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this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2026
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Not everyone participates in reading the deeper meaning of media.
Some people just turn off their brains and watch the magic smiles box and come away liking the characters and movie without thinking any further than what was portrayed on screen.
Half the characters on this list are just really awesome visual/character portrayals.
They didn't misunderstand the message, you misunderstood their intent going into the media.
You watch movies to dissect their meanings, others watch movies to escape reality for a bit.
Rich frat bros at my college literally started fight clubs thinking it was about getting ripped and dangerous. Then many of them got life-changing injuries and stopped.
Both sides of the equation can be true, yet unequal.
Tyler would approve. In-fact, pretty sure that Angel Face (played by Letto) was a rich frat boy.
I wish these media tourists took to simple messaging like Indie’s “I punch Nazis”.
I feel like people can think the characters are enjoyable as characters and still recognize they're bad.
I do both. Doesn't everyone? I love a healthy home cooked meal, a book or article so deep it feels as satisfying as sex, but also can love a bag of french fries or a repeat of Pride & Prejudice or Hot Fuzz.
Sometimes it's relaxing to be shallow for a bit.
The dissecting of media (which i do a lot) isn't something i choose - it comes pretty automatically with media literacy. As soon as you develop the skills needed to analyze subtext and themes, and start to take a critical stance regarding video content, you can't really switch it off outside of getting wasted.
So i'd say the difference is simply in media literacy (and more broadly, general education) and level of cognitive impairment.
That's because this is the normal flow of things. Pare the mediums away, and you're left with the same basic core: Stories.
The storyteller always has a reason for telling a story. Even when they are only setting out to entertain.
To be able to separate one's actual feelings, knowledge, and values in order to write a purely entertaining tale, requires that the storyteller be aware of them. At which point they must then take an extra step to insert others.
What stories are, at their heart is the passing of an abstract message or purpose encoded in a surface pattern meant to be cognitively sticky.
The reason might be to teach the young in the tribe the seasonal crop patterns as it was thousands of years ago, as it still is in some places.
Or it could be a commentary on the social state of the times. Or any other thing.
But the other thing a story must be, is engrossing.
A good story must be entertaining or funny or terrifying. It must tug at the emotions of the listener in some way.
That's what makes it stick. That's how stories work.
There is nothing wrong with refusing to dig deeper into the meaning of a tale, especially if it's presented or done poorly. That turns it into a lesson.
But the best stories, it doesn't matter if you seek out the deeper meaning or not.
It'll be there regardless and so will the story, and if and when the listener grows, the meaning will make itself clear on the next recounting.
You talk about cognitive impairment of others yet fail to understand the only thing you're doing is imparting your world view and how you navigate it as how everyone else does/should. You have an extremely narrow perception of how the world works because you can only view it through your own lens.
The only one here impaired in their judgement is you.
My judgement is as follows:
If you are not able to analyze the subtext of content, repeating motives in it and why someone specifically tells a story, you will always be a fool, because you are not able to discern between people who want to lead you astray and people who are upright in their convictions.
And people who are ok with others being essentially illiterate in these times are enabling liars, abusers, scammers, thieves, fascists and dictators.
I have to add: Media made to just have a laugh are fine! I laughed my ass off over all 6 Sharknado movies. But this doesn't mean i engage uncritically with it - in this case it was obvious that these movies are not taking themselves seriously, and therefore i was also able to go with that.
I was also able to enjoy the Marvel movies somewhat, while having concerns with some underlying themes that are pretty militaristic and disenfranchising of common people. The notion that only "special" people can enact change in a society is a harmful one in my opinion.
Hahaha no.
Their intent was not to understand the media, but to merely consume it.
... they still in fact did misunderstand it.
Yeah, its true that not everybody approaches a piece of media trying to fully comprehend and appreciate it, yeah its true that it's fine to have media that doesn't require much brain power to comprehend, yeah its fine to lazily enjoy things from time to time.
None of that means these movies and characters are not notorious for being basically 180 degrees misunderstood by people barely paying attention.
Imagine saying the equivalent of this to a teacher who failed your creative writing paper because you wrote for a completely different prompt than the one assigned.
This is an asinine thing to say, its a non sequitir.
An explanation for why something happens is not the same as 'that thing didn't happen'.
That was so well-put, thank you. I've never had a tidy, succinct response for this sort of thing and yet you summed it up so well; I don't disagree that many people have definitely misunderstood the character/media/etc, but it's definitely true that some people just enjoy things anyway.
I think Heath Ledgers version of the Joker was interesting. I didn't really like the other ones.
I would guess that he's actually the "Dark Knight." From the way the movie portrays him, it seems he's a ex-military guy that lost his mind. Technically he does more for the city than Batman by basically pitting criminals against each other and going after corrupt officials. So I did dissect the meanings in that movie, my buddy was really into superhero movies and such but I usually got bored with them; I would say that's the only one I enjoyed.