my problem with all the fandom discourse is that both sides really, really don’t seem to understand that media studies is its own academic discipline instead of, like, a scientific formula or something
it’s not “media never influences people” or “media always influences people exactly as planned,” it’s complicated with many different schools of thought and approaches and branches, from marxism to postmodernism to, I shit you not, fan studies. there’s no single accepted This Is How Media Works Theory that everyone adheres to.
(also actual media criticism involves both criticizing works you like and drastically limiting consumption of all media, even media you do like, but that never comes up in the discourse™ hmmm I wonder why)
bringing this back because it is, once again, relevant to The Discourse™
Loki is the Philosopher King 