Pixar movies are appropriate for both children and adults, but I fear it might be causing a regression in many folks' ability to perform even the barest of analyses. If a message is not spoon-fed to us, we don’t see it.
(Mind you, I didn't even like Poor Things very much (I enjoyed this take from The Ringer), but for so many people to require a film (or a television show, or a book, or a painting) to tell them explicitly, using fourth-grade-level vocabulary, what its thesis is ... folks, it is bleak. Like, what lesson exactly did people gather from Amelia Bedelia?)
I do realize that I sound quite — maybe overly — frustrated by this phenomenon. How I feel about this is not dissimilar to how I feel about the push for AI in creative spaces.
And I think that it's because I find art — the making, the experiencing, the experimenting of it — one of the last remaining vestiges of habitability in our rapidly burning planet, and it saddens me to see art flattened so it can be easily digested by those who, in 1972, would've considered The Godfather an unabashed defense of the mafia. It's exhausting and wasteful to constantly entertain willful ignorance as valid discourse, when what it really does is drive discussion down to the lowest common denominator.
If snarky Instagram comments is the form of activism and ministry you’ve chosen for yourself in this life, then I’m happy to share that there are so many real people with actual power and in desperate need of accountability who happen to be alive in this world and not Westeros. Let’s shift our energies.
Thank you for reading! As always, you can find me on twitter, instagram, and tiktok. This newsletter is my pride and joy, with issues on topics like the celebrity apology industrial complex, Barbie’s Oscar noms, debriefing the Bezos’ fake normalcy, the week when everyone was deranged, and Stanley cups and hyperconsumerism.
P.P.S. Liking posts apparently makes a big difference for the ~algorithm~, so if you’ve enjoyed this issue and you’re inclined to hit the little heart, it wouldn’t be remiss! And if you share the post or a snippet on social media (thank you!), please tag me (I love to see it!), and include a link when possible (it does break my heart to make so many requests of you, my apologies). x
What people are not being normal about, however, is this picture of JLo on a commercial flight this week. It has been driving me insane — people mocking a celebrity for flying commercial. Like, please, that’s what we’ve been saying they should do. Because as we’ve established, private jets are really bad for the environment. So???? I don’t understand. Why would you make fun of Miss Lopez flying Air France instead of JLo Airlines? Positive reinforcement, babes!
My first exposure to this was during the original airing of Breaking Bad, where Anna Gunn got death threats for her role as Skyler. Made no sense then, makes no sense now.
i think there's a strong relationship to stan culture here (something i've just never understood). we think we know everything because we see the public versions of people, and somehow forget that there's things that are *intentionally* not displayed in public by celebrities (or in shows and movies, because people should be trusted to follow along anyway!). with the way that celebrities now can share more about their lives instead of relying on publicists or magazines, and the way they show up on our phones (much more intimate than a movie screen), we somehow seem to think we know everything about them? we simply do not!!