I hate so-called "cool, calm, and collected" characters being presented as superior beings that are shown being correct so often that the consumer take-away message is that being emotionally cold and abrasive makes them smart too. :reddit-logo: worshiped characters like that pretty much since Digg collapsed and also LARPed as being the same way in their own self-descriptions. The "misanthropic genius asshole flattered by the script and by total screen time" cliche is related to this too.
Its probably not single-handedly responsible, but The Exorcist might actually have a body count by how much more popular exorcisms became after its release, several wiki pages specifically track exorcisms increasing starting the year after its came out.
Its a well made film still but knowing it had such an impact makes it a lot harder to watch and enjoy(Not to mention the very real abusive and negligent practices during filming).
Edit: Actually double checked on the filming stuff and no one fucking told me that both the actresses for Reagan as well as her mother suffered permanent spine injuries on set due to the shit that was pulled. The mom fractured her tailbone being thrown to the wall which left her unable to film for two whole weeks and on crutches for the rest of the filming, followed by unspecified lifelong problems. And Linda Blair developed scoliosis from filming scenes of her rocking back and forth in the bed when the rig for it fucked up and didnt secure her properly.
Ive heard both those stories told before but there was never a mention of lifelong injury, also the director has been accused of spreading the rumor of a "curse" because of these incidents and a bunch of other workers being injured or dying due to his negligence and extended shooting schedule.
It's for reasons like that that the common dogma of "culture is always downstream from politics" rings hollow for me. It may usually flow in that direction but the absolutist position about that is dubious to me. The belief that people killed by copycat exorcisms would be killed pretty much the same way with or without a movie telling chuds how cool exorcisms are seems like an after the fact unprovable defensive claim for the sake of defending entertainment from all criticism.
At the college I went to, proto-bazingas set up "fight clubs" and had an unprecedented number of serious injuries that made the local news and got the medical center on site kind of busy handling the increased workload of bazinga-for-Brad-Pitt types. I was told, on Hexbear, that such "fight clubbing" would have happened exactly the same way with or without the Fight Club movie because something something culture downstream something something material conditions. :doubt:
Well there's a case to be made that these movies had such an impact because of specific material conditions. There's a good reason these copycats were focused on abusing young women with illnesses or giving an excuse to dudebros who want to prove their masculinity, instead of perhaps examining Catholic abuses or examining self-destructive dudebro behavior.
Like Squid game and Parasite are huge cultural successes, and yet I haven't seen them instigate any mass uprisings against the rich. Instead I've seen them inspire rich idiots to create their own little Squid Games.
Jurassic Park didn't cause widespread skepticism of corporate authority over stuff like patents or encroaching into wildlife. Instead it caused a kind of benign interest in dinosaurs and the impact of computer graphics in films.
You're probably right that cultural forces do shape how people behave, but what particular messages they took from these movies and what they did about those messaes was very much informed by their material conditions.
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