Watching homeward bound, that movie where the two dogs and the cat end up going on an adventure to try to find their masters.
One moment that made me really think was a scene where they finally got on the path to going home. Basically, they found a little girl and had a choice at that point: They could leave the little girl, or they could help the little girl find the adults, but helping the little girl had a good chance they'd be sent to the pound as strays.
In the movie, they chose to save the little girl despite the risk because it was the right thing to do.
It's hard to describe, but I felt like that moment is something we rarely see in movies anymore today: Instead of being the designated good guys and getting everything because they are the designated protaganist, they actually do a thing that is purely altruistic and carries significant risk of loss for themselves, showing virtue when it's not the best thing to do for them, but it's the right thing to do. The story then rewards that virtuous behavior with progress, and even though it's not logically sensible, it is emotionally resonant -- they *deserved* to get what they wanted because they're good, and so when their selfless deeds are unexpectedly rewarded, it packs an emotional punch.
I think this is what a lot of critics mean when they accuse modern protagonists of being unlikable. They get what they want because they are the designated protagonists, but they don't display active virtue besides just being generally inoffensive.
One moment that made me really think was a scene where they finally got on the path to going home. Basically, they found a little girl and had a choice at that point: They could leave the little girl, or they could help the little girl find the adults, but helping the little girl had a good chance they'd be sent to the pound as strays.
In the movie, they chose to save the little girl despite the risk because it was the right thing to do.
It's hard to describe, but I felt like that moment is something we rarely see in movies anymore today: Instead of being the designated good guys and getting everything because they are the designated protaganist, they actually do a thing that is purely altruistic and carries significant risk of loss for themselves, showing virtue when it's not the best thing to do for them, but it's the right thing to do. The story then rewards that virtuous behavior with progress, and even though it's not logically sensible, it is emotionally resonant -- they *deserved* to get what they wanted because they're good, and so when their selfless deeds are unexpectedly rewarded, it packs an emotional punch.
I think this is what a lot of critics mean when they accuse modern protagonists of being unlikable. They get what they want because they are the designated protagonists, but they don't display active virtue besides just being generally inoffensive.
Along the same lines, I think a lot of people liked the old Star Trek and Star Trek TNG and DS9 (and yes, to an extent even Voyager and maybe Enterprise but I never really saw that one) because one of the big parts of the show is that the people on the screen are virtuous but not magically so. Big parts of the show were people sitting around talking about what is right because it isn't always immediately apparent, and depending on how you approach the problem you could end up with completely different answers to that question.
Contrast with today's media which unfortunately reflects today's culture. If there are questions about the virtue of an action, they're superficial rather than complex, and usually what is right is treated as black and white and self-evident, rather than grey and ambiguous.
In some ways, I suspect this is a negative consequence of a post-world war 2 culture. Because that one war was relatively straightforward where one side was seen as atrocious and the other basically wasn't, that became the mythologized. A few straightforward stories aren't bad, but when that is the default every time and we stop questioning ourselves it's a path to decadence.
Contrast with today's media which unfortunately reflects today's culture. If there are questions about the virtue of an action, they're superficial rather than complex, and usually what is right is treated as black and white and self-evident, rather than grey and ambiguous.
In some ways, I suspect this is a negative consequence of a post-world war 2 culture. Because that one war was relatively straightforward where one side was seen as atrocious and the other basically wasn't, that became the mythologized. A few straightforward stories aren't bad, but when that is the default every time and we stop questioning ourselves it's a path to decadence.
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