Friday 15 June 2018

Free and Easy; More Confirmation Bias

For God's sake...

So the official channel uploaded Free and Easy, the main song of Big World, Big Adventures: The Movie. The song itself is OK, and it's nice that they actually used a singer to showcase his singing talent in a movie he's also voice performing in (he's not bad at either, to be honest. And fuck Nicole Williams for wishing to send death threats to him. You're not just one of the most disgusting people in the Thomas fanbase, but life in general. Only Nazis and dictators are worse than you).

No, apparently the conversation is with this:

Now I know I'm probably missing something here since I've done as much as possible to remove myself from the franchise, but... what's the issue here? I've seen it in motion, I've seen this screenshot and... I don't get it. I mean, that mouth is uncanny valley-esque, and the mariachi music playing whilst this happens could be considered problematic with regards to cultural sensitivity. Also yeah,  even if I can forgive bad looking animation more than a lot of other people, the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy looks better than this.

Hell, the Spyro Reignited Trilogy looks better than it.
I'll be honest, I only included this because I love how it's looking and I'm really looking forward to its release in September

But from what I've seen, fans are only complaining due to how random it is? I could be wrong, but that's the biggest complaint I've seen on my Twitter feed. Because, you know, random stuff has never been shown in a musical number before:

Hey, it's OK because small engines! Am I right, lads, lasses and non-binary folks?













Seriously, how are these instances any different than the one in Free and Easy? My only conclusion is that fans want to hate and are willing to point to anything to satisfy their blatant confirmation bias. And before anyone points at me and says "hypocrite!", let me point out three things:
  1. I don't hate it, I'm disinterested in it. There's a big difference between the two, mainly that the former is an emotional reaction while the latter is just "this thing exists; I don't care that much.
  2. If you actually paid attention, my criticisms come from things that matter: boardroom decisions, the overall story and themes as well as the characters. They aren't being directed at every little thing, most of which have nothing to do with anything.
  3. Even if I was a hypocrite, I'm still right. It's up to you to prove me wrong without using labels like lazy people.
Look, I get it. This special is different. It's trying to be more inclusive. It's borderline cynical. But here's the thing: what does it matter if the writing quality is still the same and kids enjoy it? That is all that matters. Fact. If you don't like it, fuck off and find something else to watch. Or just watch the stuff from the show that you actually enjoy.

3 comments:

  1. What if I end up not liking it? You want me to *bleep* off even if I have good reasons not to like it?

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    Replies
    1. Of course not. If you've gone in with an open mind and still don't like it, then fair enough. It's the fans that *want* to hate it and will nitpick the hell out of it in order to confirm their hatred that are the issue.

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  2. The Smallies turning into butterflies: "Oh no, that's perfectly fine because it's the small railway engines."

    Carlos making a face that's not trying to be racist or offensive: "DISISUNACCEPTABLEITSSORACISTUNOFFENSIVE."

    They're both random moments...logic much, people?

    ReplyDelete