let's ask george lucas what he thinks about this topic

Do find it interesting how #They think art isn't productive work. Funny enough the soviets thought art making was productive work lol. Also #They love to argue against their construct of communism rather than the tangible examples throughout history.

and it's weird because if that was true, communist countries would have never cared so much about sports and winning gold medals but that's obviously not true at all for socialism culture is extremely important, that includes both sports and the arts ballet and gymnastics!

@MinimumWidth Ballet is the height of bourgeois art from the empire and Stalin only kept it around because he loved to rape ballerinas in his office when he got tired of the wife he married when she was 13 and got tired of the peasant sex slaves his pedo-in-chief provided for him.

@MinimumWidth congrats memorizing braindead simon teabag propaganda projecting western leaders' pederasty on stalin all art = bourgeois art, that's the meaning of history all sports = bourgeois sports too and ussr kicked everyone's asses at the olympics, hungary did that in football too

@MinimumWidth the only world leaders who are obsessed with abusing children are the leaders of your "democratic" west who are hated by the entire free world today don't externalize your latent epstein coalition trauma on the leaders of the 20th century who were also fighting those people

didn't the soviets basically invent film editing with their montage stuff. heck sampling in music is almost an equivalent to that

also created synthesizers

I think I’d prefer to have to deal with the whims of the free market over having to tow the party line and hold my tongue on criticizing the government in art.

just to be clear it really wasn't that hard to make art that didn't cross the line of denouncing communism or trying to subvert the state, it's actually an extremely low bar to clear and again, "be careful" ≠ "don't do it" millions of people still do this in china every year

@mojorisn57 “Be careful” and “don’t do it” are the same thing. Why would you want to risk anything if not being careful enough would get your project shelved?

@mojorisn57 they clearly are not because be careful doesn't mean you can't do it you just have to not be an idiot about it you are clueless if you think no soviet or chinese works of fiction have ever criticized the government because it's "not allowed" lol of course it's allowed man

This kind of reminds me how in The Master and Margarita (which is still pretty critical of the USSR)mainstream Soviet writers are depicted as pretentious and cliquey and not, like, under constant threat of being sent to the Gulag if they don't praise Stalin on every page.

I love the point hes making but handwaving people getting sent to labor camps or executed for making artwork that didnt fall into the pre-approved censors as "oh they just had to be careful of criticizing the government" is fucking crazy

westerners think the peak of creative freedom is criticizing political leaders lol it's so funny ussr published 3 of every 5 books in the world you really each one was 'propaganda'? esp. after 1956 they could write/draw/film whatever they wanted and "be careful" ≠ "don't"

if you think ZERO films or works of fiction throughout the history of the soviet union were ever critical of the govt or socialism as a system (especially after 1985) you clearly don't know anything about this topic and you're relying on lazy western propaganda "labor camps" lol

if you're so worried about censorship in the arts, you should focus on the comics code authority, hays code, and what happened to the hollywood actors that were sympathetic to communism during the red scares in america and in the 2020s when it comes to sympathy for palestine

Oh no, another system also does something im critical of other systems for doing? I never knew that, guess cant be critical of the thing i dont like anymore

I know censorship also exists in capitalism, im saying that pretending censorship of art is a solely capitalist ideal is reductive and stupid

Like you

nobody said censorship is a capitalist thing???? all i said was the idea that ussr was just a lifeless 1984 animal farm where the only art people made was "party propaganda posters" is extremely dumb and nobody who actually knows what they're talking about believes that

@VK_HM Kind of beside the point, but I’d love to see one of these movies he’s going to make that’s not meant to be popular. Where are they, George??

“You have lots of freedoms just don’t cross the govt” is an unbelievable take.

first of all be careful is not the same as don't do it second, why do you think the point of art is to criticize your govt lol? what if saying "i hate my current government" is not actually art?

Do I really need to explain freedom. You’re embarrassing.

@ParacelsusII Explain it to George if you think he's an idiot. The point is freedom isn't a straight line between "allowed to criticize the government" at 1 and "not allowed to criticize the government" at 0. If you think that you're a fool who's bought into 80s era red scare propaganda

@ParacelsusII I think there is a direct connection between freedom and being allowed to criticize the govt. it’s so important that it’s why it was in the 1st ammednment. Let’s not be silly hear and pretend we don’t understand things. You’re embarrassing too.

@s0menumber5 @ParacelsusII You lose your job in the us if you criticize Israel. You lose your job in the us if you say Charlie Kirk was a bad person. In the us you get thrown in jail for exposing war crimes.

@s0menumber5 @ParacelsusII You’re gonna compare cancel culture to the gulags? Ffs you people are insane.

As if being unable to criticize a government is not that big of a deal. The commercialism point is valid though.

being "allowed" to do xi jinping winnie the pooh jokes is not really creative freedom and it's not art either why is it for so many people in the west, the most important aspect of creative freedom is criticizing political leaders? is that really the limit of imagination?

@mobfighter63 Mockery is important because it shows how much freedom to speak a society has. Mockery is hostile, it’s humiliating, if someone can get away with mocking leaders they can usually get away with criticizing policy and decisions, which is important for keeping leaders accountable.

@ParacelsusII @mobfighter63 Sincere question: Would you rather live in a nation where the govt actively harms you but you get to call them names, or a nation where the govt actively helps you but you can't say the people helping you are bad?

@Michael36526473 @ParacelsusII What holds those government officials responsible or accountable then? How do you determine if they’re straying away from society’s interests or not? Not saying liberal democracies excel at this, but it at least spreads awareness of injustice right?

@Michael36526473 @ParacelsusII I noticed that you didn't answer the question. We can't have a conversation if you are not going to participate in good faith. If you just want to express your own thoughts without entertaining anyone else's, you can do that without my participation.

@Michael36526473 @ParacelsusII The second option I suppose. I think there needs to be measures in place to determine that though?

And Soviet authors were frustrated about the limitations THEIR system put on them and yearned for the options they saw in the West. Both takes are natural. However, Lucas had the option step outside the established playground and offer something different directly to the market.

at any rate the idea that "under communism" artists are forced to "serve the party" is laughable not at all how it worked, yes censorship existed yes many people didn't like it but arts and media thrived in ussr man come on they weren't just making cpsu posters all day

Having seen both, I prefer Western model much more where the only path to creative freedom isn't sucking up to those in power (it's still an option, but not the only one). I do note that avoiding censors made artists' phrasing extremely sharp and elegant, not so much anymore.

I comfortably disregard someone’s opinion on film if they discount the work of Soviet film. The Russian film schools at their peak were a powerhouse. Can’t talk about the history of film without substantial attention given.

“Yeah it’s chill in Russia you just have to avoid getting sent to a gulag”

This is all the fault of copyright by the way. If you abolished copyright, art would be mostly made by artisans funded by rich patrons, as it was during the time art was at its absolute peak. Instead of appealing to the dumb masses, art would appeal to the elite.

movies are very resource and labor intensive no matter where you are from especially in the mid-century, so both countries were constrained by what they could make. Painting and writing and music were not, but music was in the middle of that paradigm.

ussr didn't play about classical music either

I noticed he didn’t give any specifics

He is so wrong it would be laughable if it wasn't so disrespectful

America follows "All they need to do is not criticize the government" and Lucas doesn't have a career

Note: he has the capability to make movies he wants because he's incredibly independently wealthy, due to capitalism. Studio Laika gets to keep making movies that are financial failures because the head of the company is the son of the owner of Nike, and gets to independently fund their work.

what he doesn't realize is that all that was despite the soviets, not because of them, he doesn't talk about the black listing, gulaging, de-humaning of actors, writers, painters etc. that were inconvenient for the regime or someone in the party didn't personally like.

Thanks to free market capitalism, this will be Star Wars in 2030.

I think it’s the same thing, apart of creativity IS getting around those restrictions. It’s the barrier for entry. Without it, there would just be a flood of low effort content, and then you’ll have to worry about attention, which is still a restriction.

>I’m not free because I can’t just waste millions of resources to fulfill my vision. I’d rather have an authoritarian government behind me that can change the script and lock me away because I failed to adhere to their whims China is especially known for constant censorship and don’t get me even started on North Korea lmao. Lucas was a retard

It's just ironic coming from the guy who's stories are among the most successful in Cinema, ever, thanks to capitalism Like sure, if they had sooo much freedom and space to work, why aren't their films or stories globally known? It's such a dumb argument he makes

)))) that's incorrect. The Party censored hundreds of topics.

why should i get a lecture about freedom of the arts by the guy who sold his ips to the equivalent of the devil for entertainment

I love animation history and one of the things you hear about constantly, as so much great animation was coming from USSR/China, is how these directors hated the censors but as soon as capitalism won the work evaporated because it wasn't profitable.

“The prequels sucked ass because of capitalism I wasn’t free to make the movies I wanted”

Some of the best & most iconic Polish movies were made under communism like Krzyżacy or Potop. Wajda, Kieślowski Kawalerowicz, Has, Zanussi, Hoffman are regarded as world-class directors & they made their name during that era.

Art has always been used for propaganda. High Renaissance and Baroque happened because Catholic church invested in visual arts to counter the iconoclastic Reformation. Protestants invested into music cuz both parties needed to keep their flock in the praystations entertained.

This was only true just before the collapse of the USSR when Lucas was making movies Also, the freedom of choice under capitalism allows counterculture art to grow and shape society, unlike state run economies that banned anything counterculture

"we need to force the public to pay for our otherwise commercially nonviable art"

"Under communism making art for the state would mean youd be subjugated and wouldnt be able to make real art! You'd be miserable!" As opposed to under capitalism where vfx artists are subjugated and miserable because theyre not able to make real art?

Cute how his wife was a union-busting executive at Starbucks (lesson: never, ever trust a billionaire)👍

Being careful about criticizing the government is a gianormous "if"

Worthless waste of oxygen @constans thought that by describing capitalism but saying it’s communism, people would have been as big of a gullible bitch as he is 😂😂 You funny man

lucas's first "film" was altamont footage, which gave him leverage over a system that definitely didn't want that showing up anywhere.