Fandom Is Dead. Long Live Fandom!

Fandom Is Dead. Long Live Fandom!

If you change the medium, you change the message. Philosopher of communication Marshall McLuhan argued persuasively that advances in media, regardless of content, can incite dramatic, culture-wide effects. A best selling print book can reach millions of people, but turn that book into a hit movie, and you increase its…
January 28, 2016
Hollywood’s Hate Mail to Its Own Audience

Hollywood’s Hate Mail to Its Own Audience

This intriguing article over at A.V. Club draws attention to the strange fact that James Cameron's 2009 opus Avatar, despite being the highest-grossing film ever made, has failed to leave a lasting mark on popular culture. That article is itself sourced from a Forbes piece by Scott Mendelson, the self-admitted "only…
January 7, 201616 Comments
Why Oligarchs Love Equality

Why Oligarchs Love Equality

In a perfect followup to my post on why Liberalism inevitably leads to tyranny, Murray Rothbard presents a devastating explanation for why egalitarianism is always championed by elitists. Rothbard begins by debunking the modern idea of equality. For 'equality' means 'sameness' — two entities are 'equal' if and only if…
December 21, 20155 Comments
There’s No Voting Our Way out of This

There’s No Voting Our Way out of This

A previous post on how the tide is turning against legacy media and its Leftist bias drew commenters who rightly observed that I offered no solutions for the current political crisis. Right up front, let me point out that I'm a schlock hack SF writer who is unqualified to propose…
December 18, 2015
New Media vs. Legacy Media: At the Turn of the Tide

New Media vs. Legacy Media: At the Turn of the Tide

A close relative recently confided in me that he's been struggling against a pervasive sense of despair. He's a faithful Christian and dedicated family man whose politics lean conservative. Yet his professional culture and the media he pays attention to bombard him with narratives contrary to his principles on a…
December 15, 2015
The Demonic Obsession of Cultural Marxists

The Demonic Obsession of Cultural Marxists

An interesting phenomenon, from my perspective as a theologian, is the number of people who've started asking if the cultural Marxists who seem hellbent on destroying Western civilization are possessed by demons. The question would have been laughed off as recently as five years ago, even among most Christians. But…
December 9, 20154 Comments

Dark Ages Now

John C. Wright offers a brilliant defense of the dishonestly much-maligned Dark Ages. The elite were not a different religion from the commons then, but agreed on the basics of the basic vision of a just life. Not every king was a good king, but there was a basic agreement…
November 27, 20152 Comments

Hollywood in Crisis

Even in the information age, industries whose true workings are obscured by layers of glamorized PR abound. Whenever insiders pull back the curtain to offer a glimpse at how the sausage is made, their stories rarely fail to intrigue me. One of the most highly romanticized and poorly understood industries…
November 26, 2015

No Going Back

Reader JD Cowan left a thoughtful and prophetic reply to yesterday's post on Hollywood remakes that I thought deserved a more extensive reply than I could give in the comments. Here's JD: This must be why only Pixar and Marvel get my movie dollars these days with the occasional Nolan…
November 19, 2015
Hollywood Is Just a Remake Machine

Hollywood Is Just a Remake Machine

Hollywood is out of ideas. In fact, the studios' original thought well ran dry so long ago that pointing out their creative bankruptcy would be a cliche if not for the massive doses of cynicism and intersectional identity politics they've injected into their tedious remakes. Here are just a few…
November 18, 20152 Comments