True Art Sticks It to The Man: Difference between revisions

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** ''[[Freaks]]''
* This is one of of the reasons [[David Brin]] ''really'' hates [[Star Wars]], to the point where he decries it as nothing more than an organized conspiracy, headed by [[George Lucas]] to send society back into superstition and feudalism.
** In general, Brin's position is a bit more nuanced than that. To oversimplify, he thinks that Oligarchy and Monarchy are heavily romanticized in works like [[Star Wars]], which promote a reverence for elites that resonates quite strongly with many (if not most) people. This is undemocratic, and in the long run an unhealthy mentality for our post-Enlightenment civilization. Even though Brin occasionally [[CompletelyDramatically Missing the Point|misses the point]] or [[Did Not Do the Research|gets a few facts wrong]], many of the observations he makes about [[Science Fiction]] and it's role are quite insightful. He talks about this a lot (though not always using [[Star Wars]] as an example), almost to the degree of being a [[Single-Issue Wonk]], but [https://web.archive.org/web/20110928035721/http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_main this] is a good place for the curious to start.
* The somewhat ignored 2010 movie ''The Joneses'' focused on a team of "stealth marketers" who move into a wealthy neighbohood pretending to be a family in order to provide [[Product Placement]] via their daily routine and encourage others to buy their products. While it does feature a fair amount of satire of [[Conspicuous Consumption]] and its effects on people (a subplot has one of the Jones' neighbors {{spoiler|getting into heavy debt by trying to "keep up with them" and ultimately comitting suicide}}), the movie then switches focus on the main character falling in love with his "wife" and the other tolls [[The Masquerade]] is having on the family. The critical reaction to the movie was [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/joneses/ split down the middle]: half the critics accepted the movie for what it was while the other lamented the "missed opportunity" for making a truly scathing satire of consumerism in one of the most appropriate times in history.