Love this bit about the cultural pervasiveness of a new literalism, from Namwali Serpell:
"The point is not to be lifelike or fact-based but familiar and formulaic—in a word, predictable. Artists and audiences sometimes defend this legibility as democratic, a way to reach everyone. It is, in fact, condescending. Forget the degradation of art into content. Content has been demoted to concept. And concept has become a banner ad.
Saying the quiet part out loud has given way to a general loudness. This is as true in our cultural life as it is in our political life, which feels like a badly written finale, so in your face are the Ponzi schemes, Nazi salutes, and tech-bro cant of our latest overlords. That sense of unmistakable catastrophe may be why we keep returning to predigested cultural comfort food."
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/critics-notebook/the-new-literalism-plaguing-todays-biggest-movies or https://archive.is/0GNkR