WandaVision and the state of modern TV

Television, movies, and politics

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WandaVision and the state of modern TV

#1 Post by Technic[Bot] »

Yesterday after 8 weeks Disney finally graced us with the last episode of WandaVision. Marvels latest entry in the
the MCU to convince everyone and their mother that Disney+ is the go to service for modern television. Usually I skip
these type of shows but I was bored, had nothing better to do and needed to unwind after the workweek over the past same 8
weeks so I tuned in every weekend to catch up on the most experimental Marvel product in the mainstream media.
The ending gave some "food for thought" and decided to post my ideas here, given I really have nowhere else to post it,
oh do not you worry about spoilers I am barely gonna talk about the show itself.
So the show is a weird hybrid between sitcom, super heroes movie and mystery show citation needed.The show starts
with a lot of vital information missing: What is going on, how did everyone get here, why is Vision alive, why is
everyone in a parody of American TV, how is this related to the rest of the marvel movies etc. This is very much by
design. Pretty much like Twokinds actually, the first few chapter we are introduced to a protagonist who does not know
what he was doing, where he is nor who he is. This lets the story set a mystery that is slowly developed across
episodes, years in the case of the comic. I do hope the comic does not end like this TV show as all the build up over 8
weeks fell flat and at the end the writers did not even fully commit to the story and motives the spend so much work
setting up. Anyhow as I said I am not really interested on reviewing the show. You can find any amount of reviews on
WandaVision written by more capable people than me on youtube or your favorite variety magazine.
Do not get me wrong, the show is good and I like comic book heroes as much as the next guy... Err scratch that to be
honest I have never been a big comic book or superhero fan. Yet I did paid to watch this. That is actually what I wanted
to talk about.
The premise of the show is interesting but not enough to make me buy it and watch it. I only watched this as it became one
of the most popular pieces on media in this current, pandemic stricken era and everyone was talking about it. Both
specialized media, like IGN, my Facebook friends had something to say about it, not to mention the very aggressive
marketing campaign from dispense and despite not being that appealing to me at the end I caved and gave it a watch.
Something similar happened with the Avenger movies. I did not watched the first two when they came out, I did it 4 years
after the fact, and only because i grew tired of not understanding the memes. On the contrary I got spoiled the last
avengers movie I was gonna see at launch a week before it even release. But I digress.
What I want to say is that Disney has enough capital, cultural and monetary to strong arm even people outside its
targeted audience to watch their products. Simply because everyone and their mom talk about it. They can effectively
dictate what is culturally relevant at any given time, specially now that they acquired almost every media company under
the sun.
Again the movies and comics are not bad. They are good product but I do not think superhero movies made by a
massive media conglomerate are the pinnacle of civilization and should become the defining culture element of this
generation.
Besides they are slowly making a monopoly. As i said, like two times now i think, they are very aggressive in buying
other media companies such as Marvel, Lucas and Fox and their respective intellectual property. I do not want to imagine
how in a couple decades almost every piece of media will be controlled by Disney and subsidiaries, specially given the
horrible use of copyright law to get everything out of the public domain basically forever.
I am not trying to say Disney has some weird agentda, that is led by lizard people or it has some large scale plan of global
domination at the end of the day they are only in for the profit, which is kinda worse in my eyes.
We as consumers are eventually gonna get [censored] up if everything becomes Disney and Disney only. Because, again, they
care only about profit not making culturally significant works nor the artistic integrity of their product if any. And I
do not think it will be nice if such a company becomes the one that defines the cultural landscape of the 2020s.

Well i will get off my soap box huacal now. Thanks for putting up with me and stomaching this
intellectualloid diatribe. I really needed to get that off my chest.

What is with the formatting?
I wrote this on a text editor and copied to the forum.
There are three things that motivate people: Money, fear and love.
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Re: WandaVision and the state of modern TV

#2 Post by Bellhead »

If you write something and copy it, you would have to manually review it and edit as necessary. that method is only somewhat reliable for transferring formatting.

Now. *Clasps hands* About the media conglomerate.

It's not wrong to say that companies like Disney care more about profits than anything, but you must also take into account that they have a MASSIVE attachment to their own image, which plays a pretty significant part in what they will produce, what genres they'll take in, and even the people they will hire. So that's part of it.

But if one single company has the ability to determine what is culturally relevant at any one time, that can go either way. If said company has positive ideals in their work, they can motivate (for instance) people to study harder in school, or support environmentally friendly practices, or boycott organizations known for animal abuse. On the other hand, they could also use that same power to basically subconsciously enslave entire generations. Personally, I think Disney is somewhere in the middle; not quite all grey, but with patches of black and white as well.

I'll also add in that I feel that they have this.. desire, for lack of a better term, to make their image immortal; not just in memory, but in practice as well. They don't want to let anything go, because then it wouldn't be "Disney" to them, it would be public domain. I feel like that mentality is why they put so much time and effort into copyright law; to prevent themselves from losing a piece of their immortal image. To be clear, I just made that up, I don't really have a basis for it other than what it looks like from the outside.
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Re: WandaVision and the state of modern TV

#3 Post by Technic[Bot] »

Oh! the formatting is very much intentional. I do not really like how the forum wraps text itself so I decided to hard warp all my lines at 120 characters.

Anyhow You do bring a point. The company by itself is not a person in any shape or form, legally perhaps? But the people who run it are. And they have some image and vision of what kind of company they want to run. That is why there is a company approved image, design and what HR departments call company culture.

I do believe most execs at disney see themselves as rather progressive and want to improve the world at least in paper and only if that keeps making money. For example Marvel movies in particular have played a large role on a renewed interés young people in STEM areas. If In a couple years you ask any engineer why he decided to go for that career he will probably mutter something about tony stark an what not before giving a more professional response. But again this nice stuff they do is on the side, money first social responsability later and that is the worrying part.

I do not think disney intense lobbying on copyright come from a need of feeling immortal. In much simpler terms money. Imagene the amount of money the would loose on royalties alone if, for example, Mickey were to enter public domain.
There are three things that motivate people: Money, fear and love.
Links to my ramblings:
Twokinds [of] data
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