Everything I Like/Love Is Fucking Horrible

By that, I'm NOT talking about something like THE ROOM (I hate that shit)... or things like action movies, 'charmingly bad' media or anything along those lines.

I was gifted with a Blu-ray set of JOHNNY QUEST for Christmastime, a show I loved watching on Saturday mornings growing up; a true Boy's Show with adventure & action in foreign lands, lots of cool science stuff and a body count. Also noticeable watching it as a somewhat aware adult is the casual racism/sexism, which made for a darkly amusing drinking game and a LOT of alcohol.

I'm a genre fan, and I'm Black (or P.O.C. if you like a mouthful of terms), and what becomes very apparent after a short amount of time is that, just as in Real Life, a good majority of things that are produced are NOT produced with any thought that someone like me might actually enjoy or find any worth in it. So, any criticism is met with quite a bit of mob-swarm and butt-hurt, and any variation that doesn't immediately pander to that core (White, Male) audience will be seen as an abject failure if it doesn't perform at the boxoffice or in ratings.

You find quite a bit of this in fandom - science-fiction (rather ironic, in a way), horror, fantasy; even in some rather niche strata like film music fans. And yes, NOT EVERYBODY, of course, but even if it is a minority, it's a pretty fucking loud one.

I wasn't looking for a Grand Metaphor here, but as recent events have taken place and watching how it all unfolds - again, and reporters & pundits trying to make sense of it all - again, it appears that it sums up Our Particular Problem in a graspable manner:

Everything I Like/Love Is Fucking Horrible.

How do I reconcile that? Can you even do so? A lot of that stuff is baked-in, so as much as some can attempt to mitigate it (like recent adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs "Tarzan" and the Lovecraft Cultural Explosion), there's always a certain core remnant that's there and it can't be excised.

You can, however, use it to comment on how things were and how certain behavior and beliefs are no longer appropriate/in vogue from a contemporary viewpoint. But that original is always around in some form. You can hide it, ignore it, pretend it has no effect or value - but the forbidden has its allure, especially when it goes underground.

You can also put it out for all to see, in all its ugliness - and also the context for it. "Yes, it was Wrong, but for quite a while, Most didn't think so."

You can also attempt to just get rid of it all, Start from Zero. That's a bit drastic and makes a lot of assumptions and has no guarantee at all of success, unless you take seriously the concept of ZERO.

There are no pat answers... I don't have any. But I can say this - whenever we get to these moments of Wrestling With The Soul, we always choose the Lazy Way, the Path of Least Resistance, and you're seeing the result of what happens when things get kicked down the road and aren't confronted.