Bueller wrote:As a general comment, I don't understand why people jumped all over Inception while there are numourous films out there that really do glorify, for example, hired killers. *shrug*
I have written one of those movies, tbh
To clarify, I like those movies. I was just saying that it is weird to jump on one film for portraying criminal activity when there are many others that do the same thing and often try to justify it. But then I can generally tell the difference between something seemingly cool on film and being morally indefensible in real life. I suspect people like the one who made that comment have difficulty with seperating the two. Which is completely daft, but there you go.
As I was saying to a friend, there are many films with supposed 'good' characters who do things I find questionable and I could argue that that is more problematic than a morally neutral POV towards something bad. But as I said, I think one needs to remember films are fiction and just leave it at that.
When were movies supposed to embody/urge utopia not real life? Making a movie about so called criminals (though that is not how I see it) is not glorifying injustice or vices! It's just a plain smart personification of advanced sci-fi times .. with many of other mixed emotions and motives (manipulated motives) .. That's it.
Neizar wrote:When were movies supposed to embody/urge utopia not real life? Making a movie about so called criminals (though that is not how I see it) is not glorifying injustice or vices! It's just a plain smart personification of advanced sci-fi times .. with many of other mixed emotions and motives (manipulated motives) .. That's it.
I was not arguing to anyone. I just read the first quote of the supposed opinion and just put down my opinion on that quote. I know the topic-writer made the thread initially to refute that opinion .. I just said what I thought of generally.
I find it ironic that you're appalled by this fic and it's perpetration of rape culture when the entire movie is about criminals who invade other people's minds and bodies without their consent. Let us not lose sight of this fact: the characters in Inception are terrible people. They abduct people, drug them, steal vital information, put their victims in situations that make them doubt their sanity, and they get away it, and the worst the film condemns them for it is when Cobb says that it's not "exactly legal." The entire movie is glorification of doing a horrible thing, and it's not a stretch to parallel the movie's crime into rape. The only thing missing between what the characters in the movie do and what date rapists do is the sexual component.
I'd read comments referring to opinions like this and brushed them off. After all, there are plenty of films out there about criminals and I couldn't really see why Inception would be so OMG offensive! Now I know.
And honestly? I think that opinion is the most insane thing I've ever seen.
The initial problem with it is Inception may not actually be real. They may not actually have hurt anyone because we don't know whether any of it even happened. I'm guessing that's a big part of why Nolan chose not to address the issue at all because, lets face it, if this is just Cobb's dream he wouldn't be fussed about whether it was moral or not. I don't think anybody has ever denied these aren't nice people but, honestly, that wasn't the point of the film at all.
Secondly, the entire Mal subplot is about how dreadful the consequences of performing inception is. Cobb did a terrible thing to her. Well-meant, but still terrible. The film never ignores nor glorifies this in any way, never.
...
I very much agree with the underlined (by me) bits. The 'dream-share' entry into the minds of unwitting victims--whether intended to be taken as real in the movie's world or as Cobb's dream--is never presented as being admirable conduct. It is always shown to be ethically complicated.
And let's not forget that there is a long tradition in science fiction of depicting 'entry into the mind of another' by characters intended to be seen as sympathetic. We've seen this many times, whether through technology or through 'special talents.' In the latter category one might mention Star Trek's Spock, who did quite a lot of rooting around in other people's brains during the course of both the television series and the movies. In the former category there is the business firm depicted in 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
If Nolan had wanted to depict 'mind rape' approvingly, he could certainly have drawn on a long tradition of scenes of triumph-after-the-commission-of-violence (think of just about any war movie or Western, where the protagonist receives the accolades of those he's saved from Terrible Things by his act of slaughtering the villain). That's not what this movie is about.
