When Drinker praised that movie "The Whale," I knew what kind of person he was. That movie is an anti-Christian, pro-homosexual film where Christians are treated as monsters for rejecting a family member who has given himself over to wickedness.
I think its possible to see something from the perspective of a storyteller or on its own creative merits as a story without bringing your own biases into play. I can understand how that episode of Last of Us can be viewed from just that perspective as "good" in a narrative sense, but as Christian myself I would sooner throw it out the window no matter how "good" it is as art.
That's the problem with a lot of these centrist-libertarian individuals. They are perpetual fence-sitters who all refuse to go to the root of the problem because they want to present themselves as "neutral" as possible.
This is strange because many libertarians are not neutral, they just have opinions that fall both on the left and the right, based on first principles. Culturally they can skew left, economically, they can skew right. This is not fence-sitting. That being, said there is a wide range of combinations from center-left, to center-right, to anarcho-capialist.
BTW. Taking positions that put you in conflict with the duopoly does not suggest cowardice.
I don't think you understand. He HAS picked a side. When it comes to sexuality and identity and any moral assumptions that shape storytelling, he has already treated progressive premises as settled background rather than contested claims. He acts like he takes a side when he talks about the heavy-handed "messages", right? But he doesn't argue against the underlying framework that makes said messages seem legitimate in the first place. That's what we're talking about here. He produces the appearance of neutrality while he remains inside a progressive settlement. This IS picking a side. Calling this posture "first principles" doesn't change the fact that there are fundamental questions being left unexamined. That is the fence being sat on.
I'm not going to reveal any political position here, but I just wanted to pose a question...
I understand the issue as 1) This Jordan character is a potential ally culture wars wise, 2) However he isn't specifically bothered by certain progressive matters, 3) That makes him a potentially less valuable ally to religious persons or groups in the "Culture Wars".
Is part of the problem the concept that movies themselves need to be political at all? Prior to the "Culture Wars" there was various media that was not Christian. There was an explosion of media in the 60s. There was books. There was Jack Parsons, Hubbard, and groups of other alternative types of people, cults, and media. Prior to all that, there was the Greek myths and epics which, even at the time of publication, were commented on as having questionable moral substance; not all of them but certainly some a number of those texts.
I have two specific thoughts / queries:
1. Is part of the problem of this on-going debate the idea that movies are political cultural artifacts in of themselves? I may need correcting, but were movies that relevant to the 70s, 80s, and 90s from a political stand point? I feel there was better distinction between entertainment and political artifact back then... but perhaps I lack context, and that's not true. Thoughts?
2. Regardless of the answer to 1, isn't a certain level of tolerance required just in general for society to function? We have changes over time. Less smoking. Less drinking. Fighting in public is less acceptable. We no longer tolerate duels etc... (These not examples with any specific intent). As a Christian or just as humans, can we not watch or consume an epic, a movie, a novel or whatever and appreciate what it is?
I feel a number of works that I enjoy (movies, books, other media) I don't necessarily morally agree with. As a very basic example, I can watch a vigilante movie without thinking that I ought to become a vigilante.
Apologies for the wordy nature of the above, but I do feel that the world as a whole put too much stock in critics and theorists of media and even the media itself. I don't think my enjoyment of a vigilante film tells you much about my moral stance at all, and I would hope that's the same as most others.
Not intentional debate, just genuine questions / an article I'd read from your perspective if you wrote it.
Movies have always carried values and people have always made assumptions about human nature, heroism, sex, and what constitutes a good life. Whether it was Greek epics, 1960s counter-cultural media, or pulp fiction, it all reflected the moral and metaphysical commitments of their makers. What is important to keep in mind is that it was always the dominant cultural framework that produced most mainstream entertainment. Hollywood did this for a long stretch of the 20th century while the country still operated with residual Christian or at least traditional Western moral assumptions. Even if the individual films were not didactic or “Christian” in content, there was still something about them that indicated a Christian influence.
These days we have a more systematic replacement of those assumptions. We have exchanged the good with a bunch of post-modern premises that are essentially a means to make ourselves God.
The 1970s–1990s distinction you sense was real in degree but not in kind. Entertainment was freer to be merely entertaining because the underlying moral baseline was still relatively stable and widely shared. Once that baseline fractured and one side began treating media as the primary instrument of moral re-education. Any separation between “just a story” and “political” became harder to maintain. That is why the current debate exists.
Tolerance is not really the answer. What is required is the capacity to discern the good from the bad and the wisdom to refuse the latter. Christians have always encountered stories that depict vice, folly, or ruin without endorsing them. The point is not passive acceptance but active judgment.
Shakespeare’s tragedies illustrate this clearly. The falls of Macbeth, Othello, Lear, or Richard III are not presented so that the audience will admire or imitate the characters’ paths. They are shown so that the audience can see how the ruin came about and be warned against the same patterns. The dramatic process at work here is the cautionary (or admonitory) function of tragedy. The audience witnesses the catastrophe that follows from the character’s error or flaw (hamartia), and through that, we are meant to gain moral insight.
This is distinct from tolerance because tolerance can slide into indifference or a quiet endorsement of evil. Discernment keeps the moral distinction sharp: the work may be artistically powerful, yet the path it depicts remains one to be avoided. The modern problem is that the producers of the media themselves reject that distance and insist on various post-modern statements that audiences are obligated to affirm. Claims about identity are non-negotiable and your resistance to those claims are bigotry.
The capacity for the craft itself is a gift from God but progressivism wants to say that being an artist is completely due autonomous human achievements. The ability to create stories that move, instruct, or delight is likewise a divine gift. When that gift is deliberately employed to endorse acts Scripture names as abomination, the resulting work is a misuse of what God has given and therefore blasphemous.
The past operated under a Christian Umbrella. As long as society As A Whole tried to abide by christian moral and cultural standards then these outliers were tolerated to some degree or another whilst being restrained or censored in some way or form to perserve the common good. There was a fine line that needed to be walked and past western civilisation tried to walk it as best it could to keep degenerate and morally questionable material from being widespread and celebrated to the detriment of the common good (morals, family structure etc).
Now not so much. If anything the more perverse and disgusting art/media/culture is the more it us held up as morally righteous and progressive and promoted and cekebrated all costs. Thats why marriages, family, education, birthrates, child rearing and society as a whole is IN THE TOILET. Moral Good is dimissed as Evil. Evil is glorified as good. Its an upside down world. The worse the behaviour or the more evil the morals or lessons are the more its is celebrated, worshipped and glorified.
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
His critiques are just surface level. He's like the conservatives that became pro gay rights over the years , but they can't really tell you why, except that "it's the right thing to do".
Like them, he has no philosophical foundation.
The worst part is that compared to a real subversive snake he most likely doesn't know he's doing it.
It's kind of like when Wynton Marsalis, young throwback jazz trumpeter got on stage uninvited and attempted to play with Miles Davis, who had moved into jazz fusion long before. Yes, I would listen to bebop over fusion any day. But it isn't about turning back the clock to what people used to listen to.
It's the same thing with "owning the libs". Yes, a lot of the movies now suck. Laughing at them and reminding about how great Aliens was doesn't change things much or help people enjoy film on a deeper level.
I think you are being unfair to Jordan. Conserving 1998 is better than the continuous revolution the woke crowd insists on. Besides, every movement has roles for all kinds of people. Eleven quarterbacks do not make an effective team. Be glad for people like Jordan, who have attracted large audiences with anti-wokeness. The left is on the crazy train to hell, and anyone who gets off the crazy train, no matter at what stop, is somewhat of an ally, at this point.
Then you missed the point. The past is never a place one can simply “return to” and hold. Every historical settlement is something the living generation had to speak itself out of. The moment you turn a previous stage into a permanent ideal, you stop speaking and you begin embalming.
The 1990s liberal settlement that Jordan effectively defends was itself already a post-Christian arrangement. It was a settlement that did not want to conserve a Christian order.
To praise that settlement as the alternative to “continuous revolution” is to mistake a halfway house for a home. The progressive project did not begin in 2014, it just accelerated. To speak out against only the most vulgar excesses of the acceleration while leaving the underlying trajectory intact is to miss the forest for the trees.
Eleven quarterbacks do not make a team, true. But neither does a defense that only argues about the quality of the play-calling while accepting the opponent’s field position and rulebook. The culture war is not a matter of attracting large audiences to complain about bad writing, it is a contest over whether the moral and anthropological premises that once underwrote it still have any claim on us. Jordan’s entire method presupposes they do not. That is why listening to him as a guide for the future is idiotic.
I still enjoy Drinker's commentaries, though his interviews and streams I find much less compelling. I prefer Little Platoons extra-long reviews, who although is not (as far as I can tell) Christian (with attendant abundance of profanity and NSFW barbs), is very biting about social messaging, and really gets into the weeds of making films and stories. He's openly gay, but seems fairly conservative politically - though mostly snarky about the establishment than actively political.
Your response indicates otherwise, though. Not sure why you'd need to lie about it. Even if you were telling the truth, failing to understand while saying you didn't read everything is the answer to its own question.
Lie? 1.) Enjoy cd's breakdowns. Subjective, you'll have to take my word for it. 2.) Did not enjoy the article, did not finish. subjective again and you'll have to take my word for it. 3.) Unable to ascertain point. Perhaps if I was more intelligent or had finished?
I think the point is that Sam Gray knows what is moral, what is not, and lacks humility. To him a “good” story means the gay men have to die of AIDS at the end, to show the wages of sin etc.
It’s just an over long exercise in missing the point of narrative. It can’t have morally grey characters struggling with what is right, because Sam knows what is right and so should you, you hellbound sinner! I have no problem with a man who knows what is right and what is wrong, but only a fool thinks he is infallible. Stories show us how easy it is to fall. Pride echoes in this piece.
I started reading until I reached the 'lack of humility' part. And then I realized, you didn't actually read anything I wrote. Try to do that before you respond.
i find his critiques useful, he points a lot to plot, story line, character development with "the message" being a source of bad story telling more than anything. he doesnt criticise the message so much as point out that the story is lacking because "the message" has removed so much of what could have made the story better
I think the key distinction is between assessing a work’s moral-philosophical framework and its representational politics. Wokists often conflate the two but they’re idiots so their opinions can be safely discarded.
Critical Drinker also often falls into the trap of conflating the two, but in the opposite direction, i.e. rejecting both frames of analysis.
Ultimately, the fact that we’ve thrown out the former in favor of the latter is why our culture has rotted out. Tl;dr reject both wokism and Critical Drinker-ism and retvrn to tradition!TM
When Drinker praised that movie "The Whale," I knew what kind of person he was. That movie is an anti-Christian, pro-homosexual film where Christians are treated as monsters for rejecting a family member who has given himself over to wickedness.
No surprise since the film was directed by Darren Aronofsky, the same director that made that blasphemous Noah 2014 film.
That movie was so bad that you could predict some cork sniffer would like it.
I think its possible to see something from the perspective of a storyteller or on its own creative merits as a story without bringing your own biases into play. I can understand how that episode of Last of Us can be viewed from just that perspective as "good" in a narrative sense, but as Christian myself I would sooner throw it out the window no matter how "good" it is as art.
Your bias is inherently necessary because the creative merits will always land one some metric.
That's the problem with a lot of these centrist-libertarian individuals. They are perpetual fence-sitters who all refuse to go to the root of the problem because they want to present themselves as "neutral" as possible.
Needless to say, Will Jordan is no John Knox.
This is strange because many libertarians are not neutral, they just have opinions that fall both on the left and the right, based on first principles. Culturally they can skew left, economically, they can skew right. This is not fence-sitting. That being, said there is a wide range of combinations from center-left, to center-right, to anarcho-capialist.
BTW. Taking positions that put you in conflict with the duopoly does not suggest cowardice.
I don't think you understand. He HAS picked a side. When it comes to sexuality and identity and any moral assumptions that shape storytelling, he has already treated progressive premises as settled background rather than contested claims. He acts like he takes a side when he talks about the heavy-handed "messages", right? But he doesn't argue against the underlying framework that makes said messages seem legitimate in the first place. That's what we're talking about here. He produces the appearance of neutrality while he remains inside a progressive settlement. This IS picking a side. Calling this posture "first principles" doesn't change the fact that there are fundamental questions being left unexamined. That is the fence being sat on.
Libertarian is just a person with no spine to stand for his beliefs
The old "pick a side" fallacy.
I'm not going to reveal any political position here, but I just wanted to pose a question...
I understand the issue as 1) This Jordan character is a potential ally culture wars wise, 2) However he isn't specifically bothered by certain progressive matters, 3) That makes him a potentially less valuable ally to religious persons or groups in the "Culture Wars".
Is part of the problem the concept that movies themselves need to be political at all? Prior to the "Culture Wars" there was various media that was not Christian. There was an explosion of media in the 60s. There was books. There was Jack Parsons, Hubbard, and groups of other alternative types of people, cults, and media. Prior to all that, there was the Greek myths and epics which, even at the time of publication, were commented on as having questionable moral substance; not all of them but certainly some a number of those texts.
I have two specific thoughts / queries:
1. Is part of the problem of this on-going debate the idea that movies are political cultural artifacts in of themselves? I may need correcting, but were movies that relevant to the 70s, 80s, and 90s from a political stand point? I feel there was better distinction between entertainment and political artifact back then... but perhaps I lack context, and that's not true. Thoughts?
2. Regardless of the answer to 1, isn't a certain level of tolerance required just in general for society to function? We have changes over time. Less smoking. Less drinking. Fighting in public is less acceptable. We no longer tolerate duels etc... (These not examples with any specific intent). As a Christian or just as humans, can we not watch or consume an epic, a movie, a novel or whatever and appreciate what it is?
I feel a number of works that I enjoy (movies, books, other media) I don't necessarily morally agree with. As a very basic example, I can watch a vigilante movie without thinking that I ought to become a vigilante.
Apologies for the wordy nature of the above, but I do feel that the world as a whole put too much stock in critics and theorists of media and even the media itself. I don't think my enjoyment of a vigilante film tells you much about my moral stance at all, and I would hope that's the same as most others.
Not intentional debate, just genuine questions / an article I'd read from your perspective if you wrote it.
Movies have always carried values and people have always made assumptions about human nature, heroism, sex, and what constitutes a good life. Whether it was Greek epics, 1960s counter-cultural media, or pulp fiction, it all reflected the moral and metaphysical commitments of their makers. What is important to keep in mind is that it was always the dominant cultural framework that produced most mainstream entertainment. Hollywood did this for a long stretch of the 20th century while the country still operated with residual Christian or at least traditional Western moral assumptions. Even if the individual films were not didactic or “Christian” in content, there was still something about them that indicated a Christian influence.
These days we have a more systematic replacement of those assumptions. We have exchanged the good with a bunch of post-modern premises that are essentially a means to make ourselves God.
The 1970s–1990s distinction you sense was real in degree but not in kind. Entertainment was freer to be merely entertaining because the underlying moral baseline was still relatively stable and widely shared. Once that baseline fractured and one side began treating media as the primary instrument of moral re-education. Any separation between “just a story” and “political” became harder to maintain. That is why the current debate exists.
Tolerance is not really the answer. What is required is the capacity to discern the good from the bad and the wisdom to refuse the latter. Christians have always encountered stories that depict vice, folly, or ruin without endorsing them. The point is not passive acceptance but active judgment.
Shakespeare’s tragedies illustrate this clearly. The falls of Macbeth, Othello, Lear, or Richard III are not presented so that the audience will admire or imitate the characters’ paths. They are shown so that the audience can see how the ruin came about and be warned against the same patterns. The dramatic process at work here is the cautionary (or admonitory) function of tragedy. The audience witnesses the catastrophe that follows from the character’s error or flaw (hamartia), and through that, we are meant to gain moral insight.
This is distinct from tolerance because tolerance can slide into indifference or a quiet endorsement of evil. Discernment keeps the moral distinction sharp: the work may be artistically powerful, yet the path it depicts remains one to be avoided. The modern problem is that the producers of the media themselves reject that distance and insist on various post-modern statements that audiences are obligated to affirm. Claims about identity are non-negotiable and your resistance to those claims are bigotry.
The capacity for the craft itself is a gift from God but progressivism wants to say that being an artist is completely due autonomous human achievements. The ability to create stories that move, instruct, or delight is likewise a divine gift. When that gift is deliberately employed to endorse acts Scripture names as abomination, the resulting work is a misuse of what God has given and therefore blasphemous.
Appreciate so much that you took the time for this long form answer. Thank you.
Tricky also.
The past operated under a Christian Umbrella. As long as society As A Whole tried to abide by christian moral and cultural standards then these outliers were tolerated to some degree or another whilst being restrained or censored in some way or form to perserve the common good. There was a fine line that needed to be walked and past western civilisation tried to walk it as best it could to keep degenerate and morally questionable material from being widespread and celebrated to the detriment of the common good (morals, family structure etc).
Now not so much. If anything the more perverse and disgusting art/media/culture is the more it us held up as morally righteous and progressive and promoted and cekebrated all costs. Thats why marriages, family, education, birthrates, child rearing and society as a whole is IN THE TOILET. Moral Good is dimissed as Evil. Evil is glorified as good. Its an upside down world. The worse the behaviour or the more evil the morals or lessons are the more its is celebrated, worshipped and glorified.
Yeah, it's Isaiah 5:20.
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
His critiques are just surface level. He's like the conservatives that became pro gay rights over the years , but they can't really tell you why, except that "it's the right thing to do".
Like them, he has no philosophical foundation.
The worst part is that compared to a real subversive snake he most likely doesn't know he's doing it.
As my funds tighten, I use this calculus to determine where that limited entertainment dollar is spent.
It's kind of like when Wynton Marsalis, young throwback jazz trumpeter got on stage uninvited and attempted to play with Miles Davis, who had moved into jazz fusion long before. Yes, I would listen to bebop over fusion any day. But it isn't about turning back the clock to what people used to listen to.
It's the same thing with "owning the libs". Yes, a lot of the movies now suck. Laughing at them and reminding about how great Aliens was doesn't change things much or help people enjoy film on a deeper level.
It's time is over.
Centrism is sellout.
That’s why I take a lot of commentary with a grain of salt.
I hate to be an editor because I am not qualified, but did you mean formally?
Which part?
In the first paragraph or so, where the word formerly is used.
Nah, it was formerly. As in, previously. One could argue they still do it, but the pretense has changed.
I think you are being unfair to Jordan. Conserving 1998 is better than the continuous revolution the woke crowd insists on. Besides, every movement has roles for all kinds of people. Eleven quarterbacks do not make an effective team. Be glad for people like Jordan, who have attracted large audiences with anti-wokeness. The left is on the crazy train to hell, and anyone who gets off the crazy train, no matter at what stop, is somewhat of an ally, at this point.
So, you didn't read the final few paragraphs.
Of course I read them. That’s what my comment was reacting to and disagreeing with.
Then you missed the point. The past is never a place one can simply “return to” and hold. Every historical settlement is something the living generation had to speak itself out of. The moment you turn a previous stage into a permanent ideal, you stop speaking and you begin embalming.
The 1990s liberal settlement that Jordan effectively defends was itself already a post-Christian arrangement. It was a settlement that did not want to conserve a Christian order.
To praise that settlement as the alternative to “continuous revolution” is to mistake a halfway house for a home. The progressive project did not begin in 2014, it just accelerated. To speak out against only the most vulgar excesses of the acceleration while leaving the underlying trajectory intact is to miss the forest for the trees.
Eleven quarterbacks do not make a team, true. But neither does a defense that only argues about the quality of the play-calling while accepting the opponent’s field position and rulebook. The culture war is not a matter of attracting large audiences to complain about bad writing, it is a contest over whether the moral and anthropological premises that once underwrote it still have any claim on us. Jordan’s entire method presupposes they do not. That is why listening to him as a guide for the future is idiotic.
The trap of conservatives since, well, ever: "things were okay when I was a kid, let's do that again."
I still enjoy Drinker's commentaries, though his interviews and streams I find much less compelling. I prefer Little Platoons extra-long reviews, who although is not (as far as I can tell) Christian (with attendant abundance of profanity and NSFW barbs), is very biting about social messaging, and really gets into the weeds of making films and stories. He's openly gay, but seems fairly conservative politically - though mostly snarky about the establishment than actively political.
Little platoon is quite amusing.
I enjoy cd’ videos and find his frank, “emperors no clothes” breakdowns entertaining and personally aligned.
I did not enjoy reading this article and was unable to finish or ascertain the point.
Your response indicates otherwise, though. Not sure why you'd need to lie about it. Even if you were telling the truth, failing to understand while saying you didn't read everything is the answer to its own question.
Silly billy.
Lie? 1.) Enjoy cd's breakdowns. Subjective, you'll have to take my word for it. 2.) Did not enjoy the article, did not finish. subjective again and you'll have to take my word for it. 3.) Unable to ascertain point. Perhaps if I was more intelligent or had finished?
Got to be a better characterization, I'd say.
I did take your word for it. You admitted you didn't read the whole thing and yet you talked about it as if you did.
I think the point is that Sam Gray knows what is moral, what is not, and lacks humility. To him a “good” story means the gay men have to die of AIDS at the end, to show the wages of sin etc.
It’s just an over long exercise in missing the point of narrative. It can’t have morally grey characters struggling with what is right, because Sam knows what is right and so should you, you hellbound sinner! I have no problem with a man who knows what is right and what is wrong, but only a fool thinks he is infallible. Stories show us how easy it is to fall. Pride echoes in this piece.
I started reading until I reached the 'lack of humility' part. And then I realized, you didn't actually read anything I wrote. Try to do that before you respond.
i find his critiques useful, he points a lot to plot, story line, character development with "the message" being a source of bad story telling more than anything. he doesnt criticise the message so much as point out that the story is lacking because "the message" has removed so much of what could have made the story better
I think the key distinction is between assessing a work’s moral-philosophical framework and its representational politics. Wokists often conflate the two but they’re idiots so their opinions can be safely discarded.
Critical Drinker also often falls into the trap of conflating the two, but in the opposite direction, i.e. rejecting both frames of analysis.
Ultimately, the fact that we’ve thrown out the former in favor of the latter is why our culture has rotted out. Tl;dr reject both wokism and Critical Drinker-ism and retvrn to tradition!TM