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I've been thinking about this a lot lately, with a useful push from @HeerJeet: it seems like a lot of our political conversations about culture are so bad because we're having them about culture that isn't up to the task. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/19/game-of-thrones-10th-anniversary-must-watch-pop-culture-adults/
#GameofThrones was so important to me, and to so many other people, in part because it was a story that was not just manifestly inappropriate for children, but specifically aimed at adults: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/19/game-of-thrones-10th-anniversary-must-watch-pop-culture-adults/
If you wanted to use #GameofThrones to talk about sexual ethics--even if the show itself wasn't always ethical--you didn't have to project onto it. The show was legitimately engaged with those questions. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/19/game-of-thrones-10th-anniversary-must-watch-pop-culture-adults/
Same with plenty of other questions, for which the show's imperfections and failures often served as useful fodder. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/19/game-of-thrones-10th-anniversary-must-watch-pop-culture-adults/
Anyway, one of the reasons I've been so tough on the MCU lately is that it's infuriating that the most popular franchise in the world is so incapable of holding up the conversations it's being asked to carry. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/19/game-of-thrones-10th-anniversary-must-watch-pop-culture-adults/
What's happening on #TheFalcolnAndTheWinterSoldier, for example, is just...not an actual, grown-up conversation about race, violence and whether institutions can be reformed from within.
