We mischievous iconoclasts who strive to throw back the curtain on the subversion of pop culture must face a harsh reality. Most members of fandom like it where they are.
They don’t want to be redpilled. Like the dwellers in the Matrix, they will fight to protect the system that hates and exploits them.
Pure intentions aren’t enough. The fact is, pop culture has to varying degrees filled the void left by the de-Christianization of the West.
A man’s religion is part of his identity. Any aspersions cast on his object of faith are seen as existential threats. Turning my back on Hollywood while friends and colleagues have held onto converged franchises like Star Wars and the MCU has damaged and even destroyed some of those relationships.
Yesterday’s post occasioned more than one case in point. Multiple folks I consider friends and industry peers rushed to Endgame’s defense. The blow back culminated in a Twitter dustup with fellow author Declan Finn, who’s been a staunch supporter up to this point.
In fairness to Declan, it was pointed out to me that I played rougher than the situation called for. Offense was unintentionally given, and I extend a public mea culpa for my lapse in charity.
Since the strict meaning of an apology is to explain oneself, I’m not angry at anyone–except the death cultists in Hollywood. The intent behind these posts and the offending tweets is to alert people I care about to the spiritual danger they’re walking into.
I’ll lay my cards on the table. Disney is evil. Its content creators and corporate officers include people who hate Christ and His church. Accomplished exorcists like Fr. Chad Ripperger warn that diabolically influenced corporations subject their customers to spiritual attack by cursing their entertainment products.
If you profess Christianity but doubt the reality of curses, you are at odds with Scripture and Tradition. Jesus Himself affirmed that curses are real and effective.
Multiple Disney fans have called me on the carpet for denouncing movies without seeing them. I answer that debating the artistic and technical merit of films made by antichrists who hate us misses the point.
If you caught your friend watching a hardcore porn flick, would you stop to debate the film’s merits, or would you urge him to turn it off?
That the question even needs to be asked is proof of the lingering taint of Liberalism.
We are no longer in a world where two sides debate over competing goods. One side is manifestly evil and shouts it from the rooftops, and there is only one choice.
Don’t give money to people who hate you.
Error has no rights.
Freedom is worthless unless it leads to virtue.
When so many have integrated darkness with their identities, how do you lead them to the light? This is the needle that Christians seeking to resuscitate Western culture must thread.
That was a lot of drama over a movie that was…average.
Yet mediocre movies are all many people have.
Actually, the drama did not begin over an average movie. It's that you wouldn't allow anyone else to have an opinion. Please notice, I used John C. Wright's review, not my own. Because I DIDN'T EVEN SEE THE FUCKING MOVIE YET. But no one asked. No one cared to ask.
You may have grown fond of high school-tier internet drama. I find it tedious. Which is why I gave your Twitter overtures short shrift.
Not indulging your thirst for a drawn-out discussion of Endgame's technical quality doesn't withhold anyone's opinion besides mine. Because I don't have an opinion.
But as you've shown, no one is allowed to ignore these movies.
Declann was also attacking JDA over memes and calling him a nazi by association. He is in an emotional state of mind recently, it seems.
I won’t support people’s addictions. He needs to hit cultural rock bottom before he sees the light. Maybe when he is defending poop as the highest art he will finally break free.
My mom was trying to drag me to see Tolkien movie and I said I don’t want to watch Hollywood turn him into a gay black Muslim.
According to people who had the misfortune of seeing it, I wasn’t far off the truth.
You have great fortitude. Many would use family as an excuse to cop out.
Guys who struggle with porn addiction talk about how images will pop into their heads unbidden, tempting them to act out.
That's not even demonic obsession. It's ordinary diabolical temptation. Demons can take any image you've seen and use it to tempt you. And not just to sexual sin.
Hence why even seeing these movies is potentially dangerous. Film makers have total control over what appears in every single frame. A lot of these guys are known to be Christ-hating satanists.
“Demons can take any image you've seen and use it to tempt you.”
Yes, yes a thousand times yes. Sadly, I only learned this in the last few months from listening to Fr Ripperger. Ridiculous that at my age I’m only hearing this now from the Church…I guess the info got loss in all that “mercy” in my “pastoral encounters” with the clergy. But yes, once you understand how demons can mess with you (and conversely how your guardian angel can assist you), you realize that it’s not just what you eat and drink that can affect you, but everything you expose your mind to as well. You have to be selective about what you consume. Those who eat at Hollywood’s trough are no different than those buying whatever garbage is being offered by Nestle and Coca-Cola.
Dear Smockman.
Actually, the problem with JDA problem wasn't the meme. It could have come down and life would have gone on. It's when tried to tell him it was over the line, and in bad taste *even for his friends* and he decided to treat us like we're attacking him. He even took snippets of conversation and posted it online so he could lie about it.
And, since the person he lied about was Jewish, the only people to come to JDA's defense? Were people using the original memes — circa 1935 Germany. So that was fun.
I don't deal with liars. Especially people who lie about my friends. And if you think what I've done is an attack on JDA? You don't even know what an attack looks like. Seriously, where were you during the Puppy Wars of 2015? But I treat JDA like I treat Mike Glyer. He doesn't exist. If you wanted to see an ACTUAL attack on JDA, I'd just take my screenshots of everything and ship it to File 770. The fact that I haven't done that yet means I no longer care.
Read declann’s first sentence, then his second. Note the passive second sentence (cognitive dissonance). Finally, the contradiction between the two sentences.
I have no problem with that piece of fine art on the wall, but let’s just say if someone were to set it on fire, life would go on.
First we must be honest with ourselves.
“A man's religion is part of his identity”
I’d actually state that a man’s religion IS his identity, just as a society’s religion produces its culture.
You can see a man’s faith by what he does and what he focuses on. What he expends his energy and time on. If a man will get in a dust up on Twitter over SW or MCU because of his love for said franchises but refuses to burn bridges by doing the same in defense of Christ, said man needs to be called out for violating commandments 1 & 2. (and 3 since everything from Hollywood has to always include a line profaning God)
Where your treasure lies, there your heart lies also.
"No one cared to ask."
There's probably a lesson there.
Indifference is forbidden.
I don't doubt the reality of curses, but I do doubt that Disney has a film-cursing warlock on staff. That just does not seem basically plausible.
(Haven't seen Endgame, or Infinity War for that matter, but I'm inclined to go with Wright here – he's a bit less eager to circle the wagons and cock the guns at an off word.)
"That just does not seem basically plausible."
Then I strongly suggest broadening your vision. We have it on good authority that the music industry does in fact retain satanists to curse the master copies of their recordings.
Do you seriously think Hollywood less debauched? Or do you doubt the word of a Catholic priest?
"I'm inclined to go with Wright here…"
In regard to what? John and I addressed entirely different subjects. I've encountered this same category error so often in the past few days that I'm now convinced it's a reliable popaholic cogdis tell.
Yes, I doubt the word of some Catholic priests. Don't you? I mean, if you were consciously cursing someone's intellectual property, wouldn't you start with your competitors? No one, no matter how depraved, says to themselves "I will do this FOR THE CAUSE OF EVIL."
Wright's case is that Endgame is good and infused with meaning and the last holdout of a franchise that's fast losing its moorings; yours is that it's a lot of empty noise because it's drifted away from foundations already. Strikes me as a pretty strong opposition.
"Yes, I doubt the word of some Catholic priests."
You've said all anyone needs to hear.
Do I really need to refer you to your own posts on the topic of ecclesiastical corruption in the Catholic Church?
All this for capeshit.
Your slavish dependence on megacorporations that hate you has now led you to cynically calumnize an exorcist who performs the most harrowing and perilous ministry there is for the most afflicted souls in Christendom.
Which of us is on the same side as John C. Wright?
Did I not mention I haven't seen the movies?
We're both on his side, and Christ's. It's only that you're getting a tad bit trigger-happy and eager to declare enemies. With this Disney-satanic-curses-its-own-movies allegation, you've apparently let go of a basic ability to smell-test into the bargain.
"Did I not mention I haven't seen the movies?"
Popaholic cogdis tell #2.
Does "Life of Brian" count as an article of pop one could be 'holic toward? Becauee "all right, then, I HAVE seen the movies" comes immediately to mind here.
Regardless of who I am, am I wrong?
A different Anonymous here.
It's 'about' consistently mischaracterizing others' arguments. The statements among Wright and others who've seen it are: "This one was good, in a field rife with ruined and converged franchises, one of them held off the wokeness and delivered a good ending. This is the time to cut off and make a clean break. We're done."
That doesn't translate into "we're a bunch of 'Disney fans' dependent on megacorps."
"It's 'about' consistently mischaracterizing others' arguments."
Protip: If you don't want to beclown yourself, don't wade into the middle of a controversy without performing due diligence.
I've been warning folks about the negative influence of Disney films in particular and nerd culture in general since long before Declan brought up John's review as an appeal to authority.
John is a sci-fi grandmaster and a formidable philosopher. He is not, as he'll be the first to tell you, a theologian, much less a priest. His opinion of Endgame's artistic merit is irrelevant to my point. As Declan correctly pointed out, I never engaged with John's argument, so how can I mischaracterize it?
The mischaracterization is entirely directed at my position, which is that paying to see Disney movies constitutes material cooperation with evil, and that seeing them at all risks exposure to malicious spiritual influence.
Note that I am not making an argument, any more than a lawyer who counsels his client against some legally questionable behavior or a physician who advises his patient to quit smoking are making arguments.
Again, John and Declan are not religious authorities. Fr. Ripperger and I, on the other hand, are. Drawing on his experience with demons and my own expertise, I am solemnly warning people not to watch these movies, regardless of content, out of fraternal concern for the state of their souls.
The rest is up to you. Whatever the consequences of your choices, my conscience is clear.
Point taken, and thanks.
Having weaned myself away from every other Disney product and most of what passes for mainstream entertainment, I was happy to make an amiable parting with the last of Marvel-as-it-was.
And with that, I'll be quit of this conversation for another amiable parting (though not as complete a severance, since there's still Combat Frame X Seed Year 40 to read)
Also read/heard a few years back about music industry intoning curses over major records. Sounds insane, and unbelievable, but I believe it. Spend a night researching Dave McGowan's Laurel Canyon investigation (that ended with his abrupt, mysterious death) and you may believe it too.
WARNING: This is the blackest black pill I've ever encountered. It disturbed me so much that it left me genuinely depressed for months. Yet in a way, like everything Brian/Fr. Ripperger said, it's important to know how insidious and pervasive this evil is. We literally live in the kingdom of satan.
God please bless us and save us, through the intercession of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Joseph, Terror of Demons
The music industry is top to bottom filled with degenerates. Actual satanists are not out of the realm of possibility.
Even something as horrific as the hired hit on Kevin Hughes, who did nothing but compile country music charts, was filled with such needless malice over such a petty thing that you would have to imagine a deeper problem here.
"And with that, I'll be quit of this conversation for another amiable parting"
Pax vobiscum. Thanks for reading.
"God please bless us and save us, through the intercession of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Joseph, Terror of Demons"
Amen.
History is the story of God bringing good out of evil. The last black pill turns out to be a white pill.
This is fascinating stuff playing out here in realtime. Close parallels to Fr Gabriele Amorth's accusations of satanism in Harry Potter, the reaction thereto, and the conclusions one must draw in retrospect.
I admit that at the time I scoffed, thought it was clueless and superstitious, and I would mentally refer back to it when debating whether or not I ought to return to the church for years. Now decades later I look at what lay in its wake and I have to ask… if he was wrong, what would have gone differently?
Related to art and evil, I'd like to hear your thoughts some time on the anti-heavy metal thing I occasionally see on Catholic blogs. I see a blogger or a fellow parishioner warning parents about it, I get riled. It strikes me as total hypocrisy. My diocese is also Fr Ted McCarrick's old stomping ground, and we are littered with both the victims of the man and his defenders. My gut tells me that when I see otherwise modernist parishes silent on homosexuality flipping out over this stuff, I'm looking at a con. Some combo of infiltrationist self-injury or predator homo misdirection; the goal being either to make the Church look irrelevant or to make the youth more lukewarm and molestable. I mean, how can someone take a look around at the cultural menu and decide the only stuff worth actively resisting is that which acknowledges a dramatic gulf between good and evil?
Or will this "fight the real enemy" line of thinking inevitably lead you down the same path as Sinead O'Connor? It's a frustrating topic. Your insight would be appreciated.
I'm not knowledgeable enough on Metal to offer an opinion, other than it seems highly resistant to SJW convergence.
On the hierarchy straining gnats and swallowing camels, we've been warned for years by good men on the inside that there's a homosexual cabal facilitating and covering for each other. My humble advice to priests and bishops is to clean up God's Church now lest He step in and do it Himself.
As for avoiding the Sinead route, diligently cultivate virtue and crucify self-will. Anyone who bandies about the clergy's sins as cause for apostasy against the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is a cynical opportunist acting–wittingly or unwittingly–on Satan's behalf.
I listen to metal occasionally, like when I'm working out. One of my close friends and fellow Trad is a metalhead. That said, he will caution people about the scene because there is a lot of Satanism in metal – not all, but the influence is there in the imagery, lyrics, and band names.
If I had to guess why modernist parish county freaks out over it, I'd say it's because there is still a human need to cry out against sin, but these people, so screwed up by the modern culture, fixate on say the metal music scene rather than the homo prederators they hang out with. Just look at SJWs and how they are always having a moral panic over a non-moral issue or a moral issue that is much lower on the list of priorities to fight against.
Thanks for the blog post buddy! Keep them coming… Entertainment Site