Do you ever feel guilty about enjoying liberal media?

If you can enjoy it, enjoy it. No entertainment is completely free of issues and problems. It is frustrating watching something with friends and they clearly don't examine the deeper themes whatsoever ("It's just a fun superhero movie, there's nothing deeper about it, you overanalyse everything!")

But if you're just enjoying something on its own, especially something with a huge variety of writers coming at the franchise with wildly different interpretations like 40k, there's nothing wrong with that.

I've touched on this before, but as socialists, we need to be able to reach the masses. The masses aren't interested in theory, or why their favourite cop show is problematic, they just want fun distractions. You have to ease people into that stuff, and you start by being a regular person who can enjoy things rather than an overly uptight "stop having fun guys" kind of person.

*Insert that Ultra-Maoist copypasta here. *

酒肉穿肠过，佛祖心中留 Wine and meat pass through the intestines, but the Buddha stays in your heart. As long as your faith is firm, you don't have to feel guilty.

First and I think only time I've argued with comrades here was over 40k.

I think at the end of the day any given 40k fan can be someone who's aware of the issues with 40k but still enjoys it (for so many possible reasons, but growing up with it being the focus of your social circles is a big one I think), or they could be someone who enjoys the fascist fantasy, or they could be completely politically ignorant and unaware of how much it's shaping their worldview.

There's too many variables. There's a vast diversity of liberal media out there, an even bigger variety of people consuming it, and every combination thereof should be judged on its own merits.

I used to love Age of Sail Royal Navy/British Empire stuff. I read all the Patrick O'Brien books (Master and Commander etc), Hornblower, and tangentially Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books. I can't read any of it anymore without it making my skin crawl, but I can remember how much I loved those stories. I'll still get goose bumps listening to the Sharpe theme, but I'd rather pull my brains out through my nose than defend the actions of the British Empire. I don't think there's a contradiction there. It's just the emotional vestiges of the growth and change we go through as humans. I feel a little sadness and nostalgia when I see the colonial Hong Kong flag I grew up under burning, but I'll also be the one that set it on fire.

And Star Trek. I don't doubt for a second that Gene Rodenberry died a closet communist. The shows themselves are a mess ideologically, with writers and showrunners of different ideologies all throwing their ideas into the mix of what the Federation is and how a stateless, moneyless society that has a science-exploration-diplomacy space navy with a military rank system actually works under the hood. But then because of that ambiguity Star Trek becomes what you make of it. I can see the old me, who enjoyed it as a space military thing, getting pissed off about the recent musical episode while the current me thought it was genius.

At the end of the day what happens between you and liberal (any) media is unique to you, and only you can judge the effect it's having on you. Where we have to be careful, though, is how we conspicuously consume and talk about media around other people, because our actions and words affect how they interact with the same.

After listening to and reading Parenti, I couldn't watch any/liberal entertainment media at all. It wasn't a feeling of guilt put undiluted anger. Books, shows, graphic novels. Everything.

Thankfully that feeling relented. Now I can enjoy most fiction (written, audio, or audio-visual). I'm a little bit more discerning than I was. But I can even enjoy the stuff that's right on the nose because it's so ridiculous.

So long as you're treating 40k as entertainment rather than a guide to life, it's fine, I think. You can always critique it while you're engaging with it. Just know that it could ruin it for you for a while, until you 're-adjust' to enjoying things that you are critical about.

Permanently Deleted

It gets better—or at least different—when you come to no longer enjoy much liberal media. The bad news is the dearth of alternatives to it.

No. I did feel some loss when i realised how much horribleness is included in it, but thinking of it in marxist terms in attempt to deconstruct it replaces suprisingly most of it with fun too.

40k actually got pretty funny to me, as GW are trying to portray Tau as communist, when the closest to communism by a country mile as they're described are...Craftworld Eldar=) Automated production, near total social mobility, meritocracy, war only waged by necessity... Still dicks to the others, of course, couldn't have it any other way in 40k.

I mostly dropped it because GW aren't even trying to keep the lore consistent. Shitty philosophical and political ideas in fiction just help me separate it from reality.

When content is both uninteresting and pushing some cringe, that's...yeah, that just amplifies the cringe damage.

No, I absolutely love peeking into the minds of petulant liberals. It’s sorta torturing myself idk, maybe I’m sadistic but I love forcing myself to watch The West Wing. God it’s such a different world over there. I highly suggest watching a few episodes and then listening to Chapo’s West Wing reviews. Chapo tore them a new one and perfectly describes everything wrong with the show. My favorite part is how Democrats in the show are depicted as so smart that they can sway Republicans, when in reality Republicans will never be convinced of anything because their corporate handlers mean more than any free thought in their mind. And don’t even get me started on documentaries about Democrat presidents

The only thing studying up on propaganda has really ruined for me are Marvel movies. As far as war and action movies that revolve around American machismo, I didn't engage with those anyway.

It really depends, but definitely my ability to enjoy a lot of media/entertainment has declined in the past 4-5 years. I mainly watch sports for entertainment, specifically football/soccer, and for me that is something I am still able to approach mostly with sheer cognitive dissonance. I can still get excited about my club spending £100m on a player despite the obvious ridiculousness of that.

All of the discussion lately over Saudi Arabia and the general eurocentrism of supporters especially the self righteous sort on r/soccer is incredibly annoying, but fortunately it’s easy enough to avoid that.

I definitely still enjoy movies as well for the most part, but I typically go see horror or comedy or whatever and not serious dramas or movies dripping with propaganda so it is easier.

One major thing I used to love and simply cannot appreciate at all anymore is the musical Hamilton. Such a fun well constructed musical but sheesh the content is chauvinistic and liberal.

I get it. In terms of fiction I can let it slide and just enjoy the entertainment as long as it's not in your face lib grandstanding. For example I've enjoyed the current Star Wars series.

In terms of documentaries I just can't anymore. My partner enjoys the Netflix true financial and cult crime type stuff and I get headaches from that kind of non-materialist drivel.

I actually just started watching some C-dramas and I'm having a great time.

I watch horror movies, mostly. So it’s usually a suburban family or a group of teens getting shredded by some monster.

Watch the Texas chainsaw massacre remake. A bunch of venture capitalists get what they deserve.

Every single yankee action movie for the past 30 years is completely disgusting, not only blatant on the nose propaganda, but truly revolting so there is no possibility that anyone can enjoy them. But I like the old action movies with Schwartzi and Stallone, Rambo 1 was good also. I watched Marvel up until the Endgame, after I had enough of it and they went to shit anyway, only superhero movies I watched since then are the new Spider Man and Flash.

So I enjoy some superhero movies and OG action ones from 1980s if that counts.

I am at peace with it because it's the environment I am forced to live in and entertainment is part of what makes it bearable. I am aware of the propaganda laced into it, whether it's there as capitalist realism from makers that don't even examine their ideology, or whether it's deliberate messaging.

I have more of an issue with defensive-to-toxic fandoms of such liberal media. I don't feel guilty by association. I feel disgust, sometimes even pity, for people that don't just fail to examine what they consume but outright refuse to believe there's any such ideology to it and get weird and defensive about the product.

Seeing as the right wing of media is plain spoken fascism and the left wing of media is co-opted Western leftist "so close yet so far", if any of us had a problem we would enjoy roughly 0 media 😅

As long as it's not utter dreck like say recent Marvel movies (in which case I feel more disgusted than guilty for any kind of enjoyment), not really. 40k to me is especially redeemable because it's not trying to depict anything good. But some 40k fans don't seem to understand this and are capable of the most deranged imaginable takes on what it's about, this for sure is true.

Can relate. And frankly 40k is the least troublesome of it all, probably due to being not as overtly propaganda. Despite being very visibly idealist at the core, and very palpably liberal bias beneath it all. But if you read it as a "what happens if capitalism does become the end of history?" it feels less guilty. Certain things just make sense. Plus painting is fairly relaxing.

But then there are other media... Video games? Action movies? Heck, I used to be into capeshit comics for a while. Now that, that makes me feel not just guilty, but outright dirty

No, I can easily find reason to hate something especially if I realize it’s bourgeois propaganda.

No. I'm too busy seething at the incredible low quality garbage Marvel/Disney and everyone else churns out to stop and be too angry about that. I just keep reminding myself the quality of art/culture will improve after the revolution and not before. Right now I must suffer the decay and pain of having garbage shoved in my face and having other people effusively tell me how great it is. Not even getting into the propaganda which is awful, on the merits, technical/story-telling etc level it's just a wasteland out there and I weep. Lots of slop. Not that I don't occasionally find a piece I guiltily enjoy.

Though admittedly I kind of avoid the worst offenders. I mean I do enjoy older media and I guess I excuse it as it was just that way back then, they were just sexist, racist, homophobic etc (I cringe at the really in your face stuff but the casual pervasive things not so much). To me it's all an academic exercise. I know what I'm watching is a reflection of a time and place and type of thinking. I think older stuff actually helps in that I can say it just was that way whereas if you shove some 2 year old Marvel movie stuffed full of end of history liberal nonsense that raises my hackles because hey, these people are around me and they're annoying and smug and gah.

I zero in on like subversive elements in older movies too and I think in a way modern movies are much less subversive in ways that matter, end of history and all that nonsense rotting people's brains. Take just as an example Terminator 2, the main bad guy robot is a cop and he's a cop for a reason and Cameron has stated that's because cops see themselves as better than other humans, they're apart from us, they use violence, etc so in what's otherwise a mindless effects and explosion-fest you have these little nuggets to chew on. Truly dangerous to capital they're not but at least they're not full of the open militarism you see in films these days, worship for the US military, America-Fuck-Yeah stuff even if there are no military it's American scientists or cops or researchers.

Side-track but fucking fuck Arrival. Fuck the writers. Writing America as the country that has reasonable, rational researchers who discover the aliens don't want war, meanwhile the irrational Chinese/Asians are so war-like and aggressive (just like in real life the writers want to nudge you, whereas America in real life they nudge you, is just like the protagonist) they get bent on a warpath with the aliens and act exactly as the US would act in actuality in trying to rally everyone to attack them.

So I guess I could say I don't feel guilty because I get annoyed if it's too bad and then I just stop. As to guilt, it's what I have. I speak English, I live in the west, the US is the primary media creator, only China remains and very little of their content gets even subtitles let alone a dub.

Nope. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism, and as long as we're aware about what's problematic in the media we consume, I don't think I should feel bad about it.