Stephen Fry on the Rubin Report: the “deep infantilism of our culture”

April 4, 2016 • 2:00 pm

Dave Rubin, a comedian and now video podcast host, produces some of the best interviews around, and you should keep abreast of his YouTube channel, “The Rubin Report.”  His secular-themed show gets some of the most interesting guests around, and Rubin is a thorough and often combative (but always affable) interviewer. In his latest segment, only eleven minutes long, he talks to Stephen Fry about political correctness. (Fry objects to being interviewed for longer than that.) The take-home message, to quote Fry, is “one fears that the advances of the Enlightenment are being systematically and deliberately pushed back.” He also points out that the most rational countries of the world are those that have kings and queens: constitutional monarchies like Sweden and Denmark (they’re also the most atheistic, even though many have state religions). Curiously, he doesn’t explain these empirical observations.

The conversation then turns to what Rubin calls the Regressive Left.

I love Fry’s beef about adults going to see “superhero” movies, as I wholly agree. I find those movies tedious and superficial, yet they’re the only thing that draws Americans into theaters these days. I still maintain that the recent and highly lauded movie “Mad Max: Fury Road” was basically tripe.

But I digress. We need people like Fry, established liberals and rationalists, to speak out against the cancer of infantilism. I find it amusing that those who promulgate that tendency now seem to realize what they’ve done, but instead of thinking hard about it, they just ratchet up their authoritarian rage.

h/t: Bryan

133 thoughts on “Stephen Fry on the Rubin Report: the “deep infantilism of our culture””

  1. Excellent! I am so glad to hear that someone else has an issue with super hero movies. I stopped going to them when the Batman movie came out in 2008, having been assaulted by the advertising, and have not been to one since. I am dismayed that the best the geniuses and millionaires in Hollywood can turn our are Marvel (or whomever) inspired cartoons. Are there good movies that involve fantasy or science fiction? Yes, but the success of the superhero genre is predicated on cgi and smashing things and blowing things up. Boring. Boring. Boring.

    1. Agreed.

      I think the best SF film I have seen in the last twenty years is ‘Gattaca’. No CGI (at least none that was noticeable), no explosions, no big weapons, no cool machines of any kind. Just an interesting idea, a good plot, and good acting.

      1. Though I like cool machines and well done special effects just fine I readily agree with you that they are not needed for even a science fiction movie to be good. But, though I wanted to like Gattaca I had to finally admit to myself that I thought it merely so-so at best. It has been a long time. I’ll have to re watch it and see what I think now.

      2. For sliding difficult or terrifying ideas under your eyelids, I agree that “GATTACA” was very good. Best in the last 20 years … I’d have to WikiGoog it, but we’re close to the boundary?
        Superhero movies – superheros in general – are pre-adolescent in concept. And I have no shame in admitting that as a pre-adolescent, I really liked them. Up to the age of about 12, I would spend Saturday morning sweating and chasing around to clean my bedroom so I’d get my [EN_US “allowance” ; EN_GB “pocket money”] for the week’s editions. Of course, I started to realise how US-centric these re-prints from Marvel were, at about the same time that I was realising that friends of my family were being clubbed unconscious by police working for the US government at the Greens Norton and Molesworth megaton-targets (both within bicycling distance, therefore I grew up in a doubly-dead zone).
        Yeah, that rather puts a crimp in your appreciation of foreign policy. (To square the circle, of course I had family or friends who had suffered in WW1 and WW2. On both “Allied” and “Axis” sides. Strangely, not one of them had wanted to die for their political master’s pretensions.)
        I do appreciate a superhero movie – good flash-bang-&-CGI. But in terms of encouraging individuals to actually study and control their lives … I’ve seen used toilet tissue that is more inspiring than superheroes.
        What is that note I made … “[quoth His Fryness] Nobody wants to believe that life is complicated.” … [SELF thinks] … That is pretty true. I might qualify it (being greying these decades) as “Nobody YOUNG …,” but that is a pretty minor cavil.

        1. Note that I qualified “best” with “I have seen”. 🙂 I am willing to concede that there may have been better ones that I have not seen.

          Also, I found ‘Avatar’ utterly amazing the first time I saw it: it did a better job of creating an alien world than anything I have ever seen.

          But my all-time favourite is ‘Aliens’ – and that one does have explosions, big weapons and cool machines. 🙂

      1. Well, if enjoying a movie because it has a good plot and good acting, rather than crash! bang! boom!, makes me a cultural elitist, then yes, I am a cultural elitist.

  2. So true. I remember the days at work when Harry Potter was almost the sole topic of conversation. Similarly with His Dark Materials. They are kids books ffs but people were reading them for themselves.

    When i started work if Winine the Pooh had just been released (I’m not actually that old) people would have read it to their kids at bedtime and said nothing.

    1. Pigeonholing Harry Potter and His Dark Materials as “kid[‘]s books”, especially in the case of the latter, completely misses the fact that these books appeal to adults too, as they touch on themes that can be appreciated by people of all ages. Having read HDM for the first time as a teenager (~13yo or so), then picking it up later, first at 18 then again in my early twenties, I can honestly say I’ve taken something new from it each time, especially the last time round, and there are ideas in there that 13yo me could never have appreciated. It’s fair enough if you don’t like these books, but given that you’re happy to dismiss them as being just for children, I doubt you’ve even given them a chance.

      Your comment, as well as what Fry has to say about superheroes etc., absolutely reeks of snobbery. It’s one thing to suggest (quite correctly, in many cases) that there is a tendency for people to want to over-simplify things without being willing to think in any detail about the nuance involved. However, as someone who will tune in to the odd superhero film (especially during a long-haul flight when I haven’t slept and just want to switch off and watch something straightforward that requires relatively little brain power), before going back to my job as a theoretical physicist and handling very complex concepts which require very clear thought, I don’t think we have to belittle people for watching “children’s” films or reading “kid’s” books, and we certainly don’t need to take that as a sign that they can’t handle complication and subtlety.

  3. “V for Vendetta”, the movie Fry appeared in several years ago, is a comic book movie.

    I think his (and your) criticism of comic book movies is wrongheaded, but it probably isn’t worth arguing about. Like any genre, there are good ones, and there are bad ones.

    1. I feel the same – there are good movies and bad movies, and I like some of the superhero movies and TV shows, and dislike some, and I’m not apologizing for that. I don’t think anyone who knows me would accuse me of infantile thinking, needing to be told what to think, or unable to think about complicated issues.

      I agree with Fry about the republic thing though. You clearly do not need to be a republic to be secular. I would add my own country (New Zealand) to the list, as well as Australia and Canada – the British monarch is still all of ours too. We’re also non-religious, open, free, and have high levels of social support.

      An idea I heard from someone else (can’t remember who, but it was a commenter here or on my own blog) is that because religion is part of the state, rebelling against the state includes rebelling against religion. I think there’s something in that.

      1. I tend to think exposure to weak state-sponsored religion is probably a good inoculation against the more virulent fundamentalist kind. In the same way that cowpox was a preventative against smallpox.

        cr

        1. I’d go along with that too. It’s the explanation that fits my own situation best anyway. It’ll always be different for different people of course.

          1. Amplifying that theme, it’s enough exposure to arouse our ‘this is ridiculous’ antibodies, while not being enough to overwhelm our defenses with intensive brainwashing.

            cr

  6. I agree with nearly everything you (Jerry) and Stephen Fry say here, except the bit about super hero movies. Which I interpret, perhaps mistakenly, as a more general criticism against frivolity for which super hero movies are being used as a notable example of.

    I am not a big super hero fan (I am a big science fiction fan though, which is closely related) but I do enjoy relatively mindless, for fun activities, including frivolous movies. Not all the time, but I’d be sad not to have such stuff available. I do have to admit that it is a bit depressing that most of what the big studios put out, in all genres, is pablum. But that is nothing new to this generation. It has always been that way as far as I can tell. Not just in movies but all art / entertainment for popular consumption.

    One example that comes to mind from the recent rash of super hero movies is Guardians Of The Galaxy. I really enjoyed that movie. Another frivolous movie that I really like, going back a bit further, is Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element.

    2. I too will take in many of the super hero movies, and i enjoy them, but many sci fi movies in general have just been a $$$$$ grubbing distraction. Witness the many many sequels of such movies.

      As for Guardians of the Galaxy, well, you are welcome of your opinion but that one completely left me cold. I mean, near the end with the Big Confrontation between the Bad Guy and the Good Guy they had a… dance off. Wtf.

        1. Who can forget this exchange (Joss Whedon is an atheist after all).

          Buffy: Did Mr. Whitmore notice I was tardy?
          Xander: I think the word you’re searching for is absent.
          Willow: Tardy people show. And yes, he did notice, so he wanted me to give you this. [hands Buffy an egg]
          Buffy: As far as punishments go, this is fairly abstract.
          Willow: No, it’s your baby!
          Buffy: Okay, I get it even less.
          Xander: You know it’s the whole sex leads to responsibility thing, which I personally don’t get. You gotta take care of the egg, it’s a baby. You gotta keep it safe and teach it Christian values.
          Willow: My egg is Jewish.
          Xander: Then teach it that dreidel song.

        2. I hope Harry Potter inspires a whole new generation to learn Latin. When I saw that god awful movie, Clash of the Titans which has been redone and I can’t bring myself to watch it, I was a child. As a child, I had questionable taste in things but it did make me start reading all the Greek and Roman myths and made me want to take Latin when I entered high school and then get a whole degree in Classics.

          But I gave it all up to work in IT 😛

          1. Yeah, there are a whole lot of references to all sorts if things historical. The wizard who created the philosopher’s stone was a real person too who lived in the Middle Ages. There are all sorts of references like that in the books.

    4. I like my frivolity now and then, too. I think the depressing thing is how much money, time, and prestige get thrown at frivolity. And it’s not just Hollywood that produces frivolity. Much of what passes for high art these days is pretty fracking frivolous, if you ask me.

    5. I agree about superhero movies. There’s nothing about the genre that says they have to be rubbish. It all depends on the individual movie.

      I do take Fry’s point about blowing things up substituting for real plots and acting – and I fervently echo that sentiment. But I’d say that applies even more strongly to ‘action’ movies. Again, it is possible to make a good exciting action movie, just not that common.
      (I think the ‘Bourne’ series, for example, are genuinely exciting – partly because they keep a rein on the blowing up of things).

      But either category is infinitely better than the embarrassing gross-out dreck that passes for comedy these days. Meet the Fuckers. Yeech.

      cr

      1. Totally agree on the Bourne series: Excellent movies. They keep bringing in twists that keep in interesting. (There will be a fourth one coming out this year, I think, with Matt Damon back as Bourne, Paul Greengrass directing again.)

      2. Fully agree on recent comedy films. It’s been an age since I’ve seen one I really liked. I still watch 70s and 80s comedies (and I’m not a 70s and especially not an 80s nostalgia kind of person — I’ve only recently bought compilations of the music I listened to back then; and I only listen to it rarely — but music is a whole other subject.)

        Don’t forget Contact, the film version of Carl Sagan’s novel. I think that one was excellent.

        Some of my favorite recent films:
        Pride and Prejudice (2005 film)
        The World’s Fastest Indian
        Sweet Land
        Philomena
        Les Intouchables
        Girl With a Pearl Earring
        Michael Clayton

        I could go on; but I won’t …

        1. Couldn’t agree more about comedies. I had a really long dry spell. Until just recently I would have had to go all the way back to A Fish Called Wanda to name a comedy I thought was really funny.

          I’ve been skeptical of comedies for a long time, it is hard to recover from something like Zoolander, but in more recent comedies I thought The Heat was hilarious. Spy with Melissa McCarthy I also found pretty funny.

          I agree with your picks of The World’s Fastest Indian and Philomena.

          1. I really liked Bridesmaids So much so that I actually watched it several times. It normally wouldn’t be a movie I’d watch as I would have thought it was one of those formulaic romantic comedies but it’s actually very truthful in its hilarity. Everyone is great in it, especially Melissa McCarthy.

    6. If it hasn’t been said already: Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is crap.

      And, as I tell my wife and son, on the internet, there is no quality control, which means Sturgeon’s Law is applied twice: Sturgeon’s Law Squared: 99% of everything on the internet is crap.

      1. Fascinating article. From my perspective, the critical tension in the film industry lies between the director/writer and the production/distribution company. Quite often these aspects are at odds, and sometimes it’s tragic. The concept of a good film and it’s development by the maker is the essence of the meaning of film as an art form, but money is made or lost on the basis of cost and financial return. If a film is conceived and developed with a refined eye, treating issues of significance, it stands a very good chance of being damaged or ruined by the money managers. In some instances, the film maker, based on past success at the box office, is given wide leeway in the form of sole control of production. These films stand the best chance of breaking out from the glut of lesser efforts.

  7. On movies, I just do not see many and haven’t for years. It was apparent that movies were being made primarily for 19 year old boys and I have not been one of those for a very long time. Special affects and animation are for cartoons far as I can say.

    Fry’s remarks on Monarchies are timely as most people in the west are conditioned to believe they are evil forms of government. Actually if you have good and fair Monarchies, they can be the best form of government. Much more efficient and productive than anything we have.

    He puzzles about the American Enlightenment gone bad but really close observers tell us it started to go bad very soon after our government got going. By the time many of the founding fathers had died the unraveling had begun. Both Adams and Jefferson spoke openly about being disgusted with both government and society in the early 19th century. The self centered middling types that Madison complained about at state level government were soon in large supply at the federal level. Something he was shocked to see.

    We must admit, particularly within the current state of government, that quality and quantity of outstanding statesmen that existed in the 17th century America would not be seen again.

    1. It will virtually cost you no effort or money to rent a Pixar movie. I defy anyone to watch Inside Out and not be agog at the cleverness that reaches the heartstrings and funny bones of both young and old. And bring your hanky. No mortal will get through that movie without one.

      1. I believe there is no Pixar film I have watched without a hanky. Even the recent trailer for Finding Dori found me empathically tearing up for Dori’s plight (which I know nothing about/which I know is totally made up/which I know is meant for twelve-nineteen year olds).

        2. Finding Dori – was that one of the Hobbit series? I couldn’t keep track of them all.

      2. Mark, I have seen one or two over the years and I don’t mean to put them all down, nor all the monster and science fiction. It’s just not my idea of a movie. Most of the movies I liked growing up had real people in them, generally acting and attempting to tell a story that was credible. They don’t make many of these any longer because the big bucks are making movies for a different audience. I recall someone telling me why Matrix was such a super movie and you have to see it.

        1. I will have to allow that there will always be those who do not buy in to some niche of Big Entertainment. Some will just want movies that are in the traditional form. I can understand why.

        2. Here are my suggestions:

          Pride and Prejudice (2005 film)
          The World’s Fastest Indian
          Sweet Land
          Philomena
          Les Intouchables
          Girl With a Pearl Earring
          Michael Clayton

          Real stories, realistic people, no FX.

    2. wrt his comments about the correlation between constitutional monarchies and non-belief compared with the American system. I think the main point is that the religious institutions and the government were tightly entwined and as the societies grew up and rebelled against authority in general they didn’t draw a distinction between government and religion.

      In America the distinction was made and the various and numerous religious institutions got a free pass.

      1. Maybe no distinction so why have they rejected the religion but still have the Monarchy?

        Also, although in America they did attempt to separate religion from government, they have struggled since then to maintain this separation with limited success. America was never a secular state from the view of the middle to lower classes.

  8. What I love is that he seems the kind of person whom could take any argument – as if could he have an amiable conversation with the most hardline blowhard out there?

  9. Seems to me that Fry’s argument against arbitrary “this is good, this is bad, because I say so” thinking would go over a lot better if he hadn’t just finished taking exactly that position on such moral outrages as baseball caps, sugary drinks, and superhero movies.

    1. Bingo! We talk freely about the authoritarian right (and I think everyone understands what it means), but let someone on the left exhibit like behavior and they become part of the “regressive left”. Let’s call them the authoritarian personality type and have done with it.

      My hypothesis is that the reason Trump appears to be doing so well across a wide swath of voters is that he is saying things that are attractive to authoritarian followers per se, regardless of their politics, religions, etc.

    3. I really like Stephen Fry but I dislike the snobbery expressed in looking down on certain forms of entertainment/items of clothing. It seems he is doing the exact same thing he is criticising others for.

      Who is going to define what is considered as mature and acceptable entertainment for adults? Isn’t that just as authoritian? Appearantly superhero movies are for kids, what about sports? What about action movies? Lord of the rings? Comedies?
      Haven’t Stephen Fry himself been in plenty of ridiculous and childish movies? He was even in the hobbit movies as far as I remember and those are based on children’s books.

      If being an adult means to only watch documentaries about prostitues in Ukraine or knitting shows, I will pass on that thank you. I’d rather be a child, enjoying video games, cartoons and movies.

      I’m unsure if any sort of entertainment can be seen as mature. All of it is about wasting time that you could spend to solve the problems of global warming and world hunger. Your form of entertainment doesn’t say much about you as a person. Most of us still read news and engage in society in addition to watching movies.

      When I was younger I was always concerned about what people thought about me and worried if I should start getting drunk more often or watch more sport like grownups are supposed to do. Luckily I managed to stay who I am. 🙂
      Mature people can keep their wars, churches and football. I’ll keep my superhero movies instead (and I will still go to work, read science news and engage in the complex issues if life).
      Sorry for the long rant.

  11. Interestingly, he says he thinks the separation of Church and State is not necessarily a good idea. I think so, too.

    My argument is similar as that for pro-draft. As soon as such things are part of the state, it necessarily needs to incorporate everyone and as a result, it reflects better the majority of the state. When armies, or churches are left to their own, they attract a certain type of person and can become radicalized.

    In some sense, the greater shape of the argmument is that sometimes the lesser evil is to have not ideal things under the eyes of the public, than somewhere else in private.

    I am not deeply entrenched in that view, and obviously these things depend very strongly on historical developments. Once you have a wall of separation, you should keep it. But when there is none, and religions are tamed, it’s not necessarily a good idea to create one and cut religions loose.

    1. I partly agree with some of the division between church and state.

      Most religious public displays are aesthetically repellant (crosses, commandments, roadside memorials) but I find it hard to think that abolishing those things is particularly meaningful. More efficient use of time is making people look at those think, “Well that’s embarrassing.” And then have the religious tear them down for the rest of us.

    1. BTW, where I am from, the same style of hat is as likely to be called a “feed cap” as a “baseball cap.”

        1. I’m guessing it’s because the feed companies often give away said caps to farmers with the company’s logo on them.

          City Girl, who has never lived in the country but has seen many such caps on cross-country trips ( and probably on TV and in the movies.)

          1. Bingo.

            Trucker hat
            A trucker hat or mesh cap is a type of baseball cap. It is also sometimes known as a “gimme [as in ‘give me’] cap” or a “feed cap” because this style of hat originated as a promotional give-away from feed or farming supply companies to farmers, truck drivers, or other rural workers.

            You can tell that I grew up in an area where farmers were more numerous than truckers.

    2. Yes, I think Fry mixed in too much snob appeal with his criticism of infantilism.

      Baseball hat are just a type of practical brimmed hat. There is nothing intolerantly infantile about them. And his criticism of of superhero movies is a bit odd considering his performance in the graphic novel based “V for Vendetta”. Not to mention all of his goofy, comic acting in such shows as Blackadder.

      1. Was Fry in Blackadder? He starred with Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster, but I don’t think he was in Blackadder.

        Moving on, I wonder if his reference to monarchies is a Churchillian dig at democracy.

          2. Of course, that video shows him as the Duke of Wellington in _Blackadder the Third_ as well as General Melchett in _Blackadder Goes Forth_ (which has one of the most poignant endings of *any* television series). Fry also played Lord Melchett, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, in _Blackadder II_. He wasn’t in _The Black Adder_, however.

            /@

  14. There’s a quote I tried to find, but couldn’t; something like, “I won’t criticize your toys if you don’t criticize mine.” Does anyone know it?

    I have never had the slightest interest in sports, but if other people enjoy watching them, it’s no skin off my nose. I don’t think I’m better than people who get excited about the World Series or Super Bowl because they care about something I don’t.

    1. You might be thinking of Hitchens. In a debate or speech somewhere he says of religious people that religion is “their favorite toy.” He goes on to talk about how much they love to play with it, and how he’s fine with that, “play with it all you like, just don’t try forcing *me* to play with it.” It’s brilliant.

      1. The quote that I was thinking of was someone mentioning that all adults enjoy something frivolous, while sneering at other adults for the same thing. For instance, I like cartoons, which some adults would see as childish. However, they probably enjoy something or other that I would see as dumb or a waste of time.

        1. I also like cartoons so you’re not alone. 🙂
          I’m used to people looking down on me for playing video games even though most of the games I play require far more thinking than sitting down to watch people chasing after a ball.
          Oh well, I suppose it’s like religion, people never seem to see that their religion is just as foolish as those other religions.
          And people like Stephen Fry can’t seem to understand that a movie about freaking hobbits and dwarves is no less “childish” than a movie about superheroes.

          Superheroes are not a new concept anyhow. Most of the old mythologies are based around superheroes. Freaking Jesus is presented as a damn superhero after all so I wouldn’t see the superhero thing as a sign of our culture becoming more childish.
          It’s basically the same as it has always been throughout human history, for good or bad.

  15. I’m sorry about the business of making fun of simple trigger warnings (at least, that’s how I interpreted it). While I really, really want campuses to be bastions of free speech, people who are victims of especially sex crimes, and are processing the aftereffects of that, deserve warnings. A line or two in course descriptions and syllabi will do; that’s not particularly burdensome. Got a speaker who might be triggering? Put something in the description of the talk. The idea is to give people who are hurting a way to avoid being blindsided, not to protect sweet and tender proto-adults from finishing their growing up.

    The rest of it, though, the more and more comprehensive silencing of “challenging” speech is horrible and makes me yearn for the good old days of my undergraduate education, when you could say damn near anything. Students might protest you — which is fine — but they couldn’t just shut you down. Or at least, that’s my memory. Which is getting hazier by the day…

    1. “The idea is to give people who are hurting a way to avoid being blindsided”

      People who are hurting need to be exposed to uncomfortable stimuli in order to help them recover. They don’t get better by avoidance.

      Trigger warnings convey the unfortunate message to everyone that you have a right to have your feelings protected.

  16. “adults going to see “superhero” movies”

    begin_rant;
    I’ve just spent time seeing some of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s films and it occurred to me that these serious, poetic films are not made much in the U.S. They really never were, but now, it seems, the theaters are full of things I would not go to see if they were free – no, not even if they payed me double the price of admission (Batman, etc). I do occasionally take in something just for fun, to cleans the pallet, but kiddie shows take in hundreds of millions, while many more serious efforts barely pay for the making.
    Infantilization of our culture is the perfect word for it.
    end_of_rant;

    1. I grant that serious, poetic films aren’t made much in Hollywood. I daresay there aren’t many fine, hand-crafted objets d’art to be found in Target or Costco, but so what? That’s not what you go there for.

      Hollywood is in the business of making big-budget blockbusters, and their audience isn’t limited to benighted Americans; there’s a worldwide market for such stuff.

      But if art is what you want, there’s plenty to be found in the independent film world, both here and abroad. The fact that the US happens to be the principle exporter of the mass-market stuff is not evidence of cultural decay.

      1. Agreed. I’m just in a “Get off the Grass!!!” mood. A lot of very good stuff comes out of Hollywood. You just have to dig through the dumpster to find it. The independent circuit is ablaze with talented film makers with fresh material that can be excellent. I actually enjoy the process of dumpster-diving for precious gems. David Lynch, Wes Anderson, PT Anderson, Cohen Brothers, Jane Campion…etc. Batman sequels are Target and Costco and Dollar Store.

        1. Sturgeon’s Law, Sturgeon’s Law.

          Even 90% of popular music was crap back in the 1960s. We just remember the good stuff — and it was very good.

      2. You know, Hollywood didn’t used to be in the business of making big blockbusters–at least not all the time (read the New Yorker piece I linked to above). Remember movies like “On th Waterfront” or “The Last Picture Show”, or “One Flew over the cuckoo’s Nest” or “Kramer vs Kramer”? Studio execs say in that article that they probably wouldn’t be made these days.

        1. Well, sure. If you go back a century or so, Hollywood wasn’t in business at all. So I guess I don’t see increasing specialization as bad or even particularly surprising. In a changing environment, a certain amount of adaptive radiation is to be expected over the course of decades. A niche now exists for big-budget blockbusters, so the big-money studios have adapted to exploit it.

          Meanwhile, other niches have emerged on TV and the internet for a wide variety of high-quality films and extended character-driven dramas. As your New Yorker article says, big screens are best suited to big action. If you want something small and intimate, look elsewhere.

          2. “big screens are best suited to big action”

            Boy do I disagree.

            For me, big screens are suited to immersion.
            And there are all manor of worlds and visions I wish to be immersed within.

            2001 was hardly an action film, but the big screen allowed me to “experience” space travel.

            Rosemary’s Baby was slow paced. But the big image and style of shooting immersed me into the locations.

            Malick’s “Badlands,” “Tree Of Life” etc also are enveloping in a large screen format.

            I’ve always loved being taken over by the world created by a film-maker, so I find a big screen benefits a majority of movies. (Which is why I went to lengths to build a projection-based home theater).

  17. “constitutional monarchies” Of course. We should have the hereditary principle for all important offices of state. Absolutely guarantees the best man (or woman) for the job. Not at all undemocratic. The reality is that these monarchs do absolutely nothing. A soap opera for the feeble minded.

    1. I think Fry is seeing an association in the data and assuming this suggests causation. I think his love of empiricism is suspect. The monarchies he notes are not just monarchies, but are all states that went through the cultural shift from theocracy to alternative forms of government during the enlightenment. The totalitarian power suggested by “monarchy” gradually gave way to quasi-democratic oligarchies. Today, the monarch status is titular and a fuller democracy has become possible.
      He sites the fact that the U.S., with it’s constitutional anti-monarchism seems to be in religious turmoil as if to say it needed to go through the same process, which may have some truth to it. But our pattern of cultural evolution has many other differences which account for the current religious hassles. Early on the U.S. was the recipient of an extremely diverse immigrant population, for one thing. Independence and a laissez-faire economy contributed to our current distinct status. The party system arose here more strongly than anywhere, with it’s legendary strife.

      1. Yes, Attempting to tie heavy popularity of religion to the separation issue just seems to go nowhere. The dysfunction in the U.S. society such as job loss, poor wages, continued falling behind and overall insecurity pushes the people to religion. It is interesting that the republican party, with the mission to look after the richest, the top 1 percent, is also the religion party. This allows this party to have the strange combination of poor and middle class with the corporate CEOs and fat cats. Without the religion push, I don’t think this would be possible.

        And the fat cats don’t care about religion really, but they play it up because their followers demand it. Donald Trump is a perfect example because most people know he could give two shits about religion. He cares about religion about like he cares about women.

        1. Exactly. I suspect the reason that so many fundamentalist Christians support Trump, in spite of his unJesuslike behavior and personal history, is that they believe a Trump administration will make them materially wealthy. The wishful, magical thinking and self-involvement at the heart of prosperity gospel beliefs are truly infantile.

          1. I don’t know if it is material wealth, exactly. To me it seems more as if Trump is adept at stimulating the martyr complex that seems endemic to many Christians in particular. More generally he appeals to peoples’ sense of indignation at being oppressed by the man. And these people are too blind to see that he is the man.

    2. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/14/secret-papers-royals-veto-bills

      “Whitehall papers prepared by Cabinet Office lawyers show that overall at least 39 bills have been subject to the most senior royals’ little-known power to consent to or block new laws. They also reveal the power has been used to torpedo proposed legislation relating to decisions about the country going to war.”
      ..
      “This is opening the eyes of those who believe the Queen only has a ceremonial role,” said Andrew George, Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, which includes land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, the Prince of Wales’ hereditary estate.

      “It shows the royals are playing an active role in the democratic process and we need greater transparency in parliament so we can be fully appraised of whether these powers of influence and veto are really appropriate. At any stage this issue could come up and surprise us and we could find parliament is less powerful than we thought it was.”

    3. It’s important to remind people from other countries looking in on us Scandinavians that our kings are figureheads.

      At least our Norwegian king is. If we ever go to war, he will have a say, but there is absolutely no reason for him to go against the government anyway. There are also a bunch of laws that mentions the king, but in practice they are interpreted as if it stood government instead.

      He has the right to decide on laws that involve him directly (like when he voted against giving the king/himself freedom of religion).
      As for now, the royal family travels around and waste our money, but at least they show up on our national day to wave at us from the balcony and our king always makes a long, boring speech on new years eve.

      As a side note, our former king Olav was considered a king of the people, he even took the tram along with everyone else on a “car free weekend” (during the oil crisis in 1973). He is the reason why many people here accept the monarchy, but his son and grandson has unfortunately shown themselves to be different so opinions on the monarchy are becoming more negative lately.

  19. Re
    “constitutional monarchies like Sweden and Denmark (they’re also the most atheistic, even though many have state religions).”

    The country of Sweden divested itself of the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden in 2000 and the latter is now an independent autonomous entity.
    Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland continue to have national churches.

    The C of Sweden in 2009 ordained the first lesbian bishop in the world. (How did they beat American Episcopalians to that punch??)

    Wikipedia reports that about 17% of Swedes consider religion important, but less than 2% attend church.

    =-=-=

    I can’t understand adults seeing the recent crop of superhero movies.

    Those done with lightness of touch akin to a dance musical (the first Chris Reeve Superman) or that act as moral allegories posing ethical dilemmas (“The Dark Knight” trilogy) are OK in limited quantities (and arguably very good for family viewing), but 2013’s “Man of Steel” was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It was like watching a child playing with toy action figures.

  20. such whining about movies that you don’t like and don’t go to. I find the movies claimed to be so very “deep” to be deeply dull, and exploring nothing more than one learns in psych 101. I do not care about people making mistakes and then wearing hairshirts.

    Superhero movies can be good or bad. To declare them universally only appealing to the lowest common denominator is simply ignorant and a very human attempt to make oneself feel superior.

  21. I haven’t read all of the comments so I apologize if I am repeating here.

    I think he missed one of the most important constitutional monarchies relevant to this discussion; Jordan. How this country is holding it’s own in the storm tossed region it exists in is amazing in my mind.

    1. Yes, I think this is because they lucked out with Abdullah, then (especially) his grandson Hussein, and now Hussein’s son Abdullah.

      Just good luck I think.

      I recommend Thomas Payne’s arguments in Common Sense against the idea of monarchy. (And one only needs to read history; true monarchy seems to always eventually corrupt.)

  22. Ant! Did you hear what Jerry said about one of your favourite movies?! 😀

    1. /Chacun à son goût./ (And some people like tripe, don’t they?)

      There was a lot to like about _Fury Road_, beyond its Oscar-worthy special effects (both practical and CGI) and cinematography. Films (of this genre, at least) with such a strong female lead are rare, let alone a woman with a physical disability. And a male lead that acknowledges her superiority (e.g., letting her take the last “sniper shot”).

      /@

      1. Strong female lead? Obviously Mel Gibson wasn’t in it or that would never have been allowed (vbeg).

        (Googles) Oh. Charlize Theron. Right. I might watch it. Quite impressed with her in Aeon Flux.

        As you say, strong female leads in action movies are rare. Ripley, of course, and Sarah Connor, and … um, Lara Croft (Tomb Raider). And about there I dry up.

        cr

        1. Charlize Theron has be excellent in every film I’ve seen her in.

          Be sure to see:
          The Cider House Rules
          and
          North Country

          (Not to mention The Italian Job.)

          She is great. (And strikingly beautiful.)

          1. She plays “woman” in The Road as well and although her part is small, she did a very good job of it.

  23. All authoritarian ideologies are anti-Enlightenment. Or rather (and more historically accurate), the Enlightenment was anti-authoritarian.

  24. how can anyone call Mad Max ‘tripe’? It was a visually stunning film with some of the best action sequences ever filmed (not CGI, filmed with real vehicles). Its a modern work of art.

    1. It’s a case of mastery vs. taste. A truly perfect film-maker could make the best action movie ever made. But it would still not appeal to people who don’t like action movies.

      Mad Max: Fury Road is probably the purest action movies will ever get. High quality in every way, with just enough plot to have you actually rooting for the protagonists, and to allow you to breath, without drawing too much attention away from the reason people went to the movie.

      But some people just won’t like a movie about a 2 hour car chase. Just like someone could make the best meal ever, and all I’d have to say is “Eww… this has onions in it”.

      Hollywood has been over-actioning everything lately, unfortunately. The Star Trek movies weren’t really Star Trek because of this. Drama has fallen by the wayside. But in exchange they’ve reached something of a high point of really fun action and adventure movies.

      However, this isn’t so bad in view of the revolution of dramatic television these days. A dramatic movie is going to have a hard time competing with the sheer length a TV series is allowed to have. Just like a TV show can’t compete with the action budget a hollywood movie will have.

      It’s not a bad arrangement, really. Go to the movies for your mindless fluff, then sit down at Netflix for your intricate storytelling. Different media for the different genres.

  25. I just knew as soon as I saw your diss of comic book movies that there would be a lot of comments. I don’t know what it is, but every mention of the topic on pretty much any website is a guarantee of an epic comment thread.

    I tend to agree about those movies. The funniest thing has been to watch people rending their garments in their disappointment over the latest one, “Batman vs. Superman”. For pity’s sake, what were they expecting from a film with that title? It sounds like an argument I would have had when I was 10.

    1. “what were they expecting from a film with that title?”

      Probably about the same as they were expecting from ‘Alien vs Predator’.

      Oddly enough, I found that one tolerably watchable. Though I believe it got slammed by both Alien and Predator fans; which again is predictable. A victim of over-hyped expectations. In fact superhero fans ‘always’ hate sequels, in either TV or movie series. What they really want is something new and interesting but also precisely the same as the movie/episode that drew them in in the first place.

      cr

      1. As a fan of both series, I mostly enjoyed _AvP_. But Dark Horse Comics did the crossover much better. And they’d had a better sequel to _Aliens_ than _Alien³_ was. Having everyone but Ripley die made her rescue of Newt and the power-loader duel with the alien queen in the second film rather meaningless.

        Re superhero sequels, I think that one of the strengths of the Marvel films is the continuing story arc across multiple films (and tv series!), with the character development that goes with it. _The Winter Soldier_ also succeeds in its own right as a political thriller.

        /@

        1. I also like watching the TV Series Shield. I like The Flash also and some of the lines they give Cisco are pretty funny sometimes.

          1. I’m a sucker for good original dialogue. I used to watch such things as ‘Xena’ not for the chicks in leather (honest!) but because the writers, in a good episode (and it was notoriously wildly uneven) would consistently come up with lines that would have me cheering the TV set.

            Nothing turns me off faster than predictable cliched dialogue.

            cr

  26. I think Fry was joking about baseball caps, sodas, and superhero movies. I think he was deliberately choosing mundane things he doesn’t actually have a strong opinion on in order to be ironically humorous.

  27. Stephen Fry, while an entertaining and intelligent person, is like anyone else. Some of his ideas are good, and some not so. And some things are hypocritical. He demonstrates in the video that he is as much PC as the people he criticizes. Not liking a hat shape or movie genre is not based on empiricism (nor need it be). It’s just a preference.

    Discussions these days among rationalists (or his choice of “empiricists”) who are not of the authoritarian left concerning what is right or wrong, or what is in good taste or bad taste, has become too much like the (appropriate) criticism of xians: “Have you ever noticed that would jesus said matches a particular believer’s preferences?” So too, among many rationalists: “what I like is best, and what I don’t like is not good.” Rather, such things should simply be stated as personal preferences.

    For example, I don’t care for heavy metal, rodeos, The Eagles, or NASCAR. But such things are preferences. Some things do have feasible quantifiable indicators, such as level of social quality of life and education, or level of religiosity and suffering, but too many people want to include their personal likes and dislikes into objective categories of good and bad, and in so doing becoming PC-ers themselves.

    Note I am not saying that preferences do not have effects: they certainly do and therefore have consequences. Gender discrimination is one such example.

  28. It’s very useful when people wear baseball caps; right away you can speak to them on a level they might understand.

    1. Oh that was mean! And now I have to clean the coffee out of my keyboard.

      cr

      P.S. If the baseball cap is worn backwards, s/speak/grunt/

    2. I wear them all the time — they are practical pieces of head gear.

      Now mine have emblems of (US) National Parks and the Tank Museum (Bovington, Dorset), not sports teams (generally — US baseball hats — real ones, sized ones — are made of wool and they are wonderful in both hot and cold weather)

      Being prone to skin cancer and a great lover of the outdoors, hats are required for me, all the time. (My skin doctor asked, “do you wear a hat when you go outside?” “Yes, always.” “Good work! Keep it up.”) A baseball cap is often the perfect thing.

      However, when I travel outside the US, and especially in Europe or the UK, I wear a typical flat cap, also wonderfully practical head gear; but much more expensive than a baseball cap.

        2. When working in the yard, yes; but not driving in a car, hiking (usually) etc.

          My “sombrero” came from Autralia! 🙂

      2. I always wear a hat outdoors for the same reasons. Not that I’m particularly prone to skin cancer, but the NZ atmosphere is high in UV (we don’t have enough smog!) and I had a friend whose husband died of cancer in one of his eyes, so I take the risk seriously. Since I detest sunglasses, I rely on a hat for shade. But I use an ‘Aussie hat’ (minus the traditional corks) which gives protection in all directions. It’s the least silly-looking hat I can find.

        The flat cap is excellent for workmen and probably nearly as good and far less annoying than those stupid yellow plastic things everybody has to wear on worksites these days, whether there’s any risk or not. In fact walking down a low tunnel under a dam one day, where the stupid yellow thing (like, what’s going to fall on your head in a tunnel?) was just high enough to keep bonking distractingly on the roof, I wished I had a flat cap instead – better clearance, equally good protection against banging my head, and if it brushed the roof it wouldn’t go ‘bonk’. But that would be far too sensible…

        cr

  29. Finally got around to watching the video. The articulate and animated Fry is always great to watch.

    To add to the take-away ideas, I agree with what he said, that life is complicated, and some people just don’t want to accept that fact. The conundrums we face are most often not a clear black or white, but gradations of grey.

    Given that the monarchy was once considered a god-given right, I think newspapers, and now all forms of social media, have contributed to breaking that spell about royal divinity. Lampooning the foibles and failings of notable people in the press has made us aware that they’re simply figureheads and as flawed as they come. I think this has been created invaluable wedges and openings for the fresh air of critical thinking to occur. Contrast this with the societies that suppress freedom of press and free speech. They know what’s at stake, so they will kill if ‘offended’.

    I can’t say I’m a *fan* of superhero or action or horror movies. I like complex plots with lots of quality dialogue. However, there’s been value in joining in with the children who were fans of this type of sci-fi (?) movie. The things parents will do for their children! As a wise person once said, “I just want to see into their world”. I did love Mad Max, Harry Potter, even Kill Bill and Django Unchained! But not Avatar. The guitar scene in Mad Max was the low point of that movie. The way I learned to enjoy them was to marvel at the technology behind them, and the obvious tongue-in-cheekedness. LOTR btw is in a class by itself.

  30. I’m huge fan of Fry but I have a beef with his take on superhero films. The Sherlock Holmes films, in which Fry appears with Robert Downy Jr., are nothing more than superhero films in Victorian garb.

    1. It was a one-line comment of his. “don’t just go and see superheroes hitting each other”. He could equally well have said ‘action movies’, which are even worse transgressors of the ‘no plot, let’s just blow everything up’ school.

      IF he had been asked to go into more depth, he might have nuanced his comment more. I would guess it’s not superheroes as such that he objects to, as the substitution of special effects and ‘action’ scenes for any meaningful plot, dialogue, or character development.

      cr

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