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Post by Jeremy on Mar 7, 2018 10:05:11 GMT -8
Guys, just remember that it doesn't really matter if people watch Call Me by Your Name. I recently discovered that the film wasn't made to get money - it was made to annoy Mike Pence.
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Post by otherscott on Mar 7, 2018 10:38:58 GMT -8
Guys, just remember that it doesn't really matter if people watch Call Me by Your Name. I recently discovered that the film wasn't made to get money - it was made to annoy Mike Pence. Are you sure you aren't confusing "the film Call Me by Your Name" with "Adam Rippon wearing a leather harness to the Oscars"?
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Post by Jay on Mar 7, 2018 11:00:59 GMT -8
Guys, just remember that it doesn't really matter if people watch Call Me by Your Name. I recently discovered that the film wasn't made to get money - it was made to annoy Mike Pence. Man, that doesn't take much. Just put him alone in a room with someone who isn't his mother or his wife. -------------- I don't know how wise it is to pile on here, but eh, why not... Something that has come up as a related topic... I saw a quote from, I think it was Kumail Nanjiani which I now can't find, about how much time he spent watching American movies and sympathizing with people who ultimately looked nothing like him and had very different life experiences and weeping over their successes and failures and now, haha, the tables have turned and he has made a movie himself where other people will watch, knowing that they may have to empathize with him and his experiences knowing that he doesn't look like them, and their experiences are not the same as his. This is something like how I approach the art and culture around me. My life experiences have been weird and nuanced, and I don't go in too often expecting to see someone like myself represented, but when I do, it can be a joy. Similarly, I can experience that proxy joy by seeing people whose circumstances are far different from my own experiencing those highs and lows in their own lives. Here's a quirky example that's topical to the CMBYN discussion: Last fall, a friend of mine whom I've known for, I don't know, fifteen years, got married to another dude. I flew home for the wedding and was there amongst a bunch of other long-time friends within the group, and we've all known each other for many years whereas we've only known the new husband for a few. For my own part, the relationship doesn't 100% make sense to me-- beyond the fact that it was a gay marriage and I'm mostly heterosexual-- because the personalities seem like an odd match and the relationship initially caught me by surprise, since we had never so much as seen anyone my friend had dated and so the fact he was gay seemed more rumor than anything else. But being at that ceremony, I could see how much it meant to them and how much they meant to each other, so that even while I sit there and recognize that I'm observing a set of circumstances that won't play out in the same way for me, I could get a sense of how important it was for them and be happy because they were happy.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 7, 2018 12:05:36 GMT -8
I don't know how wise it is to pile on here, but eh, why not... Something that has come up as a related topic... I saw a quote from, I think it was Kumail Nanjiani which I now can't find, about how much time he spent watching American movies and sympathizing with people who ultimately looked nothing like him and had very different life experiences and weeping over their successes and failures and now, haha, the tables have turned and he has made a movie himself where other people will watch, knowing that they may have to empathize with him and his experiences knowing that he doesn't look like them, and their experiences are not the same as his. That quote is from - wait for it - this week's Oscars. That's also where I got the Pence joke (it was part of Kimmel's opening monologue). Nanjiani is correct when he says that empathizing with characters of different races/cultures is a great way for viewers to forge new connections and understandings with people unfamiliar to them. On that front, Hollywood has done well, particularly in the last decade. But I can see why people are put off by Call Me by Your Name, since, from a marketing perspective, it isn't the kind of film designed to forge new connections and understandings. It's a film designed to win Oscars. It's produced by James Ivory (who is big with critics, but not with audiences), it hasn't gotten much of a wide release (even in NYC, where it mostly screens in independent theaters), and nothing about the ads suggests that it's designed to draw in viewers who aren't already onboard with its central romance. It's a film meant to appeal to Hollywood types, who enjoy championing indie films (and, yes, annoying Mike Pence). As contrast, take the new film Love, Simon. This film is also centered on a gay teenager, but it's produced by a major studio and is clearly being marketed toward a wider audience. It's not going to be a massive box-office hit, nor is it going to win any Oscars. But unlike CMBYN, it seems to actually want to attract audiences who aren't fully onboard with its premise. (Whether it succeeds is another story.) Call Me by Your Name may well be a good film (I haven't seen it), but I really don't believe it was made to bridge any cultural gaps.
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 7, 2018 13:29:15 GMT -8
I just think stating something like "the movie doesn't interest me because it has gay relationships heavily involved" is a little bit close-minded. Like if someone said, "that movie doesn't interest me because it contains bananas" I would find that an irrational reason to not be interested in a movie. If a movie was heavily about bananas (for some reason lol), and bananas grossed you out, that's a perfectly sensible reason to not be interested in a movie. See this is where I disagree. Working to exert social pressure that contorts a biological reaction is not a healthy precedent to be setting. You can seek to alleviate the extraneous social stigma (like you said, upbringing and circumstances), but disgust isn't socially constructed and isn't solely defined by culture (what's to stop people from just 'getting over' the disgust of having sex with someone 70 years older than you, for instance, or progressively degrading sex acts?). The culture using pressure and shame as an effort to change that sounds a bit like the attempts to change Alex in A Clockwork Orange. A line needs to be drawn somewhere to take into account non-circumstantial individual responses. Refusing to do so is quite the slippery slope. Unfortunately it's a nuance I think most leftist activists won't ever grasp...if you couldn't guess, I'm pretty cynical with regards to where the U.S. is going on a sociological front... Because there's nothing about a soldier that a person may be biologically disposed to be at fault with as far as I can tell. I mean, sex is a rather fundamental aspect of human life, it's a pretty hefty psychological and biological mechanism (hi Freud). I'll let you have the last word on this, other than to note that potentially being thought of as "weird" is likely one of the primary reasons so many gay folks remain closeted, possibly never openly living their lives with someone of the same gender who they love, and that makes me very, very sad. And this goes far beyond people's taste in cinema. Yeah this is true I'm sure. But shielding someone from reality has never been a tenable solution in the long-term as far as I'm concerned. If you're gay, it's possible some may perceive you as weird, and they may have reasonable grounds for that perception. Being 'weird' is hardly a death sentence though, I mean, most people do something unusual or weird. Oh for sure. It's incredibly helpful and important to empathize with those who are different from you, I never wanted to let on that that's what I'm suggesting. And I mean it's entirely possible to not totally understand something, or even be grossed out by something on the extreme end of things, and simultaneously empathize. You can be grossed out by homosexual physical interactions but still be happy for your gay friend.
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Post by otherscott on Mar 7, 2018 16:39:11 GMT -8
See this is where I disagree. Working to exert social pressure that contorts a biological reaction is not a healthy precedent to be setting. These are people's lives, unkinhead. You are going to need pretty heavy scientific evidence to back up both those claims - because otherwise you are making life very uncomfortable for a lot of people - people who don't feel welcome coming out to their friends or family because of fear that they'd be "grossed out" and who don't feel comfortable at social settings with their significant others. First off - that it's a biological reaction rather than a sociological one: Explain this to me, if this were true, why don't gay people have a form of disgust when they see straight romance? Secondly, does this biological reaction only start at puberty where "normal people" develop their heterosexuality? Is it possible that people are disgusted by gay romance not because of some biological coding that tells them it's wrong, but rather a sociological upbringing that makes it seem abnormal to them? Secondly, let's grant that it is biological? Why is it dangerous to change that instinct? All you said is "it's a dangerous precedent to set." That's the slippery slope fallacy, it's not an argument unto itself. If this was about bananas it would not matter, but this is about real people and making their lives a better place. Because you better believe it's a lot harder for people to live happily without groups of people who are disgusted by the ways they conduct their romance.
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 7, 2018 17:59:22 GMT -8
These are people's lives, unkinhead. You are going to need pretty heavy scientific evidence to back up both those claims - because otherwise you are making life very uncomfortable for a lot of people - people who don't feel welcome coming out to their friends or family because of fear that they'd be "grossed out" and who don't feel comfortable at social settings with their significant others. 1. I need to provide scientific evidence to back up the claim that disgust is biological? I mean, I can certainly do so if you insist, but it's pretty inherently obvious I thought. What's the other thing? 2. The price of mass delusion is a much more harmful precedent and affects FAR more people, and I'd even argue it hurts the people it purports to help. If you think there's not a price to pay for identity politics I suggest you examine the Soviet Union and Mao's China. Just because one side is easier to empathize with doesn't give it moral precedent or legitimacy. I didn't say it was a biological reaction, I said it wasn't ONLY a sociological one. This is undeniable, the biological ability of expressing disgust exists without the conditions of socialization, there are inherent genetic traits after all. Infants express disgust. I'm not convinced some gay people don't. That being said, like I suggested earlier, it is perfectly possible to change how people behave and react through conditioning and social pressure. So ostensibly the same reason many straight people don't find gay romance gross I'm not sure if this was intentional, but you've stated that heterosexuality is developed. This either isn't the case or gay conversion therapy has validity and homosexuality is preventable. This isn't a conundrum you actually have to deal with though, there is no credible evidence that sexual preferences are developed and overwhelming historical/evolutionary evidence that it's genetic...yes, by a biological standard, heterosexuality is normalcy and homosexuality is abnormality. That's not a value judgment of any form, that's just how it is. A person born without a limb is abnormal (but obviously not any less human), and you'd likely find no dissenting voices in expressing such a thing, I don't see any reason why other genetic characteristics should be considered differently other than to not offend emotional sensibilities. Anything's possible ...but it doesn't seem likely at all. Sociological theories of human behavior are not well sourced (seriously actually thoroughly look through a sociology book), inherently contradictory and politically motivated. It's possible, or actually undeniable, that it is a factor however. You can certainly be taught that 'gays are wrong mkay'. On the flip side, the aforementioned evolutionary evidence is astoundingly comprehensive and long (we're compelled to have intercourse with the opposite gender cuz babies)...and well, it makes sense...gay people can't reproduce, so there's not really a evolutionary rationale for it. It's not actually. Slippery slope fallacy is only a valid argument if the slippery slope is arbitrary and isn't logically cohesive...most bad things happen one step at a time (aka slippery slope). Anyways, I said using social pressure to pseudo-regulate people's personalized thoughts and reactions is a bad precedent to set (you're close-minded for having a natural disgust response to gay romance). But I think if we flip this you can answer yourself why it's a bad precedent: Why don't we change homosexual's instincts? Surely they would be more integrated into society, be capable of raising families, and be less likely to contract HIV. Heck, I'd reckon it's likely feasible to condition people to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex. Why would it make their life better? I think it makes their lives worse. If I'm grossly overweight, and I'm quite insecure about, and you, who I consider a friend, tells me everyday that I'm skinny, healthy, and beautiful because you don't want to see me upset, are you a good friend? Is this going to help my life? Or is it going to facilitate a delusion that will likely hurt me in the future because I don't know who I really am? You ever meet a narcissist? That's what 'lying to make you feel better' gets you...now apply it culturally. If you are incentivized to not state true things by social stigma, what becomes the limit for falsehoods for which society can get away with? I believe the answer is 'none'. You can emotionally and empathetically defend a plethora of harmful actions in this paradigm and actively suppress any pushback, it's practically tyrannical by definition, and i believe that presence is growing rather rapidly, and the attitude we apply when discussing something like this is indicative of this. What I'm saying is really nothing new or shocking, its literally centuries old scientific evidence taken to their literal conclusions.
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Post by Zarnium on Mar 7, 2018 22:23:38 GMT -8
Unk, do you actually have any close gay friends who have been harrassed or rejected because of their sexuality? Because I do, and I can't imagine speaking about them this way. They'd be livid, and I wouldn't blame them.
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 8, 2018 6:22:12 GMT -8
Unk, do you actually have any close gay friends who have been harrassed or rejected because of their sexuality? Because I do, and I can't imagine speaking about them this way. They'd be livid, and I wouldn't blame them. I have one pretty close gay friend and some other not especially close ones. That being said, i don't think im speaking about 'them' in any particular way. It's really generalized claims I'm making about the biological nature of homosexuality and heterosexuality. And I'm well aware that this actually makes many people livid, gay and straight. For both personal reasons and I think mostly ideological reasons, I mean, it is a pretty direct dismissal of post-modern and current leftist thinking, so if you go after the underpinnings of that you're definitely gonna anger people because entire perceptions on how the world works are contingent on this. It happens to be true as far as I know though.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 8, 2018 7:15:12 GMT -8
Unkin, your tendency to make controversial comments and then back them up by saying that you're just stating what's "true" isn't all that helpful or productive. There are obviously plenty of people who don't believe what you're saying is true, and dismissing their anger as simply a byproduct of your need to topple their ideology will only make them angrier.
We've talked in the past about how SJWs on the Internet try to change the perspectives of others by simply repeatedly stating that non-believers "can't see the truth." I'm sure you find this line of thought incredibly annoying when it comes from them (I know I do), so please understand that it can also be equally annoying and counterproductive when it comes from others.
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Post by otherscott on Mar 8, 2018 7:37:23 GMT -8
1. I need to provide scientific evidence to back up the claim that disgust is biological? I mean, I can certainly do so if you insist, but it's pretty inherently obvious I thought. What's the other thing? Disgust is a biological reaction, but the causes of disgust are not hardwired through genetics. Take disgust with food for example, one may see apple pie and cheese together, and based on their knowledge of how those things taste and their experience with those foods, they experience disgust. But if said person fights that reaction, and tries said apple pie and cheese, they may like it. They have not set some horrible precedent of betraying their biological impulses, this is something that happens every day. Things that disgust you change based on your experiences. What is this "mass delusion" involving homosexuality? See this is what I need some sort of scientific proof of. What you are claiming is that everyone has naturally developed disgust and displeasure towards types of sexualities that are not their own, and it's only conditioning and social pressure that changes that. I meant developed in the sense that your sexual organs are developed during puberty, I wasn't talking about genetics. If you'd prefer better terminology, then I meant when heterosexuality manifests itself. But you've used this to ignore my question. So, we should be able to tell homosexuals from heterosexuals by seeing which they are disgusted by during infancy and young childhood right? Since the reaction is natural and not developed sociologically? Because one of these things - people changing their attitudes and level of disgust with homosexuality - is clearly possible and I would argue healthy, and one of these things - gay conversion - has been proven throughout history to been somewhere ranging from extremely difficult to impossible. This analogy makes no sense. If I'm grossly overweight and can't do anything about it, then as a friend I expect you to get yourself to a place where you're not disgusted by me. And if that's too much to ask then I'm not sure we can still be friends. I don't want you to lie to make me feel better, if I'm a homosexual I don't expect you to say "you're a heterosexual". But I do expect that you work through any problems or disgust you have with myself and my relationships. I don't have any problem with people being honest and saying that homosexual scenes and stuff disgust them, that's perfectly fine. I have a problem with them thinking that is an acceptable reaction for them to have to people and not doing anything to change it.
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 8, 2018 7:48:51 GMT -8
Unkin, your tendency to make controversial comments and then back them up by saying that you're just stating what's "true" isn't all that helpful or productive. There are obviously plenty of people who don't believe what you're saying is true, and dismissing their anger as simply a byproduct of your need to topple their ideology will only make them angrier. This isn't the case though. I make points and then answer when people question what I'm saying with arguments. Then people question 'why' I'm saying it and "do you recognize this offends people" in which case i respond by invoking the truth claim. I think that's plenty fair Jer. It annoys me when it's not true Again though, I was invoking truth as a response to the questions regarding empathy as mentioned above.
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Post by Zarnium on Mar 8, 2018 7:51:40 GMT -8
The problem is that you're deliberately using unflattering or derogatory language and comparisons when you don't have to, and then defending those choices by claiming that it's just an objective truth. It's true that gay people are in the minority compared to straight people, but there are ways to say that without using loaded terms like "weird" and "abnormal." Saying that something is "weird" is usually a negative thing, at least when we're talking about real-life people and their behavior and not, say, a TV show. Most people don't want their innocuous behaviors to be considered "weird," and whether or not you're comfortable being called "weird" isn't terribly relevant. Saying that it's "abnormal" is a subjective description, as well. It's true that less than 5% of the population is gay, so you could say that being gay isn't "normal," statistically speaking, but you could also say that since 3-5% of the people in a given area are probably gay, then it's perfectly normal to encounter gay people there, and it would be "abnormal" if there weren't any.
If a straight person is disinterested in a movie about a gay romance or they have private, involuntary feelings of disgust for gay romance, that's probably fine, as long as they recognize that this is just a personal hangup and they don't allow it to color the way they treat or talk about gay people in their day to day life. If that same person goes around telling gay people how gross and weird they are just on the principle that they think it's true and they should be able to spout it out whenever they want, then that person's just being a dick. They made a choice to frame their audience's sexuality in a negative light and then insult them for no reason other than its own sake.
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Post by Jay on Mar 8, 2018 8:16:29 GMT -8
I keep going back and forth as to whether or not I even want to but in at this point given the volume of what I disagree with, but at the same time, I might as well frustrate myself and spare others later.
You (unk) keep on going on about this biological sense of abnormality behind homosexuality given that it doesn't necessarily confer any advantages whereas heterosexuality can create babies. This... isn't necessarily true. A lot of what I'm going to be pulling here comes from a friend of mine who's in the anthropology and evolutionary biology field, so bear with me on this, because I'm only going to be able to do it in broad strokes...
Think of what we think of as neurologically abnormal, something like, I don't know, anxiety. It's not of great use to a lot of people right now to constantly be worrying about things that they don't necessarily have any control over. Yet, there must be some basis for the development of this trait because if it were not in any way useful, one would imagine it would have disappeared from the genetic code a while ago or become an atavistic remnant like the tail bone. Speculation as far as the crossover between psychology and evolutionary biology posits that back in the day, some of the things that we'd now regard as learning disabilities or neurological disadvantages actually had their uses in the early developmental history of humans. If you're anxious all the time, and preparing for seeming inevitabilities helps stave off the anxiety, what you've created for yourself is a cushion, a hoard to fall back on when times get rough, thus overall increasing survivability.
Now I'm going to switch gears a bit, because a lot of our attitudes towards sexuality and gender generally are as culturally bound as anything else. If, say, your civilization developed in a desert amidst dirth, drought, and famine, to say nothing of other forms of oppression from the outside, it makes sense that you might have a prohibition against homosexuality from a legal standpoint because mortality was high and you needed to yield replacements. However, quick tangent here, what we regard as more or less firmed up now was not even at times like the Early Modern Period. To illustrate how "different" things were, there's abundant evidence of James I of England / James VI of Scotland going well out of his way to favor his male paramour in a way that made a lot of people uncomfortable, but so long as you were occasionally sleeping with ladies to produce heirs and whatnot, it didn't really matter as you were doing your job so, whatever. He's just one example there, much speculation on the sexuality of Richard the Lionheart is also out there, but I'm digressing a lot. The general point I'm making is that there were likely prohibitions against it initially because of scarcity and these were affixed to the dominant cultural mode after they were no longer immediately relevant, though public opinion has been back and forth and really all over the map (Symposium!).
But say we're dealing with a different set of developmental variables that are let's say, more forgiving and don't have the difficulty level jacked up. What then? Well, odds are you would end up with something like a lot of indigenous cultures within the United States where there was absolutely no problem with homosexuality or anything of the sort, since it was no major obstacle to sustaining the livelihood of the group as a whole, and so you'd end up with something like the third gender / two-soul model where those who were homosexual or bi or what have you (generally queer) held onto unique roles within the society and were conceived of as historians, caretakers, and mediators between what was otherwise a male / female dichotomy within the world. In such societies, there was no shame whatsoever in having a two-soul as part of the family because they were so important to the general social welfare, since they were allowed to take on that role. It makes you think, if we're going back to the neurological argument, that these traits may have emerged at some point because it was advantageous to have non-breeders in a tribal group helping to sustain an infrastructure rather than just having everything rest on pair after pair of heterosexual couples.
Anyway, that's my spiel...
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Post by unkinhead on Mar 8, 2018 8:33:54 GMT -8
Disgust is a biological reaction, but the causes of disgust are not hardwired through genetics. Well, they're partially genetic. Hardwired implies they're incapable of being changed. Why don't gay people fight their biological reaction and try heterosexuality until it suits them similarly? You're right, it MAY not be setting some terrible precedent. In your analogy, the person may 'try' these two foods and still find them disgusting. I'm not really sure what this demonstrates. Some things do and other's don't. Imagining you could change every thing that creates disgust or discomfort, or remove it entirely, would you? I would guess not. I mean on some level it's useful for someone who is heterosexual to have some level of discomfort for homosexuality, otherwise they wouldn't be heterosexual, they would be indiscriminatory. Well in this particular case, that there's nothing abnormal or biologically hardwired about homosexuality and reactions to it. But I was referring not to homosexuality by 'mass delusion'. In this instance its only a microcosm for the overarching philosophy that entails mass delusion across pretty much every social subject. Well of course. Again you must discriminate on some level to have a discriminatory sexuality. This is self-evident. For those who have strong responses via trait orderliness, this may manifest as disgust. You don't like it, therefore it is gross. The reaction has a biological base, that CAN be affected by sociological factors. With regards to the experiment, it would be a pretty inaccurate way to test, but theoretically, if they're high in orderliness, express disgust easily, and have sexually developed and assuming you could remove sociological variability...sure. Haha. It's not clear to me why that would be healthy in the long-term. More fundamentally though, the method by which ideologues attempt to change this behavior is what i have the most critical issue with. In my analogy i wasn't talking about disgust, i was referring to lying that their behavior is "perfectly normal and nobody SHOULD have an adverse reaction to it". Disgust levels are closely tied with fundamental aspects of ones individual psychological characteristics and in this case: sexuality. If disgust levels decrease as a natural evolution of society, that's one thing, but forcefully asserting that straight people are wrong to have that kind of reaction is seemingly ignorant of biological discrimination and its very relevant purpose.
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