this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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Fuck that. Fuck that entirely.
It's true. A lot of my favorite movies are considered red flags just because enough dude bro dipshits misinterpret them.
When people online are this vague and hand-wavy, you know 99% of the time they're downplaying some really stupid stand they took about that something a date or friend didn't like one fucking time and they can't let it go.
Or they don't have friends at all, and just read all the manosphere self-victimization forums.
Edit: he got lost down the menslib rabbit hole of over analyzing everything until reality itself loses meaning and you begin to think breathing is problematic to someone, somewhere.
I am not saying I am a victim. I am just expressing frustration with something. Shit like this is why those places got popular.
While I disagree with your gender-oriented spin on this completely, and I don’t think it’s nearly as common as the picture you paint (never heard anyone roasted for liking Fight Club), it does occasionally happen.
I watched the first few episodes of MLP: FIM at a friend’s house by happenstance, and within about a week of airing I told a few people “Surprisingly, it’s actually a pretty good show.” Then the controversial fans came out and I completely stopped talking about the show to protect myself. Literal years later I found out my mom had been loudly proclaiming to anyone who would listen, including distant family, that I was a “brony”. It soured a few tenuous relationships with people who didn’t know me well enough to know it was an absurd label.
Fight Club and Full Metal Jacket to name two.
I've never heard of Fight club being a red flag. Probably it could be one if you're overly obsessed with the movie, and express it with a focus on the toxic masculine parts of the movie, but in that case the issue is you being a red flag.
Some people do consider it a red flag, because there are idiots who misinterpret the movie and enough of them that interpret it as pro “toxic masculinity” that it’s scared a few people off. (Kinda like how 2019 Joker is a great film, but enough weirdos think it’s an endorsement of their weird behaviors.)
Like it’s a gay man’s satire of masculinity (and about the homoeroticism inherent to fascistic movements). It’s a joke. Notice how the narrator never wants to fuck Martha - that he spends late nights roaming, looking for other men to engage physically with. The fights are a cruising metaphor.
Fincher makes it even more obvious with the casting. Like yeah Helena Bingham Carter is hot, but we’re all here to gawk at Edward Norton and Brad Pitt.
Those are insanely popular movies.
I've only seen academic critique and of course more cerebral criticisms because of how they were reflections of their time, like many movies.
If you had actual people in real life attack you for liking these movies, either you were being weird about them and not listening to someone's academic takes because you don't understand them or you met a nut. Otherwise I think it's bullshit and you just wanna be oppressed for liking [POPULAR THING]
I just don't tell people I like them.
what the... then, how could you possibly be attacked for liking them?
Are you just creating things in your mind to feel bad about???
Because hear people talk about them.
Which people and where? I am dead serious, there is reason why I want to know.
I used to go to places like menslib on reddit. That shit was what was mostly talked about. It pops up in some of the podcasts I listen to.
As someone who knows far more about Menslib than I should probably say in the open, I can safely tell you that you need to get off the internet and not read gender-oriented material at all. Podcasts too. This is media, it's meant to create conversations and most people don't take it seriously. Or at least they shouldn't.
The internet has this way of seeping into your head and making you think the constant barrage of sensationalism, of intrusive thoughts-turned-posts, of fake people pretending to be outraged, it makes you think all of this is any way how people actually view the world and it programs you to do the same.
I lived in the before-times, I know how people thought before. It wasn't like this. When you're not infected with the aimless thoughts of thousands of faceless voices in space, you can just enjoy what you enjoy and nobody cares. And if someone does care and not like a thing you like, you say "oh that's too bad, I like it though." And that was it. End of story. Those two people would then go on to like, get married and have a pile of kids because back then, we weren't always looking for contention. That's the other thing these spaces do, is make you aware of contention that doesn't impact you and only serves to clutter up your mind.
This entire fetid mess is screwing up our minds, and then you take this screwed-up vision of the world and post it somewhere else, so the ~~thousands~~ hundreds of super-sensitive, sheltered Lemmy users read it and now all the tender boys here are wringing their hands over a non-issue as well and absolute nonsense spreads and spreads and spreads.
You like something? Like it. Stop trying to please people while at the same time stay respectful and kind and just get on with your day and life without excuses or hand-wringing about things that aren't real.
I honestly feel like this is almost impossible.
Says the link in the chain.
All you have to do, as hard as it is, is compartmentalize your mind a little better.
When you read menslib-super-academic, everyone-is-a-gender-philosopher and everyone scores points for being better and more progressive than everyone else, you need to be able to read that with an understanding that some of it is has value in terms of understanding the world and how arguments work, but you can cut it off there. You go back to outside-land and look around at your life and understand that it's not related to two strangers online yelling at each other about different brands of socialism versus how problematic Brad Pitt's performance is.
If you then left all that baggage BACK at menslib, and then enjoyed your movies and media and talked like a grown up to other people about the media you like, you will find that MOST people will share your interests or at least give it a shot. It's about having some level of sovereignty and not letting the internet infect your mind with nonsense. And it is. I don't care if there are actual protests on campuses from people screaming how evil Fight Club is, it doesn't matter. You can still like it and not feed the chain. Have some shred of pride in yourself and the things you like.
Because the next step after feeling ashamed to like what you like, is feeling angry at the world for "not letting you" like them, and then starts the slippery slide into being hateful and angry and suspicious of everyone and everything. To say nothing of how you will want to spread how frustrated you are more and more, inflaming an already degrading situation.
Okay i'm done, I just had to address this because it sounded wrong in so many ways. We're all getting our heads yanked up our own asses by reading the voices of too many other people.
Your entire rant should be required reading for kids entering high school in the age of social media.
I appreciate that at least someone read it. I feel bad for people trying to do right and just find some decent, non-hateful place to socialize online, but we all gotta remember there's no such thing as a safe space online. It's all going to alter your brain in some way. It's like how there's no such thing as a "healthy" amount of alcohol, even nice, decent spaces online are not necessarily good for you if you're not limited your time and not maintaining healthy distance from other people's thoughts.
It's hard because we all want to connect, but our brains aren't wired to absorb the thoughts of so many other people... especially how we read them in our own voices inside our head. It confuses the many, many sub-layers of your consciousness. (Neurology is a bitch to learn about because you realize all at once how complex we are, but also how vulnerable.)
How do you interpret and discuss Fight Club and Full Metal Jacket in conversation? I like both of these movies and have never had anyone respond negatively when I’ve discussed them.
When you talk about Fight Club, are you talking about it in a way which might suggest you think fight clubs are a good idea?
I’m trying to figure out who would have a problem with Full Metal Jacket.
The same kind of person that would fuck somebody in the ass and not have the goddamn decency to give him a reach-around!
It's how other n people talk about it. They act like Hartman and Tyler were awesome bad asses and not the unhinged assholes they were.
If you talk about both of those movies in a way that acknowledges Sergeant Hartman and Tyler Durden are not people we should emulate, I don’t think many people would consider those red flags.
People who think that the those movies are red flags have probably met people who think that we are supposed to look up to those characters. If you make it clear that you are not one of those people, there’s not really a problem.
It’s just can be an ambiguous symbol, and if you are concerned about being misread, adding context can help.
I think the older analogues here are the kissing lesbians poster (I think it was from Spencer’s?) and A Clockwork Orange.
That “kissing lesbians” poster gave gooner vibes; that Orange gave “I’m the kind of film brah who’s only watched Kubrick.” There is nothing wrong with masturbating, but it’s not a personality. A Clockwork Orange is an excellent novel and film, but broadcasting a character who rapes someone to death (just in the movie, iirc) is going to be offputting. These are the notes that come first - but it’s entirely possible to put things in context in a way where people are less likely to see them as read flags.
Like, I have a lifelong fascination with Jonestown to the point that I own a vinyl pressing by his church’s choir. I am utterly incapable of not correcting the “koolaid” joke. I cannot start social interactions that I intend to turn romantic or sexual with Jonestown trivia - that is considered a massive faux pas. I lurked /b/ since roughly 2006; despite the fact that I am a fairly radical feminist, it would be a poor idea to wear a 4chan t-shirt.
However - once I put it in context - people usually are normal about it, and it can lead to interesting conversations. It’s okay for me to mention my Jim Jones vinyl if we are talking about collecting rare vinyl; it is okay for me to show off my copy of Sailor and the Seven Balls if I place it next to Chargeman Ken.