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jay's avatar

RE no consequences: Yes. One example of this that I see often is, The hero is arrested for some crime he didn't commit. So he breaks out of jail and sets out to prove his innocence. Along the way he kills several prison guards, leads the police on a wild car chase that causes millions of dollars in property damage, and engages in numerous lesser felonies, like breaking and entering to steal something that helps prove his innocence. And then at the end, everyone just completely forgets all these crimes that he committed, because he proved he was innocent of the first crime. Sorry, but that's not how it works. The fact that you DIDN'T steal $10 from the convenience store doesn't give you the legal right to murder dozens of people and do millions of dollars of property damage.

Or in another vein, the hero has random sex with a dozen different women ... and we never see those women crying that she thought he was going to marry her, or wondering what to do about the baby now that she's pregnant.

Or in many, many children's movies: The father repeatedly misses his son's ball games or his daughter's piano recitals or whatever because of work responsibilities. Than in the climax, the boss tells him he has to cancel some event with his child for work reasons, and he tells off the boss and quits his job so he can go to the child's event. And that's where the movie ends. They never show the scene a month or two later where the family loses their house and are eating at a soup kitchen because dad no longer has a job.

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yara's avatar

One DIsney movie lesson my pastor frequently derides is "follow your heart". It's just as likely to lead you astray.

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John Hawkins's avatar

There is a lot of truth to what your pastor said.

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jay's avatar

Yes. In the Gilbert & Sullivan play "HMS Pinafore", a character says that he decided he would always follow his heart. And so he betrays his best friend and steals his girlfriend.

"Be yourself" is terrible advice if you're a jerk.

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Dee Rambeau's avatar

Good one John. Fair assessment all around. What hits me the most is a feeling of sadness that people would actually take or learn lessons from the movies. It’s the movies for fuck’s sake, right? I guess I’m sad because we are truly that impressionable? 🤷🏻‍♂️

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David Ball's avatar

It is like the awful portrayal of faithful people in movies. It isn't possible according to orthodox movie making. A faithful person acts on faith, which includes an internal logic not easily observable. But anything shown on screen is supposed to fit into screen logic. Hence someone standing up for faith based teaching in schools has to field pet theories about Scopes trial and reject science. Spoiler alert, Science came from faith based learning and Scopes trial endorsed racism and phrenology over faith.

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