The current state of Twitter is, well, a cesspool of pure reactionary dissonance. Thankfully there are a lot of great creators on various social media beating back against the toxicity. One way to remedy this is if you are patient enough to get to know some of these strangers you can enjoy people who have disagreeable takes.  You might even learn something.  

 Let me be the first to say that the term, “media literacy” is specific to comprehension by the audience of a piece of media. Basically, we must have a relative consensus on what we just saw.  I also believe that it could be the fault of a film maker with confusing choices, like; an absence of establishing shots before a location change, a jarring shift in tone, plot holes, dropped sub plots, continuity errors or even contrived story telling choices.

It seems like on social media you don’t get the traction for being an expert compared to those who sensationalize their click bait titles. I think this makes sense since nerd culture through film has been much easier to access with varying degrees of finesse for new viewers who don’t care about the deep lore that several decades of comics, novels, game manuals helped to preserve and continue to endure the legacies of heroes and villains alike.  And also pandering to short attention spans on platforms that only have a few seconds or minutes to do quick, energetic summaries.  Which brings me to the sad, current state of Twitter.

Twitter under Musk

  Twitter resurrecting previously banned social media personalities through Elon’s direction feels like a dying platform with too much momentum towards misinformation to turn it around. It also should be stated that debates on twitter aren’t “a marketplace of ideas.” It’s more like Crypto in that a lot of the currency in the marketplace of ideas is a complete scam when trying to be exchanged with dry, unbiased, no spin facts.  You don’t have the character count or the shelf life to argue for longer than a few days before one party just pivots to something else.  

Youtube Media Literacy Influences

 There also was another phenomenon and that was Cinema Sins and Red-Letter Media’s critical evisceration of the Star Wars Prequels. These two I feel have had an exceptional impact on the mid 2000s way of how we critique films. Cinema Sins has a bell and a score board which does engage the viewer but often reframes or misrepresents what constitutes a sin. If you didn’t question the material, you could end up using his metrics for critiquing shows that are otherwise exceptional. Being reductive is yes, faster, but it is not better. Think about a surprise ending that was ruined because of spoilers.

I could bring up a Christopher Nolan film, Wanda Vision, Star Wars: The Last Jedi or any of the Jordan Peele horror films but I feel like that is a bit too convoluted, so why don’t I tell you about a film I’m sure you are all familiar with, Super Troopers.

Super Troopers demonstrates the value of rewatching

Yes, Super Troopers, a film that I did not enjoy on first viewing. I’d like to think that I have a sense of humor and for some reason the first watch seemed tedious, annoying, very awkward in its pacing but as many of my peers suggested, it got better with each viewing, and they were right! The cast of Broken Lizard recaptured that sense of goofball comedy with different dynamics I hadn’t seen in comedies in a while. And then Beerfest came out and I was overjoyed with how little it took itself seriously. The comedy consistency of those two films with the same cast taught me to appreciate a different genre of film that we hear all too much about these days and yet we have to emphasize on Twitter how many people get it wrong. Yep you guessed it. The Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Who deserves Captain America’s Shield?

 So because the MCU is so gosh darn huge I really want to talk about one character and his supporting characters and how a tweet about who should pick up the mantle of Cap sent me on a tweet barrage of things about Sam Wilson aka Falcon from the Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Someone on Twitter actually claimed that John Walker and Bucky were more worthy than Sam to pick up the shield and be Captain America. My head hit the table when I read that. Is this trolling? Did Wanda whisper, “No more reasonable hot takes?” I was beside myself, and yet, I think this person forgot who the character was throughout the Captain America movies. Sam Wilson works with combat veterans at the VA, his strength of character is his words, empathy and ability to negotiate peaceful resolutions during tense situations. We learn from his back story that his family always helped others in their community in Louisiana which passed onto him. He then gets paired with Bucky aka the Winter Soldier who was brainwashed by a war criminal and Steve only learned about his presence for a few years. John Walker is a resume, but his content of character is brash, entitled, aggressive and he is often insecure in a world of the Dora Milaje and super powered beings, he conflates physical strength as the metric for worthiness. Sam continued to serve his country after his tours were served in both combative and noncombative ways. And for Steve Rogers probably the only strength of character to give him hope after having been betrayed by Hydra spies within S.H.I.E.L.D.

Now did Sam Wilson wag his finger on television to the United Nations to do better? Sure. But I get it. Diplomacy takes a steady hand and a hopeful heart. The Flag Smashers were the antithesis of that and John Walker though very quickly forgiven by Bucky and Sam is just a mess compared to the curtain MCU Captain America who is Steve Rogers choice for the legacy that goes with it.