Prediction on the Downfall of the MCU Coming To Pass

Disney/Pixar just laid a pretty big turd this weekend, so it seems like a good time to revisit my answer to a Quora question a year ago. It has garnered 75 likes in that time, and so I am kind of proud of that. Honestly I just rushed my answer out with a lot less work that I generally put into blog posts. The reason people like it is obviously not because of brilliant writing but because the message resonates with fans of stories of all sorts. Here's the text:

Will Marvel Studios’ “woke” stance backfire like the comics did?

If the storytelling goes downhill, then the MCU will fall. “Wokeness” seems to erect artificial barriers to good storytelling. For example, look at the Charlie’s Angels movie. All the women are Mary Sues and can all do just about everything. All the men are awful and easy for the women to beat. The old white guy turns out to be the villain and this surprises no one. The movie tanked and was deservedly mocked.

“Batwoman” is another recent cringeworthy example. Good storytelling takes a back seat to woke button-pushing, and it is one of the lowest rated things in the DC realm.

Having said all this, there are many macho-crap films, stuff as far from “woke” as possible, out there that suck as badly as Batwoman. They feature one-dimensional, steroid-jacked heroes and hot women posing merely damsels in distress. I have just never heard anyone insist that those examples of film-making are great. Not in the way people insist that Last Jedi or Rise of Skywalker is great storytelling when the plot holes in those films are gaping and their characters demonstrably less realistic.

The best of the older, cheesy action films didn’t suffer from macho or woke posturing. Commando didn’t take itself very seriously, but neither of the females comes across as a fearful damsel-y character, but rather tough characters with courage. Rae-Dawn Chong actually uses a rocket launcher to free Schwarzenegger from a paddy wagon. But if Chong was shown beating all these military guys up with Arnold sitting there cheering her on that would have ruined the story. I feel like there are a bunch of woke fans that want that, i.e., ruin the story for the sake of a narrative that shows that men need to take a back seat to women, not that men and women can work together, using different talents, to beat the bad guys. “Edge of Tomorrow” is a good example of a more recent example of this, along with the first “Avengers” film of course.

“Falcon and the Winter Soldier” is a good example of the latest MCU project which was not sure what it wanted to be. Quirky action romp or preachy geopolitical / racial statement? Fortunately, the great action scenes provided enough cover for fans like me to ignore the cringe-worthy monologuing and confusion about who really is the “bad guy”. But here’s the thing: I’m a hardcore comic movie fan. If the MCU takes the wrong message from its decent ratings and injects more statement and less fun into their products, they are going to lose a lot of audience. You have got to get normal people to see your movies. If you are just able to count people like me coming through to door then woke or not, you’ll go broke.

I added a number of comments over the months about new MCU movies. I noted that Spiderman did really well and was missing all the SJW virtue signaling. A guy whose first name was Mohammad showed up in the comments and agreed with me numerous times, providing his own insights and examples that I appreciated very much. Unfortunately he deleted all his comments. He may have been scared that people might see them and decide he is a _______phobe, so I do not blame him one bit.

There are many people out there calling this stuff out now and pointing out that political messaging destroys stories. So many in fact that a list would be sort of hard to make, but here is a partial one: Critical Drinker, Nerdrotic, Ryan Kinal, Infinity Girl, The Quartering, Clownfish TV, Geeks and Gamers and Odin's Movie Blog. A lot of these folks are great fellow travelers for traditional Christians and conservatives to follow and check out.

Dan Bongino: An Absolute Winner

I am elated to be listening to the entire inaugural episode of the Dan Bongino show. If you don't know how to get it, you can check it out here:

790 KABC

I have been listening to Dan Bongino's Podcast for over six months. I can honestly say that it kept me sane in the aftermath of the disasterous events of 2020. I am mainly referring to the Chinese virus, the overreaction in the form of state lockdowns and the questionable Presidential Election result.

When I found out he was getting the Rush Limbaugh spot on Westwood One, I was elated. There is probably very little daylight between Bongino's and Limbaugh's politics. But Bongino is a serious Catholic, a former Secret Service agent and a family man with kids. So the people like me can both respect him and relate to him in a way we couldn't with Rush, as much as we loved the guy. He also looks and sounds like he could kill people with his bare hands, which appeals to Huns like me.

Bongino has been very humble about this, so let me say that he won this spot. He won it hands down, he won it easily, in my book, and he won it like a winner who could win anything because of how hard he works. He won it by calling a spade a spade; i.e., calling media liberals stupid, liars and insane people. Because those are words which describe what they have become in recent times. Bongino is a winner because he never lets up until he wins.

And that is one of the reasons why I restarted this blog, despite the fact that a lot of people have likely forgotten who I am. If they ever knew in the first place. Dan Bongino has inspired me to not give up. And as if he were personally attempting to ingratiate himself with me, he began and ended his first show by using the Fable of The Emporer's New Clothes as an illustation of media malfeasance. Anyone who has read this blog in the past knows that this is one of our favorite illustrations ever, and its applicability is only amplified in a world where media elites are desperately attempting to cling to some semblance of credibility amid countless alternative news sources.

Bongino does not pull any punches at all, when he is punching. But of course if he was punching all the time then his show would be about as listenable to people like me as the Michael Savage show. But most of the time he is doing what Limbaugh, Levin and Hannity did and do on their shows, which is to inform and enlighten his audience in an entertaining manner. That is what I used to do, and when I quit years ago, it was like giving up without even realizing it.

You may have noticed that, of late, I am trying to rev up this old blog. Definitely people like Bongino have been my inspiration for this, and another factor has been my massive retreat from Social Media to which I blame a lot of problems in my life. They were small and mid-size problems, not big ones like job loss or divorce, but they were many and ended up wasting my time and energy.

I am contemplating a podcast, but I am taking things a step at a time. Please feel free to give me unsolicited advice on this.

If you're still taking Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ seriously, now I'm just laughing at you

Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™

In another 3,200-word eruction entitled - what else? - Talking Benedict Option, our favorite tailor to credulous emperors and their courts Rod Dreher does just that, talk, talk, and talk some more about people talking about Rod Dreher talking about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™.

Here is why I and others are laughing at you: not just because you thought those Shake Weights would knock that spare tire around your middle right down, not because you still want to maintain to your snickering friends that those premium-priced Monster cables deliver a noticeably higher quality audio-video experience, but because you are unequivocally one of these people:

Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear: "Look at the Emperor's new clothes. They're beautiful!"

      "What a marvellous train!"

      "And the colors! The colors of that beautiful fabric! I have never seen anything like it in my life!" They all tried to conceal their disappointment at not being able to see the clothes, and since nobody was willing to admit his own stupidity and incompetence, they all behaved as the two scoundrels had predicted.

That's right. You're a goober, a mark, a chump, a sucker, the eager tool of a relentlessly self-promoting impresario who really does nothing else in life but promote himself. Because, bless your heart, that's just how you roll.

But perhaps not all of you. It's statistically impossible for all of you to naturally be that witless. And, moreover, one of the most salient aspects you share with Rod Dreher is the unquenchable need for your own Internet presence to constantly be reaffirmed, particularly by the highest god of the realm you serve, the one whose name also cannot be spoken and which also begins with a G.

In this ghostly, drifting penumbral nebula of cyber-pseudo-Christianity within which you promote yourself, everyone involved clearly understands Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ isn't something to be practiced, it's the Internet that is to be practiced instead.

Rod Dreher invents the Emperor's New Clothes of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ and wants to get everyone talking about it, because to talk about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ is to talk about the narcissistic black hole at the center of the Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ event horizon, Rod Dreher.

But if there's something on a trending ballistic within that ectoplasmic cybermist of pseudo-Christianity that defines you, you don't want to be left out, do you? Maybe talking about Rod Dreher talking about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ will raise your own cyber-pseudo-Christian profile as well. And that will make your great god G very happy.

So for all of you more-than-mere-goobers, Christianity and Christian culture really become the means; mutually and reciprocally talking about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ as a thoughtful, serious option for Christians in order to raise the Internet profiles of all of you doing so becomes the true end.

And so as you peer into and talk about Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ with a spiritual seriousness either credulous or cynical, the misty abyss of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ will rejoice and peer into and talk about you. And not only will that flatter you, it will make your great god G very happy.

But eventually, after Rod has landed his Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ book deal - you do understand all of this Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ noise, all of it, is nothing but an Astroturfed buzz campaign to land him a book deal, right? - and after he has sold many dozens of books and garnered dozens of five-star Amazon reviews from those blog followers whose comments flatter him, the hot sun of the real world will rise again, the misty vapor of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ will lift from your eyes, you will find yourself inexplicably babbling about a naked emperor, and you will sheepishly realize this

“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air..”

Or maybe you prefer a more contemporary version

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned...

You can even read all about this orbital ghost realm you and Rod Dreher are cheerfully cultivating instead of Christianity and Christian culture here.

In the meantime, though, I'll just be laughing at you. Because, like the Emperor, his courtiers, and his townspeople, you've worked hard for it, and you've earned it.

UPDATE (as they say): As my colleague Pikkumatti pointed out, in order to avoid the unfortunate fate of busy people referring to Rod Dreher's Benedict Option™ as "Rod's BO", our Prophet has now launched on the hilariously entertaining course of recursively micro-branding his original brand. No detail is too small for the Mad Man Prophet. I expect T-shirts any day now.

In this brand-branding establishing post, Prophet Dreher gratuitously inserts the term "BenOp" no less than ten times including title and tags:

"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"
"BenOp"    "New, Improved Tide"

Hear his offering, Lord Big G, little double o, and reward him with first page recognition!

Go ahead, use our Prophet's hastily fabricated, Newspeak term "BenOp". Represent.

Oh, dear, what is the Benedict Option?

Let's face it, being a fraudulent hustler of religious culture like Rod Dreher is hard work. It's not easy selling people cutting edge hydrogen oxide when they are accustomed to drinking water. But if you're Rod Dreher you persevere in your emperorography, and then one day

Boom, there it is: the strategy for the Benedict Option. Christians have to play the long game, as our ancestors in the faith did. This is what I mean by the Benedict Option: to figure out how to live, and build the structures of community that make it possible to live, so that we raise generations of Christian families. Historical circumstances have trimmed back the previous growths of the faith down to the roots. Our job is to patiently tend the roots, and nurture them for the day when the long winter darkness ends.

Boom! At least someone else is finally providing Rod with something with which to substantiate the completely cool and at the same time utterly hollow Madison Avenue brand name "Benedict Option" he has been trying to market for the last several years now.

Those who have followed this ad campaign from the beginning know quite well that it started out as a flight-from-corrupt-society religious mutation of his original Crunchy Cons mish-mash, except that no one wanted to buy that product and, as a result, Dreher was forced to wander in the wilderness pretending he knew quite well what he was talking about without, however, ever quite being able to clearly state what he knew.

In philosophical terms, the Benedict Option trade name was forced for a time to revert from actuality back into the less stressful quantum state of pure potentiality while it awaited a new product host and a new consumer base for that new product. Now, though, it seems old, unimproved Tide Benedict Option has actually been officially banned for all consumers:

UPDATE.2: And the next person who repeats the much-denied claim that the Benedict Option is about running off to the hills and building a compound to keep out all the impure people is going to get punched. Seriously, though, I am so tired of repeatedly denying this that I’m simply not going to publish any comments stating this untruth.

Given our working prophet's burgeoning Russophilia, the delicious Sovietness of this edict should not be surprising, but it does raise some ancillary and as yet unanswerable questions. What happens if I do decide to run off to the hills and build a compound to keep out all the impure people while patiently tending the roots, nurturing them for the day when the long winter darkness ends? Am I still licensed by Dreher, Inc. to use the term "Benedict Option"? For that matter, how will any individual or group know for sure whether

• they are practicing the genuine Benedict Option;

• got saddled with an old, out of date and previously recalled Benedict Option;

• are erroneously practicing a faux-Benedict Option (never buy one from the trunk of someone's car);

• or simply happen to be a sluggard who isn't trying hard enough and is only effectuating some inferior pre- or sub-Benedict Option?

In other words, where can one find the official catechism of the official Benedict Option to ensure one is getting it right?

I’m preparing to undertake a book about the Benedict Option

Ah, perfect. So one will be available for sale.

Still, I remain confused. Some posts back I laid out my thinking as to why everything Dreher must deal with in under-girding his tantalizing trade name "Benedict Option" with actual practicable substance leads with inexorable logic to a terminal secular millenarianism, and, again, if anyone can show me how it escapes this logic trap, by all means do so.

But the "Boom" paragraph with which I led off this whole post suggests something new, something different, something exciting

This is what I mean by the Benedict Option: to figure out how to live, and build the structures of community that make it possible to live, so that we raise generations of Christian families.

To figure out how to live, to build the structures of community that make it possible to live so that we raise generations of Christian families. So...to be Christian. That's the Benedict Option. To be Christian.

But still, to figure out how to live as a Christian, to build the structures of community that make it possible to live as a Christian so that we raise generations of Christian families - with a way cooler new appellation, The Benedict Option.

Not that dull old traditional Zud figuring-out-how-to-live-as-a-Christian option, building the structures of community that make it possible to live as a Christian so that we raise generations of Christian families. No, new, improved Benedict Option figuring-out-how-to-live-as-a-Christian option, building the structures of community that make it possible to live as a Christian so that we raise generations of Christian families.

Now, of course, the whole enterprise will feel more or less new, improved Benedict Optiony as opposed to old, unimproved Zuddite or any other traditional Christianity optiony depending on one's relative hysteria about the putative Dark Ages one is living in compared to other periods in history with other anti-Christian hazards. Wolves. Meanies. People that when you tell them you're a Christian go "Nie!". Disco. Vikings.

Where does this now leave me? Adrift between apocalyptic, dark-agey secular millenarianism and this new gospel of a fascinating new hydrogen oxide, with its own exegetical catechism to be offered for sale some time after the book about how Dante can save my life will finally be offered for sale.

Thanks, I'll just have water. No, really, I'm good, just ordinary, 2,000-year-old water. If it was good enough for Jesus and those who followed Him, it's good enough for me. But, still - way cool brand name, dude.

UPDATE (as they say): Commenter Mike W at the Dreher post linked has questions similar to mine:

Mike W says:
March 19, 2015 at 12:25 pm

A few questions. As a practical matter, how would the Benedict option look? What would be the general attributes of someone (or a community) following the Benedict option? How would you know if you were actually doing it properly? How do you “modernize” the approach to deal with 21st century pressures such as 24/7 media, etc. Who’s doing it now? How successful are they (and how do they define success)?

[NFR: All great questions ... but ones I am not prepared to answer. All of them I have to explore while working on the book. -- RD]

All great questions indeed, and in most cases the sorts of things one would want to have thought about and have answered before embarking on a great commission to recruit others to completely recreate their lives to suit one's vision.

But, just as with the case of Obamacare, the Benedict Option is nothing more than a political marketing chimera designed only to enhance the reputation of its proponent while dumping the unknown burdens of implementing it - including even the most fundamental question: what is it? - onto the paying marks in the cheap seats.

Here's the litmus test that Rod Dreher's Benedict Option (TM) is nothing more than fraudulent vaporware. If it were a real thing he really believed in for himself, Dreher would have already stated in clear and practical terms,

"Here is what I am doing myself and for my family in pursuit of the Benedict Option as I envision it.

Here is what I am doing:

1.

2.

3.

and here is what I am not doing:

1.

2.

3.

That is the Benedict Option in practice for my family, the Drehers."

But having taken the orders and the down payments, alas, there is no product in the warehouse for delivery.

Keith is generous, Keith is kind

Not to be outdone, I just finished making a large and ostentatious gesture most readers of EQE might not immediately ascribe to Keith.

Orphans.

These are orphans, yo.

Kittens and puppies.

These are kittens and puppies, yo.

Both are icons that naturally tug at your heart strings. I have decided there’s one thing I can do. It’s the day after Valentine’s Day, so I’m sending a big paper surprise to the union rep of each of these iconic groups to help with their teething.

Whatever my real and deep differences with small creatures worlds removed from me, I do not want anyone anywhere to milk all the self-promotion these two groups can provide me with before I get my full cut. I do not want them to win.

Besides, I thought, how much would it mean to me to see orphans and kittens and puppies stepping up to aid and assist people like me who've been bitten by both from time to time. Don't ask, it was extremely painful to me on each occasion, personally and emotionally.

I can’t stop bad orphans from shooting kittens and puppies. But what we who try to be decent people — orphan, Keith, kitten, puppy, all of us — can do is repair what damage was done, as far as we are able. True, we should take care of ourselves, and that's what I do 99.9% of the time, but the other 0.1% I like to make a big splash about looking like I'm taking care of others when they are suffering.

That’s why dug into my freezer, deep into the empty gut of a sweet king mackerel I caught a while back, and fished out a couple of these

A $10,000 bill, yo. Guess who just gave 'em away. That's right, me.

which I keep there for occasions just like this. Here’s a picture of one of them, so you know I’m not making this up.

I sent the orphans and kittens and puppies a couple of these, and I hope you will too, if you are able. It occurred to me that this is how we can fight the feeling of shame and impotence so many of us have in the face of atrocities committed by bad orphans, kittens, and puppies everywhere.

I decided to make this public as an example — first, because it’s the kind of thing I would like to see others do for me, and second because I wanted everyone to know what a difference showing off like this can do for how others think about me.

I am no less opposed to orphaned kittens and puppies than I ever was, but "orphans" is not a synonym for “kittens and puppies.” And for all I know, maybe seeing people like me giving really large Federal Reserve notes to both factions will stop some of the internecine biting between the two groups we all deplore so.

And did I mention that it was me, Keith, actually giving them these large, rare bills? Here's another shot so that there can be absolutely no doubt in your mind that I really did just give these away and what a wonderful person I am for doing so.

This is the other one. It looks just like the other one.

I don’t think it’s right to tell people about your charitable giving, but in this case, I think it’s important for we who want others to know just how much better we are than they are to offer proof of that fact for all the world to see. You don’t have to be a one-in-a-million-individual like Keith to stand up and show off like this.

You just have to be humane. And blog about it loudly. With the sort of incontrovertible proof of my glorious and unbounded humanity I'm providing you here.

And with just a little extra effort and just a little less of a sense of modesty or shame, you could be almost as good a person as I am, too. Almost.

Rod Dreher's Guilt, Implication, and The Emperor's New Clothes

I want to round out today's trifecta on what I'm going to be calling from now on Rod Dreher's signature "emperorography" by expanding on something Diane, Pik and I were discussing in the comments here, "emperorography" (because imperiography already means something different) now meaning that nebulous rhetorical gas Dreher frequently produces for marketing to credulous commenters who fear appearing stupid or uneducated by questioning him too closely about whether he actually said anything at all.

The title of the post, of course, already tips you off to the term's source.

This archetypal example of Dreherian emperorography began today in this tweet

@regulus_l @HarrisIII @ericmetaxas All Christians are not guilty ... but all of us are implicated. See the difference?
— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) February 11, 2015

originally hawking this post by Dreher disingenuously attempting to suggestively equate the brutality of ISIS with historically bad treatment of blacks in the American South in order to skim off his cut of discussion controversy first generated by President Obama in his recent prayer breakfast remarks.

When Regulus started poking too deeply, Dreher tried to buy him off with the "guilt v. implication" legerdemain - do you see the difference?

Frankly, no I didn't, but the suggestive effort itself immediately reminded me of this classic rhetorical grift:

"Isn't it a beautiful piece of goods?" the swindlers asked him, as they displayed and described their imaginary pattern.

"I know I'm not stupid," the man thought, "so it must be that I'm unworthy of my good office. That's strange. I mustn't let anyone find it out, though." So he praised the material he did not see. He declared he was delighted with the beautiful colors and the exquisite pattern. To the Emperor he said, "It held me spellbound."

All the town was talking of this splendid cloth, and the Emperor wanted to see it for himself while it was still in the looms. Attended by a band of chosen men, among whom were his two old trusted officials-the ones who had been to the weavers-he set out to see the two swindlers. He found them weaving with might and main, but without a thread in their looms.

"Magnificent," said the two officials already duped. "Just look, Your Majesty, what colors! What a design!" They pointed to the empty looms, each supposing that the others could see the stuff.

What colors! What a design! And, true to our tale, the weaving continued long into the day. Keep in mind that, as with the insatiable need for cowbell, the only cure for that Dreherian emperorography fever is more Dreherian emperorography.

Sorry: me, Keith, are a monkey with the mind of a child, and I just don't see no difference between guilt and implication, Rod. Unless of course you're only implying there's a difference without actually being guilty of claiming one.

What I do see, what Dreherian emperorography raises to a high art, is the sort of vapid, content-free lyrical writing typically found in fables about seagulls, Hallmark cards, and your random internet meme-generator:

"All of us are readers...but not all of us can read. See the difference?"

Nice work if you can get it.

Remember, credulous townfolk, "How Emperorography Can Save Your Life" (or something similar) will be available for your squinting, unworthy eyes the day before your taxes are due.

Oh - or, if not, why not a similar self-help tome from the same esteemed publisher?