(This is meant to be purely illustrative, not taken seriously. Also, given how hard it was to come up with frames, it might be better to replace using lenses this way with ‘questions that are always good to ask’.)
Idea [1]____1___________2__________3
Lenses:__Economic__Narrative [3] Empiricism [4]
[1] Movies these days seem to be lacking realism[2]/X.
1)
Is there not an audience for realism/X? (Or is this a market failure?)
Are most movies produced by studios that aren’t good at writing realism/X?
Is it more expensive to produce movies which are more realistic/X?
Harder to make money off of?
Is this the result of government regulation? Self-regulation?
Do the people involved in making movies (scriptwriters, directors, etc.) prefer less realistic**/X movies? Find it easier to make such movies?
[2] What is the alternative to realism that is more common?
(Realistically, the best way to make progress on a question like this is probably by unpacking ‘What you mean by “realism”/X.’)
[3] A struggle between the forces of good and evil.
2)
Who controls Hollywood, good or evil? Both? Neither?
What reasons might they have for doing this?
Good:
It’s easier to have the good guys win in movies if you’re less realistic. It also delivers a particular message ’you will win if you’re good, no matter how ridiculous that sounds.
Bad:
It lulls people into a false sense of security. “All evil needs to prevail is every good person doing nothing.” As it is hard to get people to do nothing, the nothing must be obscured by an illusion of doing something—thus, meaningless visual media, Netflix, etc.
Neither:
a)
Life isn’t perfect. People go to the movies to get away from it all/see the people they agree with win. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be entertaining and end happily.
b)
Movie makers don’t care about realism. Conflicts of Good versus Evil, where the good guys always win, in movies that don’t make sense aren’t about Good versus Evil. They’re just another opportunity for movie makers to set up their side as “Good” and the other side as “Evil”. This is why movies today are getting political (to the detriment of their quality).
[4] Looking at data
3)
Assess the quality of a sample of movies, perhaps across time periods, perhaps highly rated/popular movies.
Has the factor we’re interested in changed over time?
(Is realism going down, up, in a cycle, or randomly—say, based on really popular movies coming out which do or don’t have features (such as realism), and then more movies like that getting made, Y number of Years later.)
Have other factors? Are there any relationships in the data?
(This is meant to be purely illustrative, not taken seriously. Also, given how hard it was to come up with frames, it might be better to replace using lenses this way with ‘questions that are always good to ask’.)
Idea [1]____1___________2__________3
Lenses:__Economic__Narrative [3] Empiricism [4]
[1] Movies these days seem to be lacking realism[2]/X.
1)
Is there not an audience for realism/X? (Or is this a market failure?)
Are most movies produced by studios that aren’t good at writing realism/X?
Is it more expensive to produce movies which are more realistic/X?
Harder to make money off of?
Is this the result of government regulation? Self-regulation?
Do the people involved in making movies (scriptwriters, directors, etc.) prefer less realistic**/X movies? Find it easier to make such movies?
[2] What is the alternative to realism that is more common?
(Realistically, the best way to make progress on a question like this is probably by unpacking ‘What you mean by “realism”/X.’)
[3] A struggle between the forces of good and evil.
2)
Who controls Hollywood, good or evil? Both? Neither?
What reasons might they have for doing this?
Good:
It’s easier to have the good guys win in movies if you’re less realistic. It also delivers a particular message ’you will win if you’re good, no matter how ridiculous that sounds.
Bad:
It lulls people into a false sense of security. “All evil needs to prevail is every good person doing nothing.” As it is hard to get people to do nothing, the nothing must be obscured by an illusion of doing something—thus, meaningless visual media, Netflix, etc.
Neither:
a)
Life isn’t perfect. People go to the movies to get away from it all/see the people they agree with win. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be entertaining and end happily.
b)
Movie makers don’t care about realism. Conflicts of Good versus Evil, where the good guys always win, in movies that don’t make sense aren’t about Good versus Evil. They’re just another opportunity for movie makers to set up their side as “Good” and the other side as “Evil”. This is why movies today are getting political (to the detriment of their quality).
[4] Looking at data
3)
Assess the quality of a sample of movies, perhaps across time periods, perhaps highly rated/popular movies.
Has the factor we’re interested in changed over time?
(Is realism going down, up, in a cycle, or randomly—say, based on really popular movies coming out which do or don’t have features (such as realism), and then more movies like that getting made, Y number of Years later.)
Have other factors? Are there any relationships in the data?