quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
marxists use all kinds of words poorly. an ideology is the collection or unification/formulation of an idea(s). it does not describe "What society deems as unquestionable, to what there seems to be no alternative." |
Yeah, what I wrote mostly describes how [according to Marxists] ideology functions in today's capitalism, it's not a universal definition of the word. Either way, it's important that these ideas always form a basis of some kind of a system. It just so happens that in this allegedly post-ideological age, the dominant ideas are those that are presented/regarded as indisputable (like the fukuyamaist belief that we have now reached the end of history and that capitalism combined with liberal democracy is the best of the worst possible systems).
quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
We actually used Transformers as an example in a Film Studies class I took as a senior called War in Cinema from 1930-Present or something like that, and the professor never even brought up any of the points you're trying to make. |
Maybe because the class was called War in Cinema from 1930-Present. This doesn't mean that the film doesn't say more about other things.
quote: | This attitude can be found in almost any war movie made in the US from the past few decades, so when you say that this is one of the most ideological films of the last decade or however long it was you said, you're really making yourself look like a fool. |
Oh, so just because there are other war films with a similar attitude, it now means that the depiction of the military and the conflict is the same in all of them? What if one is more propagandistic than the other? What if one is subversive (like Starship Troopers)?
Also, I'm not talking about ideology only with regards to war propaganda and the military-industrial complex. Transformers reflect and/or embody many other issues that are prevalent in our society - technofetishism, general infantilization of popular entertainment, commodification of art, objectification of women, racial stereotypization, economic crisis, belief in conspiracy theories, and probably more. And all this is filmed in a very specific way which rejects established norms of continuity storytelling and, as Steven Shaviro says, becomes post-continuity filmmaking.
This doesn't mean Transformers are a masterpiece, I never said that. Here I'm thinking beyond good/bad. They are important films because of what they show, how they show it, and how many people are exposed to them.
Last edited by GoSpeedGo! on May-04-2012 at 18:14
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