He’s right (Unfortunately)

Doug TenNapel created Earthworm Jim. Somebody found his art in an old Nintendo Power and called it far right extremism. His response is the whole problem in one sentence.

TenNapel said that if they had known he was a Christian, they probably would have decided the gameplay was terrible too. That is the part worth sitting with, because it describes something that happens constantly and almost never gets named. People run everything through a political filter first and call the result an objective judgment.

This is where the fake narrative comes from that people on the right cannot create. The evidence against it is everywhere, but you rarely see it, because the ones working in the mainstream right now are smart enough not to out themselves. They send me messages privately. They tell me who they work for and what they have made. They will not say it publicly, because they know exactly what happens to the reception of their work the moment they do.

And notice how one-directional it is. Right leaning consumers do not generally make politics the dealbreaker. They will go watch a billion dollar movie full of actors, directors and producers who disagree with them on nearly every issue, and they will judge it on whether it is good. It has never been the primary determinant. The reverse is not true, and you can watch it happen in real time when someone’s politics come out and the retroactive demotion starts. Dean Cain gets this treatment constantly. He was never that good, he’s washed up, all of it arriving years after the fact.

I don’t think the people doing this will admit it, and I’m not sure it’s fixable. But conversation around media would be a lot healthier if people could assess work on its own merits instead of auditing the person who made it. Being right leaning doesn’t mean what you make is good. It also doesn’t mean you’ll get a fair hearing, and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise.

What do you think the solution is? Leave it in the comments.

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