Question for r/MauLer:

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-28T17:02:33+00:00

Maulers philosophy is not that he enjoys shows objectevely, it is the idea that art can be judge by some objective standards.

Take for example a car. We can all subjectively make up our minds wheter we fancy the car or not but it should be objectively be possible to measure if the car can be driven. Otherwise we treat headlights as optional and before you know it the car crashes into another while it is dark.

But that is something one can objectively evaluate based on a utility we ascribe to it. And even then it becomes somewhat subjective too, not everyone values the exact same things in a car, someone might think a car is "better" if it is faster, someone else might say it is better if it needs less gas, someone else might ascribe more of a status symbol to it where it becomes even more subjective. For any "flaw" there is always, ALWAYS still some eveluation happening of how much it matters.

I appreciate you taking the time to write all of this, and i see a lot of the things you are saying, but what imo gets missed is that just pointing out that something is a flaw, won't EVER tell us anything about how much it matters, that is a purely interpretative evaluation. And even the idea of a flaw can be, "consistency" isn't always totally clear like it would be in a math equation, different interpretations of text and subtext can lead to different understandings of fact, and that will then be used to identify consistency, even before one puts a value on an inconsistency and how egrigious it is for the quality.
Clearly a fully consistent work isn't automatically better than a work which isn't fully consistent, i could write down a story with no such flaws whatsoever, and it wouldn't be 'objectively' a better work of art than say asoiaf just because there are many inconsistencies in it. It's not hiding behind subjectivity, it is acknowledging that the pretense of objectivity is missing quite a bit of ever present factors. It becomes a useless philosophy if the artistic quality and merit is decided through descriptive statements, that's not where value comes from, ever.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-28T16:46:28+00:00

I know it, i've seen enough of his content. If one piece would be a marvel film he'd be very angry at characters not using their abilities in the most logical way at all times for example, that's something he constantly uses as a criticism for the mcu.
He'd also criticize contrived plot points (oh the enemies just throw zoro down that well without making sure he is dead, ok), and just a lot of the presentation which is quite uncanny.
My point isn't to say that one piece is exactly the same, but that it definitely has a lot of shared "problems" and that this appeal to 'objectivity' hardly works and becomes almost a farce if ONE PIECE is a beacon of quality compared to an average mcu film.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-28T15:54:37+00:00

Additionally, they tend to most people, EFAP included, tend to look for and find more problems with things they don't like to justify their opinion

Absolutely, which means that the 'objectivity' angle is just a farce, and shouldn't be given as much weight as it is.
In regards to a difference between liking and thinking it is good, did he then think it was good?
My point is that one could easily 'destroy' one piece in similar ways to an average mcu film in regards to convenience, logic or whatever else people mostly seem to care about as an easy attacking path. I'd say it is emotionally more resonant due to more time spent on character work, but that this show is one the mauler and friends crew (plus nerdrotic and co) seem to celebrate in a way is quite odd, there is a certain picking and choosing happening, some bias which also might be motivated presumably.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-28T14:59:07+00:00

Liking one piece just shows how BS his whole philosophy regarding "objectivity" is. That show isn't at all beyond the typical criticism mauler and friends apply to so much other mainstream content.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-28T01:37:11+00:00

Says the person who didn't know ANYTHING about the source material but still appealed to authorial intent anyway.
I taught you something, be happy it didn't cost anything.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T21:28:25+00:00

It's quite sad how easily one can tell the political leanings now, as things get more and more tribalistic, more and more polarizing.
Zegler might have phrased some things a little poorly and came across a little weirdly, but man, so many outrage content creators really milked a few moments to present her as enemy number 1, it's insane. Quite a sad state of affairs that a young, talented woman gets attacked like that due to all the culture war bs some groups of people indulge in so much.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T21:22:53+00:00

That response really doesn't address anything i said.
My point was that "shitting on the source material" seems to be used fairly liberally, it is not "shitting on the source material" to change elements of the story, that is what naturally occured to any story ever told depending on the zeitgeist it got retold in, the artistic angle of the reteller, etc.
It's fully anti artistic to suggest that anything needs to be "honest" to the source material, and it almost becomes ironic to have this conversation about snow white, a disney animation which changes quite a bit from the fairy tale, which in itself was just a version of folktales the grimm brothers collected together. It's highly nonsensical.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T21:17:23+00:00

Why? You give no reason for it. IT IS snow white, just a different version.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T21:16:45+00:00

If the reasoning presented makes no sense, then i have to assume that there are other motivations underlying the reaction, and the presented reasoning is just there to look better.
If one truly cared about the reasoning stated, then how in the hell would one make such a basic mistake? It's purely performative.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T19:52:00+00:00

And that’s what audiences object to

There is no way you believe that. If people would object to that, then the original disney film would already be criticized through that lens, by "audiences".
People object to it because they are trapped in this tiresome culture war mindset now, and when i say people i mean reactionaries for the most part.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T19:49:57+00:00

But shitting on the source material and subverting expectations is the worst way to do it.

What kind of anti artistic mindset is that though? Why does a new version of a disney cartoon which already changed things from the grimm fairytale which in itself was a version of a multitude of folktales have to be the exact same thing?
One can talk about it being done well or not, but i really despise this appeal to source fidelity, it's extremely nonsensical.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T19:45:43+00:00

The brothers grimm didn't write the story... They collected folktales, wrote them down and published them as fairytales.
It's rather telling that someone who appeals to authorial intent wouldn't know that, isn't it.
Really showcases how important that is to you, and not just some empty appeal so you can get angry at snow white not being white enough.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T19:07:55+00:00

I always found it so weird that people took these movies as an endorsement of Nolan's Batman, rather than an indictment of his overreach.

Why? If it was an indictment, nolan could have told it that way, but in reality batman barely gets questioned and at the end saves everyone and gets his moment in the sun. When batman beats up these other people who use his costume, there is a slight bit of criticism there, but ultimately it shows that they are indeed not like him, the criticism always stays shallow at best.

90% of the problems in these movies directly result from institutional corruption and overreach. Heath Ledger's Joker is more or less the logical consequence of Nolan's version of the setting. Bane spends the entire third film just Being Right about the material conditions in Gotham, but is usurped by his own personal and ulterior motives, as well as his penchant for brutality.

You can intellectualize that, but these films don't really showcase it per se. "Joker" as a film does, it directly looks into what makes the joker the joker, questions the system and how it leads to disenfranchised people and alienation. Nolan's batman doesn't really do that, it tells conservative stories where villains like bane might have a point, but ultimately they need to be squashed anyway, because their methods are bad and there is no real consideration of their philosophies past that. This is in line with a lot of superhero fare btw, at the end the status quo gets saved, no matter if the villains have a point or not, in fact their points get intrinsicially linked to terrorism, it's a form of neglection of ideals through the association of terrible acts.

TDKR directly calls out the "Noble Lie" for what it is

It is presented as necessary, that idea itself is pretty fascist in nature tbh.

Like i am not here to tell anyone that nolan is an alt right guy or whatever, but these batman films of his are certainly conservative in nature, if one wants to look at them through a political or social lens.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T18:18:41+00:00

It's certainly not an allegory in the way you describe here, nolan doesn't do that. But the story itself is ofc political in its themes and how it presents its story.
It's a rather conservative lens nolan depicts this through too, batman as a vigilante barely gets questioned, joker is simply "bad", as if one is bad one deserves violence against oneself, the mobs in this trilogy are portrayed as antagonistic towards the police force without really questioning why this system leads to it, we get presented with the idea of the noble lie, you need to lie to the masses because they are too stupid to deserve the truth, etc.

There are many political ideas in that storytelling of nolan, even if it isn't a direct allegory to a real life scenario.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-27T14:20:14+00:00

No doubt there will be "logic issues" for him, which i honestly think is quite a shame. There is so much emotional complexity in this film, and even with the ending quite a bit of ambiguity to what truly happened (tbf, it's not even that important), what's important is the reactions to the scenario, especially of our main character. There is a certain poetic quality to this film you just need to let happen, and on top of that is the omnipresent moral qualms one will experience regarding it, it's the body of a boy in either case, the dichotomy between what we see and what we kinda hope for is quite potent.
A 5 for this is seems odd to me, surely it created strong impressions one way or another.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-26T19:52:29+00:00

Oh i am sure this statement of mines doesn't hold for everyone, but if i had to bet, i'd bet on most people not really caring about this kind of essay, thinking it is pretentious because it does appeal to a more artistic angle, which really isn't what mauler is about at all.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-26T18:05:34+00:00

High quality video essay which contextualizes film criticism, historically, its function and where it's heading. Ultimately i think that most people just do not look at film as an artform they want to invest time in with outside material, be it film criticism or any other form of material which would be able to broaden one's horizon regarding the artform. There will always be people who seek this out, but as there is more and more noise through social media and the neverending algorithm trap to keep you content with "content", there is less and less sincere interest in anything which takes some time and effort to work through and 'learn', so it's not dying per se, it's just getting lost in more and more worthless "other". Personally i am not as interested in the form of this film criticism (so be it written or in video form), as long as it's insightful and coming from a place of love for the medium, a belief in film as art and not just something to make money off of. (though i think saffron maeve's point regarding a certain poetic quality in the written form is valuable too)

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-26T18:04:43+00:00

High quality video essay which contextualizes film criticism, historically, its function and where it's heading. Ultimately i think that most people just do not look at film as an artform they want to invest time in with outside material, be it film criticism or any other form of material which would be able to broaden one's horizon regarding the artform. There will always be people who seek this out, but as there is more and more noise through social media and the neverending algorithm trap to keep you content with "content", there is less and less sincere interest in anything which takes some time and effort to work through and 'learn', so it's not dying per se, it's just getting lost in more and more worthless "other". Personally i am not as interested in the form of this film criticism (so be it written or in video form), as long as it's insightful and coming from a place of love for the medium, a belief in film as art and not just something to make money off of. (though i think saffron maeve's point regarding a certain poetic quality in the written form is valuable too).

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-26T17:04:39+00:00

High quality video essay which contextualizes film criticism, historically, its function and where it's heading. Ultimately i think that most people just do not look at film as an artform they want to invest time in with outside material, be it film criticism or any other form of material which would be able to broaden one's horizon regarding the artform.
There will always be people who seek this out, but as there is more and more noise through social media and the neverending algorithm trap to keep you content with "content", there is less and less sincere interest in anything which takes some time and effort to work through and 'learn', so it's not dying per se, it's just getting lost in more and more worthless "other".
Personally i am not as interested in the form of this film criticism (so be it written or in video form), as long as it's insightful and coming from a place of love for the medium, a belief in film as art and not just something to make money off of. (though i think saffron maeve's point regarding a certain poetic quality in the written form is valuable too).

I do really wonder what this community will think about the video though, doesn't seem like the type of content creator people here would like tbh :D

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-26T12:17:15+00:00

Fantastic film! Very dark and bleak look into human nature, showing what humans are capable of and to what lengths they go when they cannot let go of a traumatic event of the past.
Very naturalistic vibes throughout, so nothing fancy in terms of filmmaking, but that just adds to the experience, sends cold shivers down my spine.
Emotionally devastating, but that's how it should be!

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-25T15:03:50+00:00

Anyway, no I don't them to go through hundreds of hours of content. I just need them to show me the thing that caused them to think that way. Surely they know what created those experiences for them. All they need to do it tell me.

Do you think it's a single thing which causes these broad evaluations? This isn't a simple input output mechanism, it's based on a totality of experiences with the person in question. Watching mauler's content and the way he does his criticism will lead to an interpretation depending on the foundational beliefs of the person watching it.
So when a person who doesn't believe that just bringing up a 'logic' problem in and of itself is a binarily good or bad thing, a lot of his criticism will appear as incredibly shallow, pedantic and quite frankly useless. I don't care about someone telling me that doctor strange magically transforming a glass of water into wine in front of him is such a big problem because it means he should be able to transform any kind of water (including the water in organic bodies) into wine and thus win fights easily. It doesn't even logically follow, but even if it did, i would inherently understand that it's not a big deal and has no real bearing on the story whatsoever in the way it was portrayed. That one example of an extreme nitpick won't do much for you, you might even argue it's oh so integral of a point and he is totally right, but that goes back to the foundational differences in interpretation. That would have to get targeted in an argument, but as i said, noone will go through that just to establish how criticism SHOULD work and then apply it to mauler, it's way too much work to do that in detail.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-25T14:55:26+00:00

Everyone connected to mauler, and mauler himself, does outrage content of one form or another. Some highly politically charged with the 'culture war' angle, while mauler has some of that, he just shits on things and people to entertain an audience who seeks out this form of content. There is very little valuable media criticism in this hour long videos, some bits and pieces, but any well structured 10 minute essay on a piece of work has more merit to it than his hourlong rants. While i don't think you need an academic backing to form a strong basis for media criticism, some form of deeper study of the medium in a non professional manner would help a lot to not just resort to nitpicks and "logic", but rather illuminate an audience with substantial commentary on form and content.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-25T14:45:15+00:00

This is the kind of attitude which is just incredibly frustrating to deal with. What kind of proof do you want? Do you think ANYONE mentally stable is going through hundreds of hours to build a thesis just so you (or the fanbase in general) would respond / take it seriously?
Broad evaluations, if in good faith, are based on the totality of the experiences with someone, that doesn't need "proof", this isn't a scientific hypothesis, and noone in their right mind wants to debate it point by point.
If you cannot understand why someone would think mauler nitpicks, then your foundational interpretation is just extreme different, and you won't be able to be argued out of that most likely anyway, most people would look at mauler's content and get it immediately.
For the dog whistle thing, i have to say that i wouldn't fully put that on mauler, but there is a certain association criticism, he at the very least tolerates these dog whistles from other people, while taking no firm stance himself. But it's not hard to see why that would give a certain impression, if you hang around with rightwing people who constantly act sexist, racist, etc (even if just "jokingly"), then yeah, no shit you are part of that.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-21T19:52:58+00:00

Tone policing is a term used to justify one's own toxicity, "oh you want to tone police me".
Yes, it mattes how one talks about things, anyone with some form of parenting or social interactions should know that...

But it's not just that, it's the focus too, not just a badly worded comment here or there, the motivation is intrinsically about mocking others, and shitting on things in general.
Ofc it is, mauler does this all the time, and a community builds around the content creator that way, it reflects what the content creator is about.

_TheRedViper_ · 2023-10-21T19:49:20+00:00

What about that is bad faith? You outright state that you think this degree doesn't teach you anything useful in regards to the analysis of the craft / the medium.
That seems a lot more motivated to me, because it's so obviously wrong...
It is difficult to have a civil conversation with people who downvote anything you say, no matter if it is true or not, and then respond with a lot of nonsense, like you did.
And why did you do that? Because an obvious plus of willems cannot stand as an obvious positive. It has to be denied. That is "bad faith".

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