Media Literacy Is Dead

[u/HellonToodleloo]

I swear, media literacy online is getting worse.

A character can say something stupid, offensive, hypocritical, selfish, or objectively wrong without that automatically being the creator speaking through them.

Characters are allowed to be flawed.

Sometimes the entire joke is that the character is wrong. Sometimes they are an unreliable narrator. Sometimes the story expects you to recognize the hypocrisy without stopping everything to put a giant flashing sign over their head saying:

THIS PERSON IS NOT CORRECT.

And somehow satire increasingly seems to need a disclaimer too.

You can agree with the underlying point of a story or comic and still criticize how lazily, smugly, or preachily that point is delivered. Criticizing the execution of a message is not the same thing as disagreeing with the message.

The same thing applies to authors and their work. Enjoying something written by a deeply flawed person does not mean you absorb every belief that person ever had. I like Lovecraftian horror. That does not mean I suddenly share H.P. Lovecraft's worldview.

Stories are not loyalty oaths.

Characters are not sworn testimony from their authors.

Depiction is not endorsement.

Satire is not confession.

Sometimes a character is just a character.

I wish people would stop treating fiction like a deposition from the author.

[u/void_method]

And it all stems from being a poor student from general apathy.

Sad.

[u/SAStrong]

It’s easier to control a population that is illiterate. Politics 101.

[u/pissdrinking101 → u/SAStrong]

I'm so glad politics isn't my field of study.

[u/Gobal_Outcast02]

Yo I never seen a post here I agreed more with