People Who Complain About Media Illiteracy are Just the Worst

Two examples

If you've never heard a pseudo-intellectual bemoan the current state of "media literacy" among the general public, congratulations! You haven't wasted your life like I have. For those of you who are blessedly unfamiliar with the term, it's a midwit dysphemism for "having a different interpretation of a movie than me, a sophisticated film-goer."

Oh, you think the bugs are the bad guys?

To be Fair…

Since Disney just put out the trailer for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Average People Magical Creatures That We’re Not Calling Dwarfs Even Though they Totally Are, here's a great example of how “media literacy” is used in the wild—

I cropped the name out, since the poster likely wouldn’t be able to defend herself.

First of all, no, that's not what the word "fair" means in this context. At the time the Brothers Grimm wrote the “fairest of them all” line, it meant fair-skinned, which was a synecdoche for beauty.

But set aside the semantics. What does she think the plot of Snow White even is? The Evil Queen asks the magic mirror "Who's the fairest of them all?" and up until the first act of the movie, the mirror said it was her.

So, was every other woman in the kingdom even worse than the Evil Queen? And when did Snow White suddenly become “kind, generous, and pure hearted?” Was she a selfish brat until her 16th birthday? Furthermore, why would the, again, Evil Queen care who's the kindest, most generous, etcetera-est?

Listen, I get it. We should absolutely teach children that it's more important to be good than good-looking.

That's not what Snow White is about. At best, you could say that Snow White’s personal qualities shine through in her beauty. At its heart, this is a story about shallow jealousy.

I’ll leave this here without comment.

Or possibly, it’s about something even more sinister…¹

Judging a Bug by its Cover

Because the Internet is a strange place and the nature of virality is inscrutable, the true meaning of Starship Troopers—a sci-fi action flick that flopped nearly three decades ago—became the subject of intense debate earlier this year.

Although this trend peaked ten months ago, just last week I stumbled across this video complaining about MeDiA LiTeRaCy. Don’t worry, I’m not going to dissect the whole thing like I did that defense Star Wars Special Editions. But I do want to point out two statements, which occur within less than a minute of each other—

Starship Troopers was, indeed, intended to be a satire of fascism and fascist propaganda. Screenwriter Edward Neumeier and director Paul Verhoeven have said so many times. And while my most recent video essay is a defense of authorial intent, I also played devil’s advocate and pointed to many flaws in that mode of interpretation. Specifically, sometimes a creator fails at executing their vision.

And that’s basically what happened with Starship Troopers. The full extent of the “satire” displayed in the film is literally what’s on display—the costumes. Otherwise, there’s nothing functionally fascistic about the society as portrayed.² We see equality among the races and sexes. Everyone who wants to vote is allowed to, after a term of service, which is a much broader voting franchise than most democracies throughout history. There’s no indication of a merging of industry and the government.

There’s really nothing in the film to indicate that the Terran Federation is fascist other than the fact that they look fascist. Which is what makes the second half of the above clip is so ironic. In case it’s not clear from context, the video is claiming that we’re “conditioned” to hate…giant insect monsters. I’m sorry, but that’s not a social construct; that’s a perfectly normal, human reaction.

You would do the same.

No, the things we’ve been taught since childhood to hate and fear are dudes in long black coats with snappy collars. Which, to be clear, is a good thing. Nazis are bad. But even though he looks like a Nazi, Doogie Howser isn’t a Nazi.

The condescending video wouldn’t be quite so annoying if it wasn’t also just plain wrong about everything. The actual media illiteracy lies assuming that superficial appearances are all that matters.

A True Contrarian View

Contrast that style with

Feral Historian

’s. Here, he presents a seemingly wild interpretation of both Starship Troopers and Star Trek—

The main difference between him and the self-appointed Media Literati is that he’s not, well, a condescending prick. He presents his case, offers examples, and allows for the fact that his ideas are counter-intuitive. He doesn’t mock or belittle anyone who might disagree with him. He simply offers an interesting perspective, and allows you to accept or reject it. He’s more media literate than most YouTube commentators, but he doesn’t feel the need to brag about it.

It also helps that he’s right.

What do you think? Have you heard that media literacy is dying? And was the person who said it a complete dick about it?

1. No, it’s not. Obviously.

2. Some people make wild assumptions about the movie being an in-universe propaganda film, which it so blatantly is not, the theory is hardly worth dismissing even in a footnote.