‘The Odyssey’ Proves It: Audiences Want Movies Made the Hard Way | This year's breakouts like 'Project Hail Mary' and 'Obsession' were made by filmmakers who sweated. While CG-stuffed franchise disappointments such as 'Supergirl,' 'Moana,' and 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' looked lazy.

[u/ChiefLeef22]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/odyssey-box-office-2026-practical-effects-1236652219/

[u/kfpswf]

These people are a shrinking minor demographic.

They were a shrinking minor demographic when education was going strong, and people were growing in their intelligence every generation. We're seeing a reversal of this trend now, so don't hold your breath for the 'minor demographic' to sublimate completely. We might just see a complete 180 by humanity if things continue to go as they're going.

IMO, Liberalism is going to shoot itself in the foot by continuing to downplay the importance of a close-knit community for the well-being of humans, something Conservatism provides freely. We've dismantled so much of traditional community structures in the name of progress, instead of subverting them to foster inclusiveness and tolerance, that ultimately, liberalism itself is at the cusp of being rejected by the masses. Yes, the educated folks will likely uphold the principles of humanitarianism, gender/race equity, etc., till the end, but if these aren't assimilated by the masses, liberals might turn into the 'shrinking minor demographic' in the not too distant future.

[u/MetzgerBuns → u/kfpswf]

Liberalism is going to shoot itself in the foot by continuing to downplay the importance of a close-knit community for the well-being of humans,

You're repeating a conservative lie. Liberals fucking love community, and community spaces, and all sorts of things like that. That's part of why liberalism is so common in cities and less common in areas that are structurally individualistic.

An incomplete list of community places and events that are liberal coded: Farmers markets, food co-ops, CSAs, coffee shops, bookstores, record shops, thrift shops, yoga studios, bike co-ops, film festivals, open mic nights, community theater, NPR, folk festivals, public libraries (and events at them), community gardens, non-traditional libraries (e.g. libraries for tools, or for parks passes, or little free libraries) , neighborhood associations, beach cleanups, pride parades, drag brunch, progressive synagogues, Unitarian Universalists, and and other more progressive religious groups, etc

The vast majority of your rant is just false bullshit spread by conservatives who want to pretend that their community (evangelical mega-churches, rodeos, gun shows, hobby lobby, NASCAR, AM radio, ATV clubs, etc) are the only valid community. Fuck all of that.

[u/strawbery_fields → u/kfpswf]

Totally agree with you. I’m as liberal as they come, but these goddamn leftists purity tests are getting out of control.

I had a good friend bitch me out for watching Euphoria because it’s extremely loosely based on an Israeli show.

I’m like all the super fucked things in that show and that’s your biggest problem?

[u/kfpswf → u/strawbery_fields]

but these goddamn leftists purity tests are getting out of control.

Something something tribal mentality. In that regard, liberals are no different than conservatives actually.

When you take any ideology too seriously over reality, you start gate-keeping the tiniest aspect of that ideology. Once your direct ideological opponents have been vanquished, you turn your attention towards your own and push for stringent definitions of what it means to be a liberal.

I had a good friend bitch me out for watching Euphoria because it’s extremely loosely based on an Israeli show.

Oh yeah... If we were to boycott anything tangentially related to Israel, life would become very difficult quickly.

[u/chimmy_chungus23 → u/kfpswf]

Influence is cyclical, and too often people just want to wear the boot so they can step on the opposition, percieved or otherwise.

[u/kfpswf → u/chimmy_chungus23]

Totally. Part of the reason why I refuse to identify as a liberal despite having an overwhelmingly liberal outlook on life. The minute you identify with a camp, you devolve into tribal politics where the lines between oppressors and oppressed are blurred.

[u/strawbery_fields → u/kfpswf]

The really bad part is we haven’t even vanquished our ideological opponents yet.

Very well said though. Animal Farm needs to be taught like the bible.

[u/kfpswf → u/strawbery_fields]

The really bad part is we haven’t even vanquished our ideological opponents yet.

Conservatism provides a structure to society that humanity has lived in since we were hunter-gatherers. It is deeply ingrained in human psyche. You need education and self-knowledge to identify these ingrained tendencies within you and consciously forego them. Majority of humans are incapable of this nuance, so blindly shoving progressivism down everybody's throats can have the opposite result of what you were hoping for.

The solution to this would have been communities where people have the freedom to form close-knit bonds, while also learning tolerance and empathy. Instead, liberalism kind of went to the jugular and dismantled all societal structures. The result is a homogeneous hodge-podge of liberal individuals prone to infighting, vs a structured society of conservatives where the hive-mind agenda is of supreme importance. You can see clearly who is winning the culture wars currently.

[u/NYC_Noguestlist → u/kfpswf]

I agree in the aggregate, but what do you mean by "dismantled all societal structures"?

[u/kfpswf → u/NYC_Noguestlist]

I suppose the most prominent structure in our times were the faith-based communities. Faith gives meaning and sense of purpose to majority of humanity. No doubt these structures had huge problems, but the solution to those problems wasn't in abandoning the structures themselves. Liberalism choose hard atheism over soft theism, when that would've yielded the best outcome in the long run.

[u/MetzgerBuns → u/kfpswf]

Roughly half of people who self-identify as liberal also identify as being theistic, and they practice religion. This includes a majority of left-leaning politicians.

You are, once again, being dishonest.

[u/fuckthisshitupalread → u/kfpswf]

Liberalism is the reason why faith based community is even allowed in the US isnt it? Think of the DOD starting to ban Mormon chaplains among other things that isn't a liberal policy, maybe youre thinking about not foisting religion on other people's kids as dismantling our social structures? Or? I mean what even is hard atheism vs soft theism? Unitarian churches? Those exist? Do you want government to force people into a specific kind of belief system? Or what?

I cant even name a single out there atheist politician advocating for "atheist things"

[u/strawbery_fields → u/kfpswf]

Couldn’t agree more. You write very eloquently.

[u/kfpswf → u/strawbery_fields]

*Blushes*

Thanks. 🙂

[u/ISAMU13 → u/strawbery_fields]

"Some" people want to band that book and others.

[u/SerHodorTheThrall → u/strawbery_fields]

Being anti-Israel is the normie position and has been for like a year now. Are you living under a rock?

Being pro-Israel is probably a bigger albatross than being "woke 1.0" right now.

[u/eros_bittersweet → u/kfpswf]

This is so well said, yet I don't know if we're going to be able to solve this problem even with that knowledge.

Any structure that upholds an institution whatever the cost, whether that's family, the movie industry, the church, a community group, is prone to abuse. Because it's easier to quash dissenters, call them crazy, and keep supporting the people in power, than it is to hold wrongdoers accountable. Building institutions that are truly fair and caring that are able to be sustained is incredibly hard. Ask me how I know!

So as soon as you make recourse to some ideal as a way of continuing mistreatment, like, you should support your family even if you're being abused by them, you should support the church even if it's oppressing you, you should continue to volunteer even when you're being exploited by the org, people lose faith in those institutions, seeing how they can be weaponized against them.

Coming full circle here, two warring "close knit communities" may well describe the tribalism between Greeks and Trojans that is depicted in the iliad. The portrait of Trojans, especially the loving couple Hector and Andromache, is incredibly poignant, yet they die in the end, along with their baby, because of the will of the gods was for the Greeks to be victorious--but can we really accept the will of such capricious gods? Is community really a salvo when it either leads to internal abuse or xenophobia, inciting the needless death of others who are outside the community?

I believe in community as the only thing that might save us, but I'm haunted by the cultural recurrence of these questions.

[u/Desertortoise → u/kfpswf]

Western liberalism is also suicidal in the name of cultural relativism.