Can't... post... comment...

EDIT:  Whoops!  Linked the wrong post from the blog...  Fixed now.

I tried to comment on a blog post that I got led to via some link or other.  For some reason, my comment didn't take.  But since I had spent a good 15-20 minutes composing it, I didn't want it to go to waste.  Here it is in full.  And here's the post I was responding to...

Meh.  If not the original post, then a great deal of the comments are putting the cart way before the horse.  Ideally, the politics of writers (and musicians, and comedians, and actors, and every other type of entertainer) shouldn't matter, because they should be quiet enough in the background, and they shouldn't so blatantly inform their work, that it doesn't matter.  Going out of my way to inform myself on artists political or social opinions so I can decide who not to patronize seems more likely to hurt me than them. 

And for those artists who do come out publicly, and who do let their worldview slant their writing so much so that it taints their work, I'm clearly not going to keep patronizing their work, nor will I review it kindly, because ham-handed messaging in a work of entertainment is... not entertaining. 

I actually find this nearly as true for writers on the right as much as I do for writers on the left, when their social and political views are really on their sleeve in their work.  

When they're more subtle, on the other hand, I prefer writers who I agree with. 

So, with the case of Joss Whedon (one of the most over-rated artists of our time) I'm certainly not going to miss the next Avengers movie, because I loved the first one, and I can always choose not to go to conventions where he's speaking, or at least not go to his workshops, or watch them on youtube, or read transcripts of them.  Because I don't want to.  Why go out of my way to discover what a commie-pinko jerk he is, if he goes out of his way to tone it down in his movie? 

When he makes another plodding, whiny, overtly feminist TV series that I already know is going to suck just because he's involved with it, and will most likely be cancelled before the first season is over anyway, because everyone will know it will suck, then I'll avoid it. 

Ellen DeGeneres learned this lesson the hard way; her first show, which at one point was apolitical and had no social messaging to speak of, was wildly successful once upon a time.  When they hyped her coming out, it was a big event.  In the wake of that, when the show became all gay all the time, nobody wanted to watch it, and it quickly got cancelled. 

When she came back to TV, she kept her social views and political views, and personal life, for that matter, mostly to herself.  Viola! Turns out she remembered how to be funny and charming again, and people would watch her. 

Rosie O'Donnell essentially killed her career for the same reason; one too many flip-outs about far left issues that made her look like some kind of lunatic, and then nobody wanted to watch her anymore because doing so was painfully annoying. 

Except in niche markets, in which case, sure; pander to a social and/or political niche all you want; that's the whole point, the system more or less works already.  More or less. 

I do think "pimping" genre books that are Right-wing friendly isn't a bad idea, though--as long as the books are reasonably entertaining.  I do admit, that's part of the reason I got into Larry [Correia]'s work in the first place, and I stayed because I think he's a reasonably good author.  I also like Jim Butcher because, although Harry Dresden epitomizes (at least in a few respects) some left-wing garbage from time to time, by and large the Dresden files are friendly to Christians, and people with good old-fashioned beliefs.  Butcher might be as communist as they come, but you don't know it from reading the Dresden Files, because it's about an entrepreneur who has a middlin' successful business, and keeps at it, and works hard, and eventually "graduates" into the big time, so to speak.  It takes elements of Judeo-Christian folklore ("angelology", mostly) and doesn't use it to subtly or not so subtly dig at Christians.  Many of the supporting characters, who are painted extremely sympathetically, are classic, conservative, Christian type characters, including Murphy, Forsythe, Michael, etc. 

And I'm sure left-wing readers also read those books and find much that supports (or at least doesn't contradict) their worldview too.  Is it really so much to expect that by and large the biggest successes will be the ones who don't get all smug, pretentious, holier than thou, ham-fisted message-fest on us in our entertainment?  I don't think so.  And mostly, that seems to be the case. 

You can also witness the spectacular failures of left-wing progaganda filled The Lone Ranger, Elysium, White House Down, The Purge, etc. 

As an aside, E. E. Knight--I have no idea if he's conservative or not, but it seems like his Vampire Earth post-apocalyptic novels have a background Conservative viewpoint as a chassis that supports the stories, so I suspect that he is.  Even if he does live somewhere in the Chicago area. 

As a second aside, I think feminism is one of the most corrosive and toxic agendas ever to hit our culture.  I still like a good kick-ass hot chick as an action star.  They're sexy.  And unless you think the ancient Greeks and the ancient Egyptians (and even the Vikings) were a bunch of male feminist losers, you're hard pressed to claim that the archetype has to belong to feminism.  It's all in how its presented.