Recently there has been some conversation on men’s rights social media about the positive nature of the movie, Dunkirk. This is a war movie focusing on the events of Dunkirk during WWII, and in the interest of full-disclosure, I have not watched the movie. These posts however emphasize one of two things, either how positive the emphasis on sacrifice is, or how positive the recognition of sacrifice by males for the rest of society is. I think this is particularly interesting given the popularity of both this movie, and Hacksaw Ridge, both created by famous directors as the culmination of a several year project. Both movies also point out a problem in Habermas in my opinion, or at least something that was missing from our discussion.

Movies represent a serious political discussion but are almost entirely withdrawn from the public eye, instead only reviewed retroactively by total gross revenue. However, the power that the public has over these series have been considerably increased in recent years by the trends of social media (for instance much of modern advertising campaigns are done on social media, for free) and by the trend of movies becoming series. Series involve somewhat of a discussion with audiences, and require serious understanding of what made a movie popular. I think this top-down approach to political discussion was somewhat missing from Habermas’ analysis. Perhaps because while social media has strengthened our ability to communicate and talk about politics, technology like movies, over plays, have decreased our direct interaction with the creators, which additionally might be the reason that the liberal-dominated film industry is dying a painful death; the only survivors are large franchises that must respond to consumer demands, and often target larger audiences by trying to remain unoffensive.

One thing that has been in discussion for men’s rights groups is the meeting that took place between Betsy Devos and several groups identified by some as men’s rights groups, related to the discussion of college sexual assault. This is interesting because it may mean welcoming men’s rights group into a mild position of some power, something historic for the MRAs. One discussion that came into play is the possibility of changing rules that the Obama administration changed, back to their original form. This would increase the standard of proof for college sexual assault cases. This is an interesting example of a group changing from tactics to strategies, since MRAs might gain enough power to actually create strategies. In fact, some are in favor of dismantling federal, college-associated, tribunals of sorts for sexual assault, instead turning power back to police. This would be an example of truly changing strategies. Whether that is done remains to be seen.