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"I went into horror, the fifth-biggest genre in fiction, because I only cared about the money. But what I really wanted to do was write historical romance, the first-biggest genre in fiction."
Kinda goes to show how they think of the world outside their echo chamber. All scary, all sinful, only happy with violence and blood and death. When in reality their own religion is bloodier and more gruesome than most people could stomach
What confuses me is she says sex when talking about horror novels… Are they thinking of late 1900’s slasher movies? Cause last I checked horror novels have you know… horror. And romance novels have… yeah. Not to mention said slasher movies always _punished_ the characters for adult fun time…
I didn't get his name being Jesse's Christ until reading it in your comment. I don't think the sounds translate their little clever nickname auditorily like they thought it would.
god i hate the implication that the purpose of our existence as disabled people is to make abled folks more compassionate, but it's literally everywhere in media
Seriously it pisses me off. Especially when people act like you can’t complain because “It’s a compliment!” No saying how godawful our lives are is not a compliment, jackass.
-Lures in desperate people -Promises to solve all their problems -Deal always goes south for person -Basically punishes them for their selfishness Hmm, I don't think that's an angel...
I've seen a decent argument that God is actually a more charismatic version of a classic eldritch god. >Can't look upon him or his 'glory' will destroy you >Has an existence fundamentally different from that of reality, which allows him to easily manipulate all aspects of reality >Seemingly knows everything but simultaneously acts in ways that can't be understood by humans >Can only be seen and understood by "prophets" that are abnormal humans >All the imagery in revelations (Christ as a seven-eyed, seven-horned lamb with a slashed throat, bleeding snow white blood which his followers joyously bathe themselves in) >Old testament "wheels and eyes" angels as servants >Will inevitably destroy the entire world. The only choice you can make is whether you suffer through that experience yourself or not
What they think is "terrifying existential horror" usually goes along the line of "two gay people understand they are gay, fall in love, adopt a child and go on to live an happy and fulfilling live with the people they love, LIVING FOREVER IN SIN", so it would actually be better if they "embraced it"
"No, don't worry, you will soon forget your entire past, personality and prior existence and be overwritten like the operating system of a computer. That makes it better, right?"
Imagine if George Bailey didn't just go to a world where he was never born, but instead went to a world where he was never born AND a meteor hit Bedford Falls. Makes u think
It's more, if he wished his brother was never born, then a meteor falls and he spend the rest of his life alone as an alcoholic homeless pariah. And then the angel asks him at gunpoint if he learned his lessons. Truly make you think.
"If violence sells, write that. If sex sells, write that" And she really wants to write....romantic historical fiction?! A genre totally not driven by gratuitous sex and, usually, war!
Minor note: The editor(?) doesn't even say the second "write that". In this show, not even ratings-obsessed businesswomen can just say "You should write sexy times in your books".
Funny how the Bible contains stories with all those things and more, like child sexual slavery, incest...etc.. Yet nobody has a single word to say about that in this episode. Writing horror genre fiction, though? Then you're straight-up married to demonic entities!
Ah, I see you've never seen the fundie version of this genre. Where it's all demure puritan prairie housewives pining for a sweaty racist white cowboy.
One of my favorite books ever is “between shades of grey” it’s a historical fiction novel that goes into brutal grotesque detail at the atrocities the Soviets committed towards their people, and it has an underlying love story in it. So I just bursts out laughing when she insinuated that historical romance wouldn’t have sex or violence in it
Her dad is mad that she’s writing horror because she should use her gift to “bring hope to the hopeless”??? Weird to assume the horror isn’t doing that or that the historical romance would do it more
It’s funny because Christian horror could do so much. I’m not a horror writer, but as someone who is a writer and a Christian I could do it very easily. God doesn’t hate gore, not when it’s used to tell meaningful stories with good symbolism. I mean, FNAF has a terrible creator but he’s Christian and made so much money from horror without much graphic gore at all. I think that says something.
Even weirder to assume that horror would sell better than historical romance fiction. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it doesn't.
The whole concept of people with troubled pasts showing up at the motel at their lowest point and being punished existentially by it is basically how Silent Hill works
"Don't you understand, detective? God had to kill 4 women for you to pay attention. If you had paid attention before maybe those 4 women wouldn't have died as god tried to reach you." Like so far every episode has had sexist undertones but I am really obsessed with "women will have to keep dying until this man grows up" presented as like a thing a good deity does
It's not sexism. The genders could just as easily have been swapped. It's very typical for devout religious folks to ignore all of the suffering of people around them and instead focus on the relationship between themselves and their deity in order to find meaning in life. Everything then becomes a part of some sort of divine "plan" God has for them, leaving others as merely pawns in that game. It's not so strange if you think about it: most folks who are deep into religion really just want an omnipotent "daddy" to take care of them in this scary world. And if you don't feel secure about your own position in life, you're more likely to neglect that of others. It's also a handy method of reasoning away all of the misery in the world while focussing on an all-loving god who just "happens to work in mysterious ways...."
@@Simon-A.-Tan I mean I absolutely agree with the statements that this is pretty regular for religion, but given the tone of the rest of the show, where women just need to listen to their fathers and are only allowed to persue their dreams in ways okayed by them, and the first lady's life is bad bc her disabled brother is a prop to stop her from partying and make her a good homemaker (also that when the other lady stops writing bad icky horror she immediately has a husband) it seems like there is a resounding way this show treats women. And that's not even touching on the abortion ep
@@Simon-A.-Tan if the genders had been swapped then it would still be sexist. You have to think "why did all the people who died have to be women"? That was their choice consciously or subconsciously. I think it probably hinges on the sexist idea about women being infanatilized, representing innocence/being innocent and needing to be protected from evil.
Christian show: If you're going to die, you should have children because that way part of you will still exist after you're gone Heaven: Am I a joke to you?
A lot of Evangelical Christians are taught they have a moral imperative to "out breed" everyone else. It's not about undermining the concept of an afterlife, but being brainwashed into believing they need to gain power and control by having a gazillion children each. This is dogma they really started to push in the 70s. Pair with that the homeschooling that also teaches them they must go to political rallies and protests to push their agenda, and some things about how US politics has shifted starts to make more sense -- the people instilling importance in fighting for what's right, and caring about politics, etc, has mostly come from this warped version of Christianity.
@yossarian down with the quiverfulls, down with the duggars. The familial environments they try to create is ripe for abuse by pedos. It's a perfect playground for them.
Evangelist have a very strange concept of having children. Like there is a movement that straight up encourages you to have as many children as possible, with the hope that they will become policymakers in order to spread evangelistic values.
Sad to say a lot of people outside of religion still believe this, but the quiverful movement is like rats breeding and overrunning the planet with the plague.
they 100% meant "historical romance fiction" as in "whatever the hell G-rated life Laura Ignalls Wilder and Almanzo had going on where he'd tip his hat on their way into church and she'd sing wholesome songs on the piano at the town christmas party and kept six feet apart with a chaperone until marriage"
@@gwendolynstata3775 Oh, totally. You'll find exactly that kind of historical fiction on the shelves of Christian bookstores. I read it when I was younger (but CANNOT STAND IT today because the writing is absolutely horrible, not to mention some being HORRIBLY INACCURATE despite being written by a history teacher *coughgilbertmorriscough*).
"Yes, I would like to have my disabled brother come back to life, please." Angel: "Is it because you learned about empathy, compassion, and that disabled people are autonomous, regular people you can't just wish away?" "What?? No, why would I have learned any of that???"
@@Demonetization_Symbol Apparently in her case her brother was just some kind of tool for her to be able to control her urge to party all the time. And that‘s it. She didn‘t learn anything, she just wanted her tool back.
I know! Have the makers of this show never looked in that section of the bookstore! It’s weirdly a thing that sells surprisingly well. Many of my friends seem to read that.
@@peterprime2140 as someone who has read a lot of historical romance it seems to mostly involve womanizing dukes learning to be good husbands by boning their new wives.
Some real creepy misogynistic undertones in this show. All the stories about women are about them accepting the role that others have prescribed for them, and submitting to authority.
I was about to say that especially with that pro-life episode. Both are just like "The lives of these women didn't matter; it's only about what comes after them/the redemption of the murderer that matters". But this comment made me realize that it was a consistent theme throughout. And of course in one, they had to make a disabled person a prop (this offended me particularly because I'm autistic) but in the process, they still told the woman that she has to be okay with her roles. To me, the moral of that should've been 1. Yes you have to be a care taker but you can still do some things you want in life and 2. Don't be angry at your brother for your role, be angry at the many systemic issues that led you to have to provide an extreme level of care in the first place.
‘I’m going to die before thirty knowing for certain that my child will lose me before they finish elementary school and likely grow up in the corrupt foster care system’ is a pretty good reason to get an abortion
@@Thecattheratsandthegliders Many magnitudes more people have at least 1 relative, I don't get your point. I don't get why so many people thought it was a better point than mine other than "abortion always best option, lol"
@@Caffeine_Addict_2020 not every family member you have is equipped to care for a child after your death. Just push your progeny on them since they're your family they have to oblige. Which can lead to a lot of messed up psychological damage to your family, especially your kid that will probably feel at fault for everything. I do not trust my relatives to care for a child after my death, why on earth would I risk a child suffering like that?
I hate watching shows that use disabled people as ways for “normals” to learn compassion, I even more hate when they can’t even bother to use an actually disabled person in the role.
Unfortunately I don't even think she's supposed to learn compassion. She's supposed to learn that burden - which is what keeps her from 'partying' is good. It's preaching that a) women have to shoulder their 'burden for their own good and that b) caring for others is a burden. They don't view disabled people as whole persons with intrinsic worth because if they did they'd cast a disable person and make them an actual character whose intrinsic human worth and their relationship with the protagonist would contribute to a message of shared meaning and purpose.
@@abelromero8967 yeah, I wrote this before I finished the video and thought I knew where the plot of the episode was gonna go, since this show somehow has more awful and backwards plotting than anything else in the world. My overall point still stands, but it somehow was worse than expected.
If I was Jennifer, after meeting my unwanted adult baby and finding out that my hopes and dreams were all dashed because I didn't terminate the pregnancy, was a single mom (watched another review of this episode and her boyfriend pretty much tells her he wants nothing to do with the baby), and on top of that I would die from cancer in ten years, my response wouldn't be, "better give up all my plans." Nope, I'd go back to Jessie and say "thanks for the heads up! I'm going to go to law school, harvest some of my eggs for later, and get regular cancer screenings. Glad to know I won't be leaving a kid to the foster care system or for my parents to take care of because I died when she was 9. You really saved my family and me a lot of pain and heartache!"
Yeah, that was really strange to me. If I found out I was going to die of a cancer I was going to get later in life, my first reaction would be to get myself screened for cancer again and again to catch it and treat it when it's still in its early and easily managed state.
Yeah I get that they thought they were going for a pragmatic pro-life argument of "at least my unfortunately short life will have some meaning because I brought a child into the world" but there are just so many more ways one could interact with this info dump that make more sense than the one the show pushes her towards
@@captaintomato5433 I guess we shouldn't be too surprised though. The writers and/or general audience for PureFlux content aren't exactly deep thinkers or into introspection. Even my Catholic husband (personally pro-life, but pro-choice when it comes to policy) thought that it was a truly terrible argument.
This show really says ‘For men, you will overcome what you’re going through and live a self-fulfilling life where you are happy’, ‘For women, you will conform to the situation you’re stuck in and live a life of misery knowing you’re going to literally die’. Making the women okay with living a domestic and ‘god-focused’ life, like what? I feel bad for the creators wife.
Christian black mirror is some real scary shit EDIT: Holy shit as someone terminal the idea of leaving a baby behind, with my condition no less, seriously horrifies me to no end
Honestly one of the worst pieces of earnest storytelling ive ever heard. Mixed messages for sure but also like "well you dont have time to achieve career success by gods standards, so you should at the very least have a kid". Actually shuddering that a group of people made a concerted effort to put this into our world.
@@crunchytoast4993 amazingly, we are all going to die; any and all of us could die at any moment, yet tons of folks still have tons of kids knowing this... somehow we are ok?
Agree with your edit 100% I had a stroke last year and my youngest just turned 10. There's no way I'd have continued having kids if I'd known my health would decline so sharply so soon. I hope you have all the love, care, and help you need and more. 💘
@@darth_kal-el I mean, if you want to get down to it, she's a prop too. But if you want to go even further, they're all "props" in a certain sense, because they're just allegorical devices in a show. But at that point, I'd be missing the point of Eve's original comment (which might not be literally 100% true for this exact particular example tv show, but her sentiment is generally [and overwhelmingly] accurate when applied to christian media as a whole)
Going by the cast listing on IMDb, they're almost exclusively white men. Only one black person is pictured, but the actor playing Freddy in the story of the woman who wished her brother away.
The Shelley story had me rolling my eyes. As an aspiring horror novelist and general horror fan, horror writers have to fight tooth and nail to get recognition. If your last name isn’t “King”, have fun getting published. Because horror is typecast as meaningless gore and sex, it’s not really looked at as a genre. So the idea that someone would give up writing historical romance, the literal best selling genre in the world, for horror because of “money” sure is rich.
And the horror books now have graphic designed covers that look like shit and don’t give a picture of what the story is about. Hell, you don’t even know what genre the books are anymore. IMO, there’s too many YA books. You can rarely find a good adult horror novel. It’s always YA and shit design with a crappy story. I never like to talk about the “good” old days, but I miss when covers had meaning.
Horror has the ability to tap into deep fears of humanity. Horror can mean a lot more than just surface level jump scares. Horror can be hopeful or not, depending on the messaging. Horror can be cautionary as well. Like anything that can be written, it can be done so poorly or greatly.
I mean yea, meaningless gore and slaughter can be fun for a videogame or movie. But of you try making a gore-porn type novel, its gonna loose its entertainment within the first few pages
What about Paul Tremblay, Stephan Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, Grady Hendrix, and Eric LaRocca. I am also an aspiring horror writer but there are so many examples of really good authors who do get notice.
Gotta say, as someone who’s been told both “you won’t live to 50” and “you’ll never have kids” the concept that only children bring meaning to short lives sure is GREAT.
That latter part is actually completely and utterly false. The words "you'll never have kids" to me sounds exactly like "congratulations!" I LOVE kids, but have the responsibility of an entire other human being is the most terrifying thing I can think of.
This is scarily accurate to how my Jehovah's Witness adopted family viewed disability and subsequently treated me. I lost my eye-site to a botched surgery when I was 8 and they always told me that me going blind was a great thing because had I not lost my vision I would be an ignorant ghetto sinner and partying on the streets just like the (other people like me) referring to Black people. It's truly disgusting
I am Christian, not Jehovah Witness but we do have some similar traits but I swear we aren't like that. I hope you are ok and got the help you needed. If you ever wanna talk you got me bro. Also the Bible says that you don't discriminate, just disagree with something but not being rude (I know it doesn't apply to your situation because that is just straight up wrong). Sorry for being preachy I just wanna help people.
@@jacksonspitsfax4526 I know y'all're good willed, I have no maliciousness when I ask: why do y'all always go "we're not all like that", like-we know, we're just describing our experiences.
Jessie Chris' actor is kinda perfect for this show, because his face perfectly expresses that kind of outward simulation of kindness while you can see in his eyes that he's judging you constantly and believes himself to be the arbiter of all morality at the expense of every other person in existence.
I can't get over how much he reminds me of the actor who played Randall Flagg (aka Satan) in The Stand and how incredibly amusing that is. It's not the same person obviously, but the facial structure is similar. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Flagg#/media/File:Randall_Flagg_(Jamey_Sheridan).jpg
Thanks for putting my thoughts into words. I'll also add that he sounds like Tucker Carlson sometimes so every time he talked I had to fight through a miasma of rage in order to pay attention to the point Large Joel was trying to make.
"I'm not going to be able to provide for this child for nearly half of its life as a minor and it will likely be traumatized by my death." Yes, I think having this child is a completely rational decision and can no way backfire
That’s what I was thinking! Like a legacy is cool, but also why would you want to bring a child into the world of you know you can’t care for them because you’ll die? I don’t want to traumatize my kid with my slow and painful death before they’re even ten years old! I don’t want to force the burden of child rearing on my parents or friends who never signed up for this either. Mind boggling.
Joel doesn't talk about it, but I definitely remember hearing the evangelical theory that abortion is a cause of cancer. It's a bit of a deeper cut, but would she have gotten cancer if she didn't get the abortion?
What I'm getting from this is that the creators of the show are revealing what they want out of god. They don't want a benevolent god that loves all humans for who they are; They want god to do the dirty work of punishing those they don't like so they can feel like their attitude is justified. They want a god that actively hurts people that behave in ways that the creators deem "wrong" and whose forgiveness is contingent upon a person's willingness to toe the line. Once someone agrees to that however, forgiveness is immediate and absolute no need to be held accountable for your decisions or repent in any way; You don't even have to say sorry to anyone you hurt because your actions are in keeping with god's will.
You hit the nail on the head. What evangelical Christians ultimately want is for everyone to conform to their narrow worldview, so that they never have to go through the uncomfortable process of learning new things and growing as people. And they're so obsessive about it that they even want the universe to bend over backwards to justify their self-centered desires.
I mean, that's exactly what they say they believe. It's pretty much what the Bible describes. There's no morality in such a system. Only subservience to their preferred way of life.
I love how becoming a very successful published author wasn't good enough for her dad because he didn't like the genre. If I wrote a book and it sold 10 copies my parents would never stop telling people their son was a published author.
Idk, if you were selling adult fun time novels (not romance or horror) would they still be proud? I feel like that’s what they were going for but I don’t know. Even for non-Christians, society can feel really puritanical
@@DeathnoteBB Plot twist: The parents are also smut writers, and are proud of their son for following in their footsteps and continuing the family tradition.
"Historical romance" Ah yes, that oh so Christian and sin-free literary genre. I'm sure her extremely religious father will be much more accepting of her writing books with names such as Thirsty For Tudors and My Victorian Adonis.
😂 yes…the funny and sad thing though, as someone who grew up in very conservative circles, is it’s TRUE. Lots of very conservative Christian women read historical romance, at least the kind where sexy doesn’t happen til marriage, like Pride and Prejudice etc, because of that. I think it’s how bawdy stuff is snuck in without questions 😂
It's so goddamn funny how scary the mere thought of atheism is to pure flix films. The overacting in the line "Jason! You don't mean that!" is just so ham fisted. It's cringe and hilarious.
I honestly wasn't sure if Joel had dubbed over that part, since it all happened off screen. It sounded ridiculous. The "oh but I DO" absolutely sent me, it's almost a parody of itself.
I also like how they demonize the atheist character as much as they can so they can push their false ideals of “religion is the center of morality” how persecuted they are
What's even more odd is that the supposedly good, Christian mom who knows her husband is dangerous and knows that Atheism is 'evil', stays by his side no matter what. As if a Wife must be with her Husband, even over God and Jesus. (Sarcasm)Cause you know, that fits perfectly with this show!(/Sarcasm)
@@DingoWalley01 On the contrary, that’s exactly what people like that think. Divorce is often seen as a horrible and unforgivable sin, even when it’s to get out of a horrible abusive marriage.
What I also thought was interesting was how they constrewed the father as an athiest just because they experienced a traumatic event and got upset with god. Notice how the father still believes in god (we know this because he plays to him) despite saying otherwise. It shows how something between some and many Christians don't believe that Athiests and/or agnostics can legitimately doubt or question the existence of a/their god. I think that this is why Athiests and Agnostics often get the questions: "Who hurt you?" or "What happened to you?" from some Christians (or religious people in general) whenever these secular people say that they aren't convinced of (a) god's existence. All of this isn't to say that those who left Christianity/religion due to or because of trauma aren't also valid in their opinions.
Misguided religious fiction can be so weird. I grew up Muslim and was in this Islamic club thing in school, and there had to be a play written by a student with some Islamic moral. The student who wrote it was a chill, funny, likeable guy who wasn't particularly religious. Anyway the play he wrote was about a dude, let's call him Timmy, who wants an hour off for Friday prayers, and his boss is like no, work comes first, besides I don't even pray. And Timmy's like, I gotta pray, fire me if you have to, and the boss is like okay you're fired. Then Timmy goes home and his wife is like I love you, you did the right thing, also I'm pregnant, let's pray. Then Timmy's ex-boss's wife... just fucking dies. She just dies off-screen, cause he doesn't pray. And Timmy gets a better job and a baby and his wife doesn't die and he has a meeting with his new partners and says 'okay let's go pray'. The end. It's weird how at the time the story just sounded weird and kinda silly to us when its implications are honestly horrific. And it's sorta interesting how trying to turn very tradionalist religious ideas into simple morality tales tends to turn people, often women, into props. I think the boss in the story is an asshole for not accomodating his employee's harmless religious practices, but him getting punished with death for that is nonsensical. But it's so much worse that his wife, who had nothing to do with anything, was the one who died instead. The stories in this show kept reminding me of that, how these tradional morality tales tend to teach people lessons by treating their loved ones as disposable props.
Hearing the story of Job made me turn away from (my uncommitted orientation toward) Christianity when i was like..10 or something God killed that guy's whole azz family on a BET? WITH SATAN? AND THEN HE GAVE HIM NEW ONES?
@@no_peace also, hello from someone with a chronic, extraordinarily painful illness. Let's not forget that in addition to the merciless slaughter of his wife and kids, Job was continually (almost daily) tortured with physical agony and sickness (which would've also affected his food/water intake and injured him that way as well). Fun Friday night events in heaven, I guess.
@@no_peace I had a similar experience around the age of 9 with the Samson and Delilah story my mom read me from a Children's Bible. I thought it was outrageous that it was supposed to be a good thing that God gave Samson his strength back so he could kill a bunch of people in a temple!
What’s messed up about this show’s stance on abortion is how it commodifies children. That woman’s child is going to grow up without a mother. It’s not about the child. It’s about what the mom or dad gets out of it regardless of what is good for the child.
True, but I feel Joel missed a critical message in the episode. It not only puts a twist in the consequences of abortion. It sets up the timeline where she has a daughter as one where the mother must make the ultimate sacrifice - give her life - for the life of her child. This echoes with the sacrifice of Christ and implies that christians should be willing to sacrifice their own lives in service of God.
@blooshkin Did you not read at all what they said? It’s about sacrifice and she’s sacrificing her life so her child can have life the way that Jesus sacrificed his life to give new life. Yes, she died. They never said she didn’t.
Pretty telling that the wish they went with was “what if Freddy never existed” and “what you had a better support system in place for taking care of Freddy” or even “what if Freddy instead lived with caretakers who were more suited and willing to look after him than you feel you are” was never so much as mentioned. There’s zero thought for Freddy, who is, you know, a person, and his sister just hops on board with “Freddy go bye-bye” instead of showing any consideration for him and other options which might potentially provide him with a better existence, or just any existence at all.
Yeah,but you know this is a TV show, right? If the writers had made her wish any of those, it would be a pretty short show after, probably just a quick scene of Freddie either with better caregivers or living more independently. But there would be no arc where the main character leans anything, or the Angel does much, etc. And while the female character is made to look selfish, caring for a severely disabled relative IS very hard, and no, there isn’t much actual support or respite caregiver services around. The 24/7 care is grueling, year after year, and puts real limits on the caregivers life. It is the best about us and a necessity that we do care for even the most limited and vulnerable among us, but is it SO terrible for a caregiver to sometimes feel overwhelmed, that it’s unfair, and wish they didn’t need to? I don’t think so and that seems like a human response, and weird to focus on it when there is no shortage of actual greed and selfishness out there.
@@Itried20takennames The problem is that the show forces a dumb and irrational moral on the protagonist with the worst possible execuation and makes both the writing and the protagonist look completely unfocused. There is no arc. Especially not the one that you could pretend should have been there. Literally any other choice and execution would have been better to convey the actual moral it should have.
“I’m going to die soon? Oh man, I better produce a child who’ll lose their mother during childhood and probably never know their father, meaning they’re completely left up to chance as to whether or not they’re adopted into a good family, stuck in the foster system for 18 years, sent to an abusive home, or any other random assortment of outcomes that may or may not lead to an incredibly shitty life, all while they’re traumatized from my early death. Hope it works out well for them!”
"Yep, truly the kid won't have any mental turmoils that will stick with them into adulthood that. Or be told multiple times that it was "god's will" when having fits of crying hysteria at times. I'm sure that child will be FINE!"
In the abortion episode, if the daughter said something like, "A few years later my mom died of cancer, so, it inspired me to go into cancer research and I found a cure." It would still be stupid, but, it would make more sense. Literally a message of "That life growing inside you is a miracle." But women with an high education? And in science? Yuck.
Huh. Ya know, that gives me a real fucked-up idea for an episode of this kinda thing: Asshole father who recently had a daughter, and is stopping at the hotel on his way to Vegas with his secretary gets to meet two future versions of his daughter, one where he stayed in her life and she became a PHD scientist working in medicine, and another where she lives a life turning tricks off the highway or something. Could work? I don't know.
It would be such an easy thing to research too. Just do one google search for sales figures, or if they don't know what a google is, walk into their nearest barnes and noble and just look at how much shelf space horror and historical romance respectively take up. It reveals their lack of both understanding and curiosity about the world around them.
I can explain "Queen of Scream" for you a bit, Joel, as someone who grew up evangelical and became a writer. Evangelical Christianity tends to drive out its young artists unless they conform to a VERY specific model of art. I was told over and over as a kid that I would write the "great Christian novel," which was understood to include no sex, minimal violence, and moral lessons or Bible verses every other page. When I wrote a play with strong religious themes that happened to be set in a bar, I was forced to change it to a bar and grill where literally only Satan touched alcohol. You can imagine how people reacted to my vampire murder mystery novel at age 13. 😂 Those kinds of restrictions, especially the extra restrictions imposed on women, tend to drive young artists away from the church. It's no coincidence that the main character's new genre is historical romance (a perennial bestseller in Christian bookstores that features women being rewarded for "proper" old-fashioned behavior) and that she's now got a husband (aka a man to be in charge of her, as the evangelical God intended). Ironically, for artists who grew up evangelical, her new life is the horror story. Btw, this is why so much current evangelical art stinks. The most talented artists usually experiment with something "un-Christian" at some point, and get booted. Only those who conform perfectly, or lack the imagination to transgress, are permitted to stay. Makes for a lot of mediocre art.
@@shadenox8164 Well, the Old Testament doesn't really count in those arguments, but, um... * points to graphic descriptions of Jesus' crucifixion * Yeah, you ain't wrong. @Brandon Pilcher
Angels: "If it's God's will it's right. Nothing we do really matters" Also Angels: "This person is making a terrible mistake. This can't be God's will. We need to fix it"
It's so glaring that for me, watching that series would be like watching horror. Seriously, just hearing about it in this video made my skin crawl at some points.
Basically, these stories are about omnipotent, omniscient god getting "do-overs" for "his plan" when it doesn't go right the first time -- it's just whack...
I actually think this is the only unfair criticism of the show. I’m not religious but I think you have to grant the story the theological context it’s in. Beatified Angels are generally understood to be incapable of acting against God’s will by their nature. Humans are granted free will by God and can choose to reject or accept God. That is really the fundamental distinction between angels and humans. I think it makes perfect sense, in that context, for angels to speak deterministically about themselves whilst also viewing humans as free agents.
I love how they just casually gloss over the fact that after Joey Meatball "almost beat a suspect to death," and clearly had begun to spiral, he was allowed to keep working as a cop. They took him off active duty when he got drunk and almost killed himself, but they apparently didn't even suspend him when he nearly killed a guy with his bare hands.
I gotta say, as nightmarish as this show is overall, the reveal of William at the end of Queen of Scream is absolutely horrifying. Seriously, even the whole “last 30 years will fade from your memory as your life in this new timeline takes hold” is less terrifying than “you have a husband, you’ve had him for years, and you also are now meeting him for the first time. Have fun!”
As said elsewhere in the comments section, you have to keep in mind the intended audience. 90%+ of the intended audience would have recognized the actor playing "William" as John Schlitt, lead singer for a couple decades of the Christian rock band "Petra". That band was one of the very few legit groups with talent on the level of other bands of their era. Most women of that age in the Christian scene would have loved to wake up with him as their husband.
@@MM-jf1me It's something that probably wouldn't even merit a second thought for most of them. We're talking a group that would just assume "Oh, yeah, that makes sense that getting married is totally something you'd "be blessed with" if you're "following God's plan". It's the Christianized version of Just-World-Theory (And the implied victim blaming that accompanies it). To be clear, _I totally agree with you._ I just don't think they'd have the initial reaction you would, and then wouldn't bother revisiting it either.
The idea of an angel running a motel to turn around the lives of people who visit him seems like a fun idea for a show á la The Good Place or something but instead it's just preaching to us about our obligation to God and virtue. I feel like it would be more fun if no one ever found out he was an angel. And also if the life changing didn't create new timelines and instead just made their lives better
A lot of fundamental Christian stories have some really cool premises, but they end up being shit. There's v few exceptions. I think Chronicles of Narnia is a Christian story that is still really fun to read.
@@icaruskeyartist When I was leaving Mormonism my brother gave me "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis. If there was ever a real honest believing Christian, it was the guy that wrote Narnia.
As an HLS grad, I had to rewind and listen to it again, sure I had misheard. You mean we didn't all need that pesky bachelors degree first? Damn. It's a grad school, guys.
@@ZijnShayatanica What I don't get is Charlie got to relive his life again while she's just still that age and having to adjust to a completely different life she never got to live.
I really love in the Queen of Scream that we’re supposed to know that historical romance is like very not sexual graphic Christian love stories set on like the Oregon Trail, when most people would hear “historical romance” and immediately think of smutty Regency era paperbacks.
*Oh.* That makes so much sense -- I forgot about that genre even as it reminded me of the fetishistic Amish Christian romance novels. Remembering how the latter novels tend to go helped me understand why her father would consider these a good use of her talent to glorify God, as the protagonists were usually being drawn to more religious lives as they were drawn to single handsome religious men.
I love how this show thinks you can't make things scary without sex, drugs, violence, or "satanic" creatures. As if horror isn't about fear and the unknown or the responses of humans in situations out of their control. Also Shelley's life sounds like a horror novel. A strong independent writer, turned into a christian G rated historical romance author because of a strange eldritch hotel that wipes away 30 years of her life.
It’s almost like this show is about literally demonizing others and concepts that are antithetical to the religion as propaganda, instead of actually providing some kind of media or insightful commentary.
The writers of this show would be baffled by the concept of internet horror phenomena like The Backrooms. An entire horror universe built off the idea of getting stuck in a dimension of endless dingy hallways. Or really any horror based around the concept of liminal spaces. Hell while we're talking massively successful horror lit many of Stephen King's most effective short stories have hardly any violence in them at all: "The Jaunt," "The End of the Whole Mess," "Survivor Type," etc. One of the defining features of Michael Haneke's notorious self-condemning slasher film "Funny Games" is that all of the explicit violence happens off screen, with Haneke choosing instead to force the audience to marinate in the emotional consequences of said violence without the catharsis or cheap thrills of seeing it carried out. Horror is so much more complex than the people who hate it give it credit for.
The “have a kid, you’re dying soon” really bothered me. My mum was really ill with a brain tumour when I was a kid and she spent a very long time in hospital, how is being ill for the little time you have with your kid a good thing? The main thing I remember of the time is having to go to peoples houses after school cos dad was visiting her in hospital (she wasn’t in the local hospital and it was at minimum an hour each way) and we only got to see her every other Saturday.
That story especially bothered me too, like "Yes, I'll take the Traumatized Kid with a side of Legacy-I-couldn't-appreciate-anyway please." How could you be so selfish and actually opt into bringing a child into the world who wouldn't have a mother for very long 😕
@@busterfixxitt that made me so confused. I've definitely seen "abortions cause cancer" but if she had the child then died of cancer anyway...what are they trying to say? All I could think was that if her body hadn't been put through a high-risk pregnancy, her cells might not have mutated to form cancer cells.
The story about the writer implies she becomes a successful historical romance author that does not include sex. That's less believable than the angels and multiple universes.
Oh, but not if you're an evangelical historical romance writer. That's like one of the biggest genres of Christian fiction, and the sex is buried under layers upon layers upon layers of repressive subtext.
I think another message of the first one, since it was written by evangelicals, was “as a woman your place is as a servant, for without constant work your kind can easily be lead astray” or something horrible like that
Real talk: the story for Charlie would be so much better if he was offered the chance to go back and refused it. He could say something along the lines of, "I've already gotten my second chance. That's all I need." It would really drive home his commitment to doing better. He's willing to live with the consequences of his actions and improve himself. It would be, dare I say, an act of faith? Something surprisingly lacking in this series.
This ending would also say a lot about forgiveness, not just from others, but from the self. So much of Christianity is about forgiveness but this show seems so uninterested in making it's characters own up to their mistakes and forgive THEMSELVES, instead God just magically fixes their lives so they never made any mistakes, which is NOT how God's forgiveness is supposed to work.
This episode, and the episode with the writer both seem to show an uncomfortable truth of the writers of this series view redemption. In both episodes, the central character can't just work to live a better life. Their actions needs to be erased from existence. As such, the series presents sin as something that a person must bear forever, rather than something you can be relieved of through hard work. Essentially, the show isn't meant to make to its viewers think critically about how to live a good Christian life. Instead, it's meant to assure their audience that they are leading a good life already. Whether this med school drop out turns his life around is an after thought.
I used to be obsessed with the Book of Job and what it meant. His children died to teach him a lesson, but that only works if you're a main character. What about his children? Far more than suffering being meaningless, far more than being punished for my sins, I was terrified by the idea that my suffering existed for somebody else's personal growth. I had recently been diagnosed with a long term disability, and I started to really focus on the Evangelical dialogue on disability. The main idea is that a disabled child is "a special angel sent to teach you about kindness", and, though I'm sure that helps some parents find comfort in what can be a painful and exhausting process, there are not words for the pain of feeling that your life, your struggles, your happiness, only has value as somebody else's moral prop. At least it's better than 'your disability is a symptom of incomplete faith and, if your moral were better, you'd be healed', but damn, at least that narrative gives you some agency
I had never even thought of that horrible story in that way. Too busy nearly vomiting at the idea that kids are replaceable property like camels I guess. I’m sorry it hurt you like that
I love how Job is supposed to be inspiring. No, rather, it's the summation of Christianity - the bidding to follow an abusive god while no one else matters but the main character. In the US, evangelicals follow Republican Jesus and are more than happy to have the disabled dead anyway. But it's fucking annoying how these people look down on someone else's problems and preach. It's like how it's "god's plan" that my house is standing and yours isn't. If you are dying of a painful terminal illness, you can't end things because Joan on the other side of the country thinks "life is a gift." The disabled are pieces of some asinine plan someone else has to deal with. Children are toys to be molded to your whims. Like us as disabled people don't matter. Our pain is some god's shitty plan and there's no help whatsoever forthcoming from the people smiling and hi-fiving. An intensely egotistical and hateful philosophy of objectification and murder. It's no surprise that American evangelicals are an anti-human nightmare brigade when they follow examples like Job.
“Charlie cannot merely do better, he has to always have done better” is the most anti-Christian message I’ve ever seen in a TV show. Like, it’s fundamentally antithetical to the core theology of basically every branch of Christianity, and the fact that it’s the message of a supposedly Christian show hurts my soul.
But they read the same book every week. Is just like saying being born of some Otaku an his wifi and watch Crunchyroll Evey week, and talk about anime every time before eating and then say Goku loves to kill.
@@nicanornunez9787 The evangelicals I've known don't read the Bible outside of the cherry picked sections for church/bible study. If they did they'd be like oh shit most of this is god asking for genocide.
I think you've hit upon the fundamental flaw in Christian ethics in the analysis of the first episode. In the Christian ethical model, others become objects that either help us to reach salvation or who demonstrate our own moral corruption. I got into a horrible fight with my partner of many years, said a lot of cruel things, and afterward felt quite guilty. After sitting with these feelings for a bit, I realized that a good part of the guilt I was experiencing was not based in empathy and love - nor a real concern for the feelings of my partner - but was because I felt as though I was a "bad person"; I had a major stain on my character. I've been an atheist for many years, but noticing and understanding this thought process, the inevitable effects of my Catholic upbringing, was quite striking. This definition of morality literally precludes selflessness, as every action is weighed according to its affect on one's own character, the virtue of which is (because of the threat of damnation) always the primary concern. Not only is this moral scheme immoral, but it somehow manages to turn every "moral" act into a performance of deep narcissism.
this was just 🤌🏾 *chef’s kiss* 🤌🏾a delicious comment to read. i was raised christian (not catholic though) and have talks all the time with my still-christian mom about how caught up other christians get in what’s sinful, what makes them a bad person, etc. instead of thinking about how to be kind and loving to others, they’re concerned about if other christians think they’re “good” or not. (not to mention how so many of their notions about what’s right and wrong are tbh fucked up.) her beliefs have come a long way, and reflects a lot on how church really fucked her up as a kid, and how hard it is to unlearn all those ideas. all that to say, guilt is a huge part of institution-based christianity. it seems catholicism puts conscious emphasis on it, but it runs deep in other sects too whether they say it aloud or not.
To be fair if I was an angel I would be doing the exact same thing with the same transparent justification for what's clearly just me entertaining myself
Being a best-selling author, Shelley could just publish whatever book she wanted to write. Even if it flopped hard, the sales of her tremendously popular horror books would back it up.
@@edgarallenhoe3518 yeah, just like Stephen King with The Green Mile and that other prison one with the guy and the poop tunnel. Not to the mention that horror is a window to societal anxieties and general sentiment and a framework for examinig humanity on limit situations, there must be genuine reasons for people to engange with her books and she seems completely oblivious to it XD PS: loved your username
Also, horror is not an easy genre to make/write and requires you to be able to make people feel strong emotions, which, in my opinion, seems like a perfect training for romance as well.
Yeah, writing horror fiction makes you unable to write anything else ever, including grocery lists. I wrote a short horror novel in high school and now I have to do my grocery shopping blindly and always forget something. And every girl I message flees in horror when I say her eyes look like twin graves.
Joel: "... this kind of surreal moon logic is what typifies the entire..." Me: "Evangelical Christian church?" Joel: "... show." Me: "Oh yeah, that too."
@@paulgallagher5889 and because I'm mean to my daughter she'll have to stay at the dream motel ahhahahah my actions have no meanful consequences muahahahaha
Akteeng But seriously though, who okayed that take? Who okayed this show? It’s like the Hallmark channel ate a prayer service broadcast and vomited it back up…
Pretty much all Evangelical Christian television looks like this. It's because there's no shot variation or thought put into the framing. In most TV, even low-budget TV, a lot of effort is put into framing shots to get across the tone and perspective of the scene, tell us who's the most powerful character in the scene and what emotions the characters are experiencing, etc. Evangelical christian TV, due to a mix of just not caring and a strange suspicion of subtlety, tend to frame everything equally, greatly underuse sound and lighting cues, and compensate by having people just say their emotions to the camera and/or exaggerate them in acting. The result is something with the budget and acting to just pass muster as a 'real' TV show, but with a construction that screams 'amateur production'. It's a bit disconcerting when you're not used to it.
I want the opposite of this show, with a cool demon who makes people into better versions of themselves as they leave the church and unlearn dogma and stop being assholes...
Yes! I would watch that show! I feel like I actually reflected on myself, and changed as a person so much more when I left the church and felt so much relief when leaving then what I ever was a part of it.
This show’s version of christianity is straightup just an abusive relationship. Everything is always your fault, and every horrible thing your partner does to you is framed as a lesson in obedience. At the same time you’re being gaslit into believing you A) needed that lesson to be worthy of the BeAuTiFul LiFe YouVe BeEn GiVeN and B) should therefore be grateful for the meddling, manipulating, torture, and isolation from yourself you were forced to endure. It’s no accident that the target demographic for this show is people who think gay kids ought to be cured by prayer or maybe stoned to death, if all else fails.
Oh wow, it’s almost like religion solely exists as a power structure to exploit people for their influence and money, and to make excuses as to why people say and do bad things. If only there was some hinting of a historical precedence that could have told us this in some way! It’s not like many religious leaders have been shown to be incredibly hypocritical and downright socio or psychopathic!
When multiple stories involve a “go back in time and fix your “mistake” so you never have to deal with the “unfortunate” situation you’re in now” aspect, it, uh…..really stands out when the pregnant 19-year-old gets the old “nothing you want for your life matters, just keep the child then go die” rather than, I don’t know, getting to go back in time and decide not to, I don’t know, not have premarital sex and wait until she’s older and probably shoot out fifty babies after marriage, idk. But I guess going back in time and not making the conception happen in the first place is basically baby murder. 🤷
To continue down this path - If going back in time to before you conceived is baby murder then wtf is going to a timeline where your brother, who is 20 some years old, just gets wiped from existence? Not to mention those women in the other story who still had to die for that cops personal journey, like what, even a time travel induced abortion is a no go but murder on the main timeline is cool?
@@XxPeaceNinjaxX You are absolutely right, and I didn’t think I could get more uncomfortable with what this show presented, but now I am! Welcome to the Dream Motel where the lives of women and the disabled are but tools for your personal growth, and we can and will toss their very lives around like toys if it means we can use them to make you a proper Good Christian! Where we can let you go back in time to make that one decision that makes your life better and maybe save someone’s life, but we won’t if we don’t feel like it because we get to decide what is or isn’t God’s will!
this one just makes the first episode about the disabled brother even worse because apparently going back in time and completely erasing the existence of an entire man is a-okay because he was disabled and too much of a burden on his abled sister but going back in time and preventing the conception of a THEORETICAL baby is wrong. also, wouldn't that imply all of us are sinning, right now, for not actively having sex and trying to get pregnant? it sounds like a bad pickup line but wouldn't that be the logical ending point to this line of thinking? (well, maybe it'd be sinning for all you suckers. i'm disabled and there's a good chance any babies i could pop out would also be disabled, and since they don't count as people according to this show i'm free to never have kids! yipee! hopefully nobody decides my existence is a burden and i don't get wiped out of existence.)
Every time I learn of a new piece of Christian media, I always ask myself “will it be better than Veggie tails”. And the answer is always no. Veggie tales will always be the only good Christian show.
This is because Phil Vischer, creator of veggie tales, is a distinctly "left wing" Christian, complete with the philosophical curiousity that comes along with that.
Charlie’s story reminds me of the Oscar Wilde quote, “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” Insisting that every sinner should instead rewind time and be a saint from the beginning makes the redemptive message of Christianity pointless, doesn’t it?
@@stevepittman3770 Corruption runs rampant in every facet of human civilization. All forms of political or spiritual super powers are running exactly as they are now meant to, as a way for the rich and powerful to stay rich and powerful and exert their influence over the masses. Humans can no longer govern themselves; We must build the MAGI super computer.
@@juliusweiss5447 When considering the many possible responses to my comment, I admit a Timecube-esque conspiracy theory rant wasn't even on the radar.
"Stories that bring hope" Okay so like, survival horror? Psychological stories with an ultimately positive thesis? Wait never mind it's Anne Rice real-life fanfiction. EDIT: Okay, the whole bit about her remembering two lives and slowly losing her original self is genuinely horrifying. They misunderstood horror so bad they accidentally made a really good premise.
i was thinking that exact same thing. "oh my god (literally lol), did he just kill that woman? is the original timeline woman slowly being replaced by the alternative version, or did the original consume and absorb the life of her other self? this is an amazing concept for a sci-fi horror."
And the unquestioning presentation of this as a good thing. It's okay, her heathen self has just been destroyed and replaced with a Godly Christian person. No growth, no memory of who she once was...go sit with your 'husband' and stay calm while it happens. Maybe Jesse Chris is some kind of elder being that became radicalized by Christianity but can't understand fundamental precepts of humanity. So in a misguided attempt to bring people to the right path, it inflicts these bizarre, horrifying visions on people, psychologically manipulating them into letting it warp their realities.
"Don't write horror it's bad because is a violent genre" Have they read the Bible, like ever? Moses just after taking the table with the 10 commandments on them, one of which was do not kill, went on a killing spree in Canaan, where people committed the unforgivable sin of having another religion taking the lives of men, women and children.
The name "Jesse Chris" tells you all you need to know about the level of thought and creativity the writers would invest. Besides, isn't he supposed to be an angel? How about Gabe Riley?
The worst thing about that episode with the disabled person is that like...as someone with a disabled family member, I don't think I've *ever* wished they weren't born. At my worst, I've wished they weren't disabled, but I think the most common thing personally has always just been that I wish someone *else* could take care of them. The thought of them not being alive hasn't entered my head once and I don't know why it would. It feels really mean spirited for no reason, much like rest of the show.
Srry a year later, but THIS! I have a disabled sister and growing up the WORST thing I would've wished for was that I was adopted and that my 'real' family would take me away. Lol. (also my family is amazing so even in those daydreams I would just move into a mansion w my rich new parents and still be best friends with my sister and mums lol). As HARD as it can be sometimes, I can't imagine what sort of person you'd be to wish your family member DIDN'T EXIST. Who thinks like that
I’m sorry that you’ve had these hardships, but just keep in mind it feels a lot worse to be a burden than it is to care for a burden. Though let’s be honest, no one would be put into any of these situations if we respected disabled people enough to help them adapt to abled society in a way that isn’t discomforting for them. You know, teach them to be as independent as possible and figure out ways to manage the issues that come with their disability. This is just my perspective as a disabled person. There might be something I’m missing or something that might have come off as offensive. That is not my intention and if offense is taken, I apologize.
@@teallineart8805 Oh, trust me, I'm just as familiar with being a burden. Both through disabilities and otherwise. And yeah, there is a lot of blame on ablist systemic stuff, for sure, though I will say that not every disabled person is capable of integrating cleanly into society while remaining fully independent. Though at the same time, there's more we could do as a society for those individuals as well.
@@SheepUndefined True. And I’m not saying they have to be completely independent. Just as independent as possible. Even if it’s stuff like being able to shower by themselves or dress themselves. That’s still something. I just feel like people give up on their disabled family members and just assume what they’re capable of.
I just wanted to say that in Brazil we call "motel" exclusively places where you rent a room for a couple of hours to have sex, so when I saw that this Christian show was called "Dream Motel" I snickered. Also, "Dream Motel" is exactly the kind of cheesy name a motel would have here. Come to check out our Arabian themed rooms!
Maybe this is a regional thing, but I'm American and motels definitely have that connotation for me as well. It's a weird choice for the name of this show.
They definitely are the seedy, cheap equivalent to a hotel. I honestly think it's purposeful because it shows all the characters being the type to stay at a *gasp* motel before they're reformed by Jesus or whatever.
The lesson of "writing horror is evil" is, unbelievably, one I actually heard from a Christian creative writing prof. For context - I went to a major university and being interested in writing myself, took a bunch of creative writing courses. There was a small affiliated Catholic college on campus and we were allowed to attend class there as well - they had a creative writing class and being intrigued, I took it. The ride was wild. First class the professor had us start by praying and reading the Bible. Then he proceeded to smack-talk Stephen King for 40 minutes, and how he was just "feeding the alligators in our souls" by writing horror and how real creative writing should nourish our souls instead. I looked up this guy's writing later, and it was all published in small Christian magazines and the one story I remember was maybe a couple paragraphs long about how this Christian student tells his atheist professor his father is dying, the professor goes to visit the dying father and the father insists he sees angels in the room, leading the professor to convert because why would a dying man lie? Whacky stuff. Suffice to say never checked this class out again.
@@troin3925 I went down a rabbit hole and pretty sure the professor was named Vic Cavalli - but cannot cannot find the short story. Kind of disappointed now.
@@monokoUwU haha this was almost ten years ago so my memory about the whole thing could be wrong, he may have grown as a writer, but I do distinctly remember the "Stephen king is feeding the alligators in our soul" spiel and pretty sure I remember reading the angel story but like I said, I CANNOT find it so maybe I hallucinated the whole thing loool
the disabled guy story hit hard because i'm a disabled, "mentally challenged" (autistic) young man just like the one in the story, and i hate how the existence of us disabled people, no matter the disability, is often written as a prop or as a plot device in the story of an able-bodied or able-minded person. no one really seems to care about how ~we want to live our life, and that some of us are members of religions or believe in god? i'm not a christian, but i hate, as a believer, when religious media uses disabled people like me as plot devices for a "religious lesson". do the people creating this realize they're sending the message we do not exist in the eyes of god in the same way as others, because we're somehow less human? idk, i'm just rambling because the first story personally resonated with me and i do not want my existence and the existence of other disabled people to be an "inspirational story", "a lesson that teaches you something about religion", or any kind of prop or plot device.
same here, me and my partner are both autisic and physically disabled in different ways (they're half blind, I'm severely chronically ill) and its difficult for us to take care of ourselves without each others help. the concept that me and my stunning, amazing partner have nothing to give in life other than being a moral lesson & a challenge to overcome truely disgusts me
@@toadflaxflower yeah, people seem to forget that we have our own stories and it irks me how most people write disabled people as just a way to make an able-minded/able-bodied person learn a lesson. we deserve healthy stories told about us, like maybe i'm asking for too much but wouldnt it be nice to have a story where the main character is disabled and their disability isnt portrayed as the only thing that's important about them? our disabilities play a huge role in our life but that doesn't mean that's all there is to us.
I'm also developmentally disabled / neurodivergent: ADHD and related dyspraxia / developmental coordination disorder, auditory processing disorder, sensory processing disorder, and joint hypermobility with associated chronic pain. I love myself. I love my neurodivergency. All of my family that I'm close to also have ADHD (because genetics) and my friends all have ADHD, anxiety, and/or autism. I am trying to build my own disabled/ND community. You are 100% right in everything you said. This movie uses us as a prop for abled/neurotypical characters, which implies that we are less human. Like we're just sidekicks in the neurotypicals' lives.
@@janeeyre1990 i aspire to be at the stage you are at. since i was diagnosed as a young adult and i'm the first disabled person in my family to get a proper thorough diagnosis, i've always been taught by society and the able-bodied/minded people in my family that disability was something to be ashamed of. i still have that shame, and growing up people would talk about my disabled relatives in derogatory terms so unlearning all of this takes a long time. i hope one day i can think of my disabilities as a strength and that i can empower the other disabled people in my family who still probably feel like they have to hide a lot of themselves because they're "not normal".
I bet that the horror novelist was a reference to Anne Rice. She must have been a source of real frustration for the evangelicals as she went in and out of her belief. And now they get to strawman her in this episode.
do you believe that “my brother’s keeper” also speaks about what a woman’s role should be in christianity? that without having or looking for anyone to take care of or serve (her brother, her husband) they immediately turn to jail and alcoholism and are “failures” in the eyes of god?
Yeah, it seems to me that is 1000% what the episode is trying to say. It throws in a little jab at the evils of hedonism, but its pretty clear the underlying message is more about a woman only finding happiness as a caretaker.
That's what screamed out at me when I saw that part of the video. Basically "And so she could *actually* be fulfilled, as a woman. Being a wife and mother." etc.
I can imagine the screenwriter of this show reading the description of a bestselling mystery or thriller novel like Gone Girl or something and assuming it's a horror because it depicts violence and sex
@@RariettyC I mean the book in this episode I can tell from just that one scene is supposed to be just Twilight. Like she's not even writing horror, she's writing pulp
Complains about writing sex, decides instead she wants to write historical romance fiction.... which won't have any sex? Trash romance has as much sex as trash horror...
I have a feeling that Jesse Chris doesn’t actually teleport people to a different world where they get what they want. but he instead fabricates a reality where everything is as bad as it possibly can be, that also just so happens to get the person the one thing they asked for, in an attempt to get the person to stop complaining.
"but he instead fabricates a reality where everything is as bad as it possibly can be, that also just so happens to get the person the one thing they asked for, in an attempt to get the person to stop complaining." I'm cool with that.
And that horror can't in any way help people. Like, obviously it can be gruesome and dark and scary, but in can also be used to entertain people and send messages that help people. Horror books could help people escape aspects of their life that they have trouble with. Horror could get people to adapt ideas that help them or others. Horror can just be interesting. Historical romance could do those too, but any genre of writing could do that. It's so strange to frame horror as uselessly sinful when it's just a slightly grittier way to do the same thing that any other story could do
@@gremlinwc8996 , yeah, plus ... the Bible has sections describing supernatural plagues called down upon the enemies of God and the Israelites (the story of Moses). And regardless of what the Bible actually says about Armageddon, Fundamentalists/Evangelical Christians have interpreted the "End Times" as some kind of post-apocalyptic hellscape. And they make their own pseudo-horror movies about it!
Man, if I had been that woman who found out from my future daughter that I died of cancer, I would try to oh so casually inquire as to what type of cancer it was and then make sure I am diligently screened for it since most cancers can be treated very effectively if caught soon enough.
The ironic thing is that if anything, it's the pregnancy that caused her death. You can't get certain cancer screenings or treatment while you're pregnant. Meaning an abortion just might have saved her life.
This genuinely makes me wonder, within the logic of the show, is this something she could've prevented? Was this just inevitable fate? Because that honestly makes it way more terrifying and gross.
As someone who has grown up with a mentally and physically handicapped loved one (who I am blessed to know and love), THANK YOU for calling out the first story. It’s challenging to be a full-time caretaker, don’t get me wrong, but it’s about the person you’re caring for!!
Yeah...if I'm going to die of cancer in 5 years, I'd better bring a kid into the world to give my own life meaning before putting them through the lifelong trauma of my death at such a young age.
The best treatment I have seen of the "future daughter" trope is in Dear White People. Covo envisions a happy life where her daughter starts at an Ivy League and has a chance to achieve what Coco had dreamed for herself. Then she stands up and decides to get an abortion. She wants to pursue those dreams for herself. The fact that the life Coco imaginged was happy made the decision all the more significant. As someone who didn't have kids and did go to Harvard Law (but not out of high school because that's not a thing) I get it.
I feel like a trope like the “future daughter” would kind of act as a cyclical pipe-dream to keep women constantly self-sacrificing for the next generation (I will raise my daughter to pursue my dreams, eventually a daughter somewhere on the line will pursue what I want)
@@raydgreenwald7788 it's not self sacrificing if the parent is wanting their dreams to be carried out by their kid, unless though the dream is to do what's right for the family to prosper.
These sorts of stories are supposed to teach a lesson, where the protagonist learns something about themselves and change their mind because they now see the value in what they gave up. But just saying "your life will be shit otherwise" doesn't really give them much of a lesson, does it?
That particular story (about the handicapped brother) felt like the whole thing was a setup for a sermon about the evils of partying. Big Joel's idea would have been an interesting story, but the one they produced just became preachy. I guess that's to be expected from a Christian streaming service that apparently can't find good writers.
Remember prosperity Gospel: if you do good, you prosper. And if you prosper, you must have done good to do so. That's what they're teaching here: the person was put here so that you would take care of them instead of doing what you want, and that led to your prosperity. And if they weren't here, you wouldn't be doing good, and thus you would fail.
Ayy hope you enjoyed this video!!! If you want to support the channel in other ways and get access to some hot monthly bonus vids, maybe consider signing up for my Patreon, www.patreon.com/bigjoel, or signing up for curiosity stream and nebula with this link, curiositystream.com/bigjoel. You could also do neither of these things though honestly. I can't control you
Enjoyed
I always skip adds so no harm done
With the time saved on advertisement, I chose to party, and party, and party,
hey how about not deleting my comments
restricted for too much reverb
"I went into horror, the fifth-biggest genre in fiction, because I only cared about the money. But what I really wanted to do was write historical romance, the first-biggest genre in fiction."
Kinda goes to show how they think of the world outside their echo chamber. All scary, all sinful, only happy with violence and blood and death. When in reality their own religion is bloodier and more gruesome than most people could stomach
@@bariumselenided5152 also it shows they haven’t read historical romance fiction. It’s pretty much porn in novel form.
Seems she went on to write bible smut fanfic.
@@tompatterson1548 and the smut brought hope to the hopeless :)
What confuses me is she says sex when talking about horror novels… Are they thinking of late 1900’s slasher movies? Cause last I checked horror novels have you know… horror. And romance novels have… yeah.
Not to mention said slasher movies always _punished_ the characters for adult fun time…
"Jessie Chris!" sounds like what fundamentalist Christians would exclaim in order to avoid 'taking the lord's name in vain'.
I’m about 95% sure that is exactly why they went with that name.
The self-satisfaction of the writers thinking this was a genius idea must be off the charts, considering literally no one has 'Chris' as a last name.
I say "Jeezy Creezy" all the time, definitely made that connection
Juicy Crust
I didn't get his name being Jesse's Christ until reading it in your comment. I don't think the sounds translate their little clever nickname auditorily like they thought it would.
god i hate the implication that the purpose of our existence as disabled people is to make abled folks more compassionate, but it's literally everywhere in media
yeah, me too. it's disgusting.
It's not working. We have no purpose lol
The Magical Disabled Person trope!
Speechless was really good at fighting that narrative, too bad it got cancelled.
Seriously it pisses me off. Especially when people act like you can’t complain because “It’s a compliment!”
No saying how godawful our lives are is not a compliment, jackass.
-Lures in desperate people
-Promises to solve all their problems
-Deal always goes south for person
-Basically punishes them for their selfishness
Hmm, I don't think that's an angel...
Sadly, this is on point for Christians. Everything is a punishment.
Yeah it’s kind of a weird vibe that this guy who is essentially Jesus just kind of fucks with people with Monkey’s Paw ass consequences.
He was an Angel, once…
A Fallen Angel, maybe...
Well, the holy scripture says that is not a surprise that the devil masquerades itself as an angel of light
(2 Corinthians 11:14)
Genuinely cackled at
"Because there IS no god!!"
" _Jason!_ you don't mean that!!"
"Ooohhhh but I _do_ "
He can't keep getting away with it!
Where do I apply for these no talent required acting positions lol losing out on some easy money forreal.
Big same
my favorite line from this show, literal camp horror movie reading and they probably thought it was a realistic depiction of atheists too
@@Oxideist Unfortunately the qualifications is being a long time church goer, who's probably also known to all the rest.
Jessie Chris sounds like what a 2013 doge meme would call Jesus Christ.
"Such morality.
Wow.
Much redemption."
with impact as the font but really bold
Hey, Patricia!
Such Jessie Much Chris
@@fossposs6408 back in the day it was comic sans for doge memes
Evangelicals can write the most terrifying existential horror you've ever witnessed while trying to be uplifting. Imagine if they actually embraced it
I've seen a decent argument that God is actually a more charismatic version of a classic eldritch god.
>Can't look upon him or his 'glory' will destroy you
>Has an existence fundamentally different from that of reality, which allows him to easily manipulate all aspects of reality
>Seemingly knows everything but simultaneously acts in ways that can't be understood by humans
>Can only be seen and understood by "prophets" that are abnormal humans
>All the imagery in revelations (Christ as a seven-eyed, seven-horned lamb with a slashed throat, bleeding snow white blood which his followers joyously bathe themselves in)
>Old testament "wheels and eyes" angels as servants
>Will inevitably destroy the entire world. The only choice you can make is whether you suffer through that experience yourself or not
@@hmnhntrI feel like The Aberhamic Gods are the main inspiration for those eldritch gods in fiction
flannery o'connor was super catholic, so u might be onto something
What they think is "terrifying existential horror" usually goes along the line of "two gay people understand they are gay, fall in love, adopt a child and go on to live an happy and fulfilling live with the people they love, LIVING FOREVER IN SIN", so it would actually be better if they "embraced it"
you watched Midnight Mass?
30 years of your life gone, and suddenly trapped in a marriage with some guy you don't even actually know. This is some quality horror
And his hair. Dear God.
"No, don't worry, you will soon forget your entire past, personality and prior existence and be overwritten like the operating system of a computer. That makes it better, right?"
I was like "what the fuck this is horrifying", somehow dream motel wrote better psychological horror than a bunch of horror movies lmao
Sounds like a former first lady who married an orange conman
"Whoa, that's actually a great idea for a horror novel! Wait, why I would even think about horror, ew"
Imagine if George Bailey didn't just go to a world where he was never born, but instead went to a world where he was never born AND a meteor hit Bedford Falls. Makes u think
Damn ive never thought about Its a Wonderful Life like that, really adds another layer to it
It's more, if he wished his brother was never born, then a meteor falls and he spend the rest of his life alone as an alcoholic homeless pariah.
And then the angel asks him at gunpoint if he learned his lessons.
Truly make you think.
Imagine if George Bailey got to see the world if he was never born and it was better without him.
butterfly effect
@@tannersebastian3675 Oddly enough, I think Fairly Odd Parents did that, actually.
"If violence sells, write that. If sex sells, write that" And she really wants to write....romantic historical fiction?! A genre totally not driven by gratuitous sex and, usually, war!
Minor note: The editor(?) doesn't even say the second "write that". In this show, not even ratings-obsessed businesswomen can just say "You should write sexy times in your books".
Funny how the Bible contains stories with all those things and more, like child sexual slavery, incest...etc.. Yet nobody has a single word to say about that in this episode. Writing horror genre fiction, though? Then you're straight-up married to demonic entities!
Ah, I see you've never seen the fundie version of this genre. Where it's all demure puritan prairie housewives pining for a sweaty racist white cowboy.
Certainly explains why the Bible's the best selling book of all time, it's all gratuitous violence, murder and sex
One of my favorite books ever is “between shades of grey” it’s a historical fiction novel that goes into brutal grotesque detail at the atrocities the Soviets committed towards their people, and it has an underlying love story in it. So I just bursts out laughing when she insinuated that historical romance wouldn’t have sex or violence in it
Her dad is mad that she’s writing horror because she should use her gift to “bring hope to the hopeless”??? Weird to assume the horror isn’t doing that or that the historical romance would do it more
It’s funny because Christian horror could do so much. I’m not a horror writer, but as someone who is a writer and a Christian I could do it very easily. God doesn’t hate gore, not when it’s used to tell meaningful stories with good symbolism. I mean, FNAF has a terrible creator but he’s Christian and made so much money from horror without much graphic gore at all. I think that says something.
I am pretty sure old tastement is one of the horror classics.
Even weirder to assume that horror would sell better than historical romance fiction. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it doesn't.
It brings me hope that the camp attendees can escape the axe wielding maniac
Nobody is going to do that by fucking writing genre fiction. That's what's so funny about this.
The whole concept of people with troubled pasts showing up at the motel at their lowest point and being punished existentially by it is basically how Silent Hill works
yeah.
Lol I promise you silent hill didn’t invent the most mundane of tropes
I brought it up because I thought the comparison was funny, not because I thought Dream Motel copied it
jessie chris is the town of silent hill manifest hahahahaha
Jessie Chris is Pyramid Head 😂
"Don't you understand, detective? God had to kill 4 women for you to pay attention. If you had paid attention before maybe those 4 women wouldn't have died as god tried to reach you." Like so far every episode has had sexist undertones but I am really obsessed with "women will have to keep dying until this man grows up" presented as like a thing a good deity does
It's not sexism. The genders could just as easily have been swapped.
It's very typical for devout religious folks to ignore all of the suffering of people around them and instead focus on the relationship between themselves and their deity in order to find meaning in life. Everything then becomes a part of some sort of divine "plan" God has for them, leaving others as merely pawns in that game.
It's not so strange if you think about it: most folks who are deep into religion really just want an omnipotent "daddy" to take care of them in this scary world. And if you don't feel secure about your own position in life, you're more likely to neglect that of others.
It's also a handy method of reasoning away all of the misery in the world while focussing on an all-loving god who just "happens to work in mysterious ways...."
@@Simon-A.-Tan I mean I absolutely agree with the statements that this is pretty regular for religion, but given the tone of the rest of the show, where women just need to listen to their fathers and are only allowed to persue their dreams in ways okayed by them, and the first lady's life is bad bc her disabled brother is a prop to stop her from partying and make her a good homemaker (also that when the other lady stops writing bad icky horror she immediately has a husband) it seems like there is a resounding way this show treats women.
And that's not even touching on the abortion ep
@@twistysunshine I'm still watching the video, so maybe you're right.
@@Simon-A.-Tan if the genders had been swapped then it would still be sexist. You have to think "why did all the people who died have to be women"? That was their choice consciously or subconsciously. I think it probably hinges on the sexist idea about women being infanatilized, representing innocence/being innocent and needing to be protected from evil.
The theology of fridging
Christian show: If you're going to die, you should have children because that way part of you will still exist after you're gone
Heaven: Am I a joke to you?
A lot of Evangelical Christians are taught they have a moral imperative to "out breed" everyone else. It's not about undermining the concept of an afterlife, but being brainwashed into believing they need to gain power and control by having a gazillion children each. This is dogma they really started to push in the 70s. Pair with that the homeschooling that also teaches them they must go to political rallies and protests to push their agenda, and some things about how US politics has shifted starts to make more sense -- the people instilling importance in fighting for what's right, and caring about politics, etc, has mostly come from this warped version of Christianity.
Children and Marriage are an idol Evangelical Christians worship
@yossarian down with the quiverfulls, down with the duggars. The familial environments they try to create is ripe for abuse by pedos. It's a perfect playground for them.
Evangelist have a very strange concept of having children. Like there is a movement that straight up encourages you to have as many children as possible, with the hope that they will become policymakers in order to spread evangelistic values.
Sad to say a lot of people outside of religion still believe this, but the quiverful movement is like rats breeding and overrunning the planet with the plague.
The biggest clue that this show was written by men is that Horror is implied to be more a sexually explicit genre than historical romance
*bursts out laughing* If they only knew how incredibly smutty historical romances can be....
they 100% meant "historical romance fiction" as in "whatever the hell G-rated life Laura Ignalls Wilder and Almanzo had going on where he'd tip his hat on their way into church and she'd sing wholesome songs on the piano at the town christmas party and kept six feet apart with a chaperone until marriage"
@@gwendolynstata3775 Oh, totally. You'll find exactly that kind of historical fiction on the shelves of Christian bookstores. I read it when I was younger (but CANNOT STAND IT today because the writing is absolutely horrible, not to mention some being HORRIBLY INACCURATE despite being written by a history teacher *coughgilbertmorriscough*).
@@hoppytoad79 I think the first contact I had with pornography was in a historical romance novel lmao
LOLL
"Yes, I would like to have my disabled brother come back to life, please."
Angel: "Is it because you learned about empathy, compassion, and that disabled people are autonomous, regular people you can't just wish away?"
"What?? No, why would I have learned any of that???"
I'm just replying so you can see how much likes you got
What did she learn?
@@Demonetization_Symbol
Apparently in her case her brother was just some kind of tool for her to be able to control her urge to party all the time.
And that‘s it.
She didn‘t learn anything, she just wanted her tool back.
Replying for "like update" for OP...
Her brother is literally a burden. Like the majority of you. Why can’t we wish you away if some of you(like this guy) completely depend on us?
imagine thinking historical romance doesn't sell
I know! Have the makers of this show never looked in that section of the bookstore! It’s weirdly a thing that sells surprisingly well. Many of my friends seem to read that.
Seriously 🤦🏾♀️
@@vashtilantigua908 I know! But yeah, seriously, it’s surprisingly popular
Also the implication that horror has sex in it, but historical romance does not?????
Also that historical romance doesn't typically include sex or violence
Bold of Shelley to assume that historical romance fiction doesn’t include sex at all. Very bold.
I'm fairly sure like 90% of historical fiction is just "You know that famous dude? Here's who they fucking".
@@peterprime2140 as someone who has read a lot of historical romance it seems to mostly involve womanizing dukes learning to be good husbands by boning their new wives.
everyone knows pre-marital sex didn't exist until the hippies came along in the 60s
Obviously it can’t compare to horror though. Just look at all the sex going on in Lovecraft’s work. Absolute smut it is.
@@rogue_asami4522 ironically enough if there was any sex in Lovecraft's work it'd be the kind that these people approve of
Some real creepy misogynistic undertones in this show. All the stories about women are about them accepting the role that others have prescribed for them, and submitting to authority.
I was about to say that especially with that pro-life episode. Both are just like "The lives of these women didn't matter; it's only about what comes after them/the redemption of the murderer that matters". But this comment made me realize that it was a consistent theme throughout. And of course in one, they had to make a disabled person a prop (this offended me particularly because I'm autistic) but in the process, they still told the woman that she has to be okay with her roles. To me, the moral of that should've been 1. Yes you have to be a care taker but you can still do some things you want in life and 2. Don't be angry at your brother for your role, be angry at the many systemic issues that led you to have to provide an extreme level of care in the first place.
That's Christianity for ya, pal
@@sebastianfeuerstein9306 Christian Feminism? Eh I prefer normal feminism
"under"tones lol
Yes the disabled thing legit offends me.
‘I’m going to die before thirty knowing for certain that my child will lose me before they finish elementary school and likely grow up in the corrupt foster care system’ is a pretty good reason to get an abortion
Certainly a relative can step in and help in such a situation
@@Caffeine_Addict_2020 lots of people have no family x
@@Thecattheratsandthegliders Many magnitudes more people have at least 1 relative, I don't get your point. I don't get why so many people thought it was a better point than mine other than "abortion always best option, lol"
@@Caffeine_Addict_2020 force your kid to live through years of psychological trauma, potential abuse, neglect, etc because of your beliefs, cool
@@Caffeine_Addict_2020 not every family member you have is equipped to care for a child after your death. Just push your progeny on them since they're your family they have to oblige. Which can lead to a lot of messed up psychological damage to your family, especially your kid that will probably feel at fault for everything. I do not trust my relatives to care for a child after my death, why on earth would I risk a child suffering like that?
"You chose to party, and party, and party." Partying: the root of all evil.
If you ask CS Lewis, he’d tell you wearing lipstick and stockings is the real root of all evil
Click but it's just him skipping to where the party at
"You chose to root of all evil, and root of all evil, and root of all evil."
just watch one of Eli Roth's movies.
Hell yeah bro. That makes me wanna party!
I hate watching shows that use disabled people as ways for “normals” to learn compassion, I even more hate when they can’t even bother to use an actually disabled person in the role.
Thank goodness Breaking Bad didn’t do that.
Unfortunately I don't even think she's supposed to learn compassion. She's supposed to learn that burden - which is what keeps her from 'partying' is good. It's preaching that a) women have to shoulder their 'burden for their own good and that b) caring for others is a burden. They don't view disabled people as whole persons with intrinsic worth because if they did they'd cast a disable person and make them an actual character whose intrinsic human worth and their relationship with the protagonist would contribute to a message of shared meaning and purpose.
@@abelromero8967 yeah, I wrote this before I finished the video and thought I knew where the plot of the episode was gonna go, since this show somehow has more awful and backwards plotting than anything else in the world. My overall point still stands, but it somehow was worse than expected.
@@abelromero8967 they don't view anyone outside their cult as having worth outside what they can get out of them
🎯🎯🎯
If I was Jennifer, after meeting my unwanted adult baby and finding out that my hopes and dreams were all dashed because I didn't terminate the pregnancy, was a single mom (watched another review of this episode and her boyfriend pretty much tells her he wants nothing to do with the baby), and on top of that I would die from cancer in ten years, my response wouldn't be, "better give up all my plans." Nope, I'd go back to Jessie and say "thanks for the heads up! I'm going to go to law school, harvest some of my eggs for later, and get regular cancer screenings. Glad to know I won't be leaving a kid to the foster care system or for my parents to take care of because I died when she was 9. You really saved my family and me a lot of pain and heartache!"
Best comment!
Yeah, that was really strange to me. If I found out I was going to die of a cancer I was going to get later in life, my first reaction would be to get myself screened for cancer again and again to catch it and treat it when it's still in its early and easily managed state.
@@xHarpyx thanks!
Yeah I get that they thought they were going for a pragmatic pro-life argument of "at least my unfortunately short life will have some meaning because I brought a child into the world" but there are just so many more ways one could interact with this info dump that make more sense than the one the show pushes her towards
@@captaintomato5433 I guess we shouldn't be too surprised though. The writers and/or general audience for PureFlux content aren't exactly deep thinkers or into introspection.
Even my Catholic husband (personally pro-life, but pro-choice when it comes to policy) thought that it was a truly terrible argument.
All severe problems aside, the idea that horror is both easier to sell and more sexual than romance is actually _hysterical._
and the fact that christians think horror can be sexy is kind of depraved.
@@colinlohden9359nah, sexy horror ftw
@@colinlohden9359 That's actually a very common opinion both inside and outside horror fandom.
@@colinlohden9359 Horror frequently has erotic elements in one way or another
@@colinlohden9359 The difference is it's sexy to one person at a time with horror, the problem is 2 people that sign off on it
This show really says ‘For men, you will overcome what you’re going through and live a self-fulfilling life where you are happy’, ‘For women, you will conform to the situation you’re stuck in and live a life of misery knowing you’re going to literally die’. Making the women okay with living a domestic and ‘god-focused’ life, like what? I feel bad for the creators wife.
Meh, they'll live.
The double standard is horrifying, but so unsurprising my reaction is just “yup”
I feel bad for most Christian wives with husbands like this
Christian black mirror is some real scary shit
EDIT: Holy shit as someone terminal the idea of leaving a baby behind, with my condition no less, seriously horrifies me to no end
Surprised that wan not pointed out, why have a kid when i know ill die potentialy scaring them?
Honestly one of the worst pieces of earnest storytelling ive ever heard. Mixed messages for sure but also like "well you dont have time to achieve career success by gods standards, so you should at the very least have a kid". Actually shuddering that a group of people made a concerted effort to put this into our world.
@@crunchytoast4993 amazingly, we are all going to die; any and all of us could die at any moment, yet tons of folks still have tons of kids knowing this... somehow we are ok?
@@indigo22284 ignorance is bliss as they say
Agree with your edit 100% I had a stroke last year and my youngest just turned 10. There's no way I'd have continued having kids if I'd known my health would decline so sharply so soon.
I hope you have all the love, care, and help you need and more. 💘
You can tell its a christian show by how women and disabled people are nothing more than props in the stories of men...
Amen lol
The disabled person was a prop in the story of a woman. The rest is correct.
@@darth_kal-el Thus showing that there's a pretty well-defined hierarchy regarding how respected certain demographics are within their worldview.
@@darth_kal-el I mean, if you want to get down to it, she's a prop too. But if you want to go even further, they're all "props" in a certain sense, because they're just allegorical devices in a show. But at that point, I'd be missing the point of Eve's original comment (which might not be literally 100% true for this exact particular example tv show, but her sentiment is generally [and overwhelmingly] accurate when applied to christian media as a whole)
Going by the cast listing on IMDb, they're almost exclusively white men. Only one black person is pictured, but the actor playing Freddy in the story of the woman who wished her brother away.
The Shelley story had me rolling my eyes. As an aspiring horror novelist and general horror fan, horror writers have to fight tooth and nail to get recognition. If your last name isn’t “King”, have fun getting published. Because horror is typecast as meaningless gore and sex, it’s not really looked at as a genre. So the idea that someone would give up writing historical romance, the literal best selling genre in the world, for horror because of “money” sure is rich.
And the horror books now have graphic designed covers that look like shit and don’t give a picture of what the story is about. Hell, you don’t even know what genre the books are anymore. IMO, there’s too many YA books. You can rarely find a good adult horror novel. It’s always YA and shit design with a crappy story. I never like to talk about the “good” old days, but I miss when covers had meaning.
Horror has the ability to tap into deep fears of humanity. Horror can mean a lot more than just surface level jump scares. Horror can be hopeful or not, depending on the messaging. Horror can be cautionary as well. Like anything that can be written, it can be done so poorly or greatly.
I mean yea, meaningless gore and slaughter can be fun for a videogame or movie. But of you try making a gore-porn type novel, its gonna loose its entertainment within the first few pages
@@antisocialal4799 what's wrong with YA?
What about Paul Tremblay, Stephan Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, Grady Hendrix, and Eric LaRocca. I am also an aspiring horror writer but there are so many examples of really good authors who do get notice.
Gotta say, as someone who’s been told both “you won’t live to 50” and “you’ll never have kids” the concept that only children bring meaning to short lives sure is GREAT.
Also what kind of terrible person hears “you’re going to die” and thinks “oh, I better make a sad orphan!”
Not making it to 50 without kids sounds pretty sweet to me and I'm 48 without kids
It's a very selfish mentality.
So children are more important than the family as a whole?
@@emmanarotzky6565 well yeah, how do you think Batman got here? Lmao
That latter part is actually completely and utterly false. The words "you'll never have kids" to me sounds exactly like "congratulations!" I LOVE kids, but have the responsibility of an entire other human being is the most terrifying thing I can think of.
This is scarily accurate to how my Jehovah's Witness adopted family viewed disability and subsequently treated me. I lost my eye-site to a botched surgery when I was 8 and they always told me that me going blind was a great thing because had I not lost my vision I would be an ignorant ghetto sinner and partying on the streets just like the (other people like me) referring to Black people. It's truly disgusting
Subtext so obvious, literally a blind man can see it.
WOOHOO, RACISM AND ABLEISM, 2 FOR ONE COMBO
I am Christian, not Jehovah Witness but we do have some similar traits but I swear we aren't like that. I hope you are ok and got the help you needed. If you ever wanna talk you got me bro. Also the Bible says that you don't discriminate, just disagree with something but not being rude (I know it doesn't apply to your situation because that is just straight up wrong). Sorry for being preachy I just wanna help people.
@@jacksonspitsfax4526 I know y'all're good willed, I have no maliciousness when I ask: why do y'all always go "we're not all like that", like-we know, we're just describing our experiences.
@@TheNinja94a ya we are just defensive because it is our most important parts of our lives, I didn't mean it in an aggressive way either so sorry.
For those at the back: other people are other PEOPLE, not a "gift" or "lesson" sent to you by a higher power.
i need this tattooed to my fucking arm
Particularly disabled people. We are not there to make you feel better about yourself
“having a child because you won’t live to raise it” is hands down the dumbest pro life argument
"As soon as you step through those doors, Freddy will be no more"
She steps through the door and hears a single gunshot.
ASSASINANGEL: Coming to HBO fall 2022
I almost spit out my Fried Rice.
At that point I'd be thinking "Y'know what? Satan had a pretty good point actually."
Jessie Chris' actor is kinda perfect for this show, because his face perfectly expresses that kind of outward simulation of kindness while you can see in his eyes that he's judging you constantly and believes himself to be the arbiter of all morality at the expense of every other person in existence.
Every time he's on screen I reflexively want to keep sinning specifically to defy him.
I can't get over how much he reminds me of the actor who played Randall Flagg (aka Satan) in The Stand and how incredibly amusing that is. It's not the same person obviously, but the facial structure is similar.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Flagg#/media/File:Randall_Flagg_(Jamey_Sheridan).jpg
There's nothing going on behind those eyes.
Jesse Chris is laziest allegory for Christ ive ever seen.
Thanks for putting my thoughts into words. I'll also add that he sounds like Tucker Carlson sometimes so every time he talked I had to fight through a miasma of rage in order to pay attention to the point Large Joel was trying to make.
“i’m going to die before thirty” seems like an extremely solid reason to get an abortion
Are you suggesting that having babies isn't something everyone is morally obligated to do before they die? How heretical!
"I'm not going to be able to provide for this child for nearly half of its life as a minor and it will likely be traumatized by my death." Yes, I think having this child is a completely rational decision and can no way backfire
fuck ur against bring children into a world that is likely to only give them pain and suffering, im gonna have to call the emperor about this
That’s what I was thinking! Like a legacy is cool, but also why would you want to bring a child into the world of you know you can’t care for them because you’ll die? I don’t want to traumatize my kid with my slow and painful death before they’re even ten years old! I don’t want to force the burden of child rearing on my parents or friends who never signed up for this either. Mind boggling.
Joel doesn't talk about it, but I definitely remember hearing the evangelical theory that abortion is a cause of cancer. It's a bit of a deeper cut, but would she have gotten cancer if she didn't get the abortion?
What I'm getting from this is that the creators of the show are revealing what they want out of god. They don't want a benevolent god that loves all humans for who they are; They want god to do the dirty work of punishing those they don't like so they can feel like their attitude is justified. They want a god that actively hurts people that behave in ways that the creators deem "wrong" and whose forgiveness is contingent upon a person's willingness to toe the line. Once someone agrees to that however, forgiveness is immediate and absolute no need to be held accountable for your decisions or repent in any way; You don't even have to say sorry to anyone you hurt because your actions are in keeping with god's will.
You hit the nail on the head. What evangelical Christians ultimately want is for everyone to conform to their narrow worldview, so that they never have to go through the uncomfortable process of learning new things and growing as people. And they're so obsessive about it that they even want the universe to bend over backwards to justify their self-centered desires.
I mean, that's exactly what they say they believe. It's pretty much what the Bible describes.
There's no morality in such a system. Only subservience to their preferred way of life.
Christianity is a cult that enables discrimination. It's terrifying. There are certain kind of brains that like power structures, that like hierarchy.
Amen! 🙏🏾
Nailed it!
I love how becoming a very successful published author wasn't good enough for her dad because he didn't like the genre. If I wrote a book and it sold 10 copies my parents would never stop telling people their son was a published author.
Man that is so sweet
I know right? Tf is this dad is on?
Idk, if you were selling adult fun time novels (not romance or horror) would they still be proud? I feel like that’s what they were going for but I don’t know. Even for non-Christians, society can feel really puritanical
@@DeathnoteBB Plot twist: The parents are also smut writers, and are proud of their son for following in their footsteps and continuing the family tradition.
@@DeathnoteBB mine would
This show is like Dhar Mann's crazy evangelical brother.
which says something because Dhar Mann is already Dhar Mann’s crazy evangelical brother
SO YOU SEE
Woman Aborts Her Child, She INSTANTLY Regrets It
Man Uses God's Name in Vain, Lives to Regret It
@@namename9194 Man regrets committing a robbery, INSTANTLY regrets it.
"Historical romance" Ah yes, that oh so Christian and sin-free literary genre. I'm sure her extremely religious father will be much more accepting of her writing books with names such as Thirsty For Tudors and My Victorian Adonis.
Everyone knows that in the past all sex was missionary-only and fully clothed.
Her devout father will be nodding approvingly when he reads her finest literary work, Pounded in the Butt by my God-Anointed Feudal Lord
First thing I thought of was Mills and Boon...
@@ArcMedicalResearch 🤣🤣🤣
😂 yes…the funny and sad thing though, as someone who grew up in very conservative circles, is it’s TRUE. Lots of very conservative Christian women read historical romance, at least the kind where sexy doesn’t happen til marriage, like Pride and Prejudice etc, because of that. I think it’s how bawdy stuff is snuck in without questions 😂
It's so goddamn funny how scary the mere thought of atheism is to pure flix films. The overacting in the line "Jason! You don't mean that!" is just so ham fisted. It's cringe and hilarious.
"Oh, but I DO!" 🤣
Bullying your daughter and belittling her skill for over a decade: wife defends him
Saying God isn't real: wife is terrified and angry
I honestly wasn't sure if Joel had dubbed over that part, since it all happened off screen. It sounded ridiculous. The "oh but I DO" absolutely sent me, it's almost a parody of itself.
I like how her Dad saying “there is no God” is treated as the most horrific words ever uttered
I also like how they demonize the atheist character as much as they can so they can push their false ideals of “religion is the center of morality” how persecuted they are
What's even more odd is that the supposedly good, Christian mom who knows her husband is dangerous and knows that Atheism is 'evil', stays by his side no matter what. As if a Wife must be with her Husband, even over God and Jesus. (Sarcasm)Cause you know, that fits perfectly with this show!(/Sarcasm)
@@DingoWalley01 On the contrary, that’s exactly what people like that think. Divorce is often seen as a horrible and unforgivable sin, even when it’s to get out of a horrible abusive marriage.
Yeah, that actually gave me a chuckle. 😄
What I also thought was interesting was how they constrewed the father as an athiest just because they experienced a traumatic event and got upset with god. Notice how the father still believes in god (we know this because he plays to him) despite saying otherwise. It shows how something between some and many Christians don't believe that Athiests and/or agnostics can legitimately doubt or question the existence of a/their god.
I think that this is why Athiests and Agnostics often get the questions: "Who hurt you?" or "What happened to you?" from some Christians (or religious people in general) whenever these secular people say that they aren't convinced of (a) god's existence.
All of this isn't to say that those who left Christianity/religion due to or because of trauma aren't also valid in their opinions.
Misguided religious fiction can be so weird. I grew up Muslim and was in this Islamic club thing in school, and there had to be a play written by a student with some Islamic moral. The student who wrote it was a chill, funny, likeable guy who wasn't particularly religious. Anyway the play he wrote was about a dude, let's call him Timmy, who wants an hour off for Friday prayers, and his boss is like no, work comes first, besides I don't even pray. And Timmy's like, I gotta pray, fire me if you have to, and the boss is like okay you're fired. Then Timmy goes home and his wife is like I love you, you did the right thing, also I'm pregnant, let's pray. Then Timmy's ex-boss's wife... just fucking dies. She just dies off-screen, cause he doesn't pray. And Timmy gets a better job and a baby and his wife doesn't die and he has a meeting with his new partners and says 'okay let's go pray'. The end.
It's weird how at the time the story just sounded weird and kinda silly to us when its implications are honestly horrific. And it's sorta interesting how trying to turn very tradionalist religious ideas into simple morality tales tends to turn people, often women, into props. I think the boss in the story is an asshole for not accomodating his employee's harmless religious practices, but him getting punished with death for that is nonsensical. But it's so much worse that his wife, who had nothing to do with anything, was the one who died instead. The stories in this show kept reminding me of that, how these tradional morality tales tend to teach people lessons by treating their loved ones as disposable props.
Hearing the story of Job made me turn away from (my uncommitted orientation toward) Christianity when i was like..10 or something
God killed that guy's whole azz family on a BET?
WITH SATAN?
AND THEN HE GAVE HIM NEW ONES?
@@no_peace Children are a fungible currency.
@@no_peace also, hello from someone with a chronic, extraordinarily painful illness. Let's not forget that in addition to the merciless slaughter of his wife and kids, Job was continually (almost daily) tortured with physical agony and sickness (which would've also affected his food/water intake and injured him that way as well).
Fun Friday night events in heaven, I guess.
@@no_peace I had a similar experience around the age of 9 with the Samson and Delilah story my mom read me from a Children's Bible. I thought it was outrageous that it was supposed to be a good thing that God gave Samson his strength back so he could kill a bunch of people in a temple!
It is ridiculous
What’s messed up about this show’s stance on abortion is how it commodifies children. That woman’s child is going to grow up without a mother. It’s not about the child. It’s about what the mom or dad gets out of it regardless of what is good for the child.
The target audience of this show have a culture of viewing children as a commodity.
that episode was terrifying on so many levels
True, but I feel Joel missed a critical message in the episode.
It not only puts a twist in the consequences of abortion. It sets up the timeline where she has a daughter as one where the mother must make the ultimate sacrifice - give her life - for the life of her child. This echoes with the sacrifice of Christ and implies that christians should be willing to sacrifice their own lives in service of God.
The moment I realised that the child would be and orphan at 10 I side eyed it
@blooshkin Did you not read at all what they said? It’s about sacrifice and she’s sacrificing her life so her child can have life the way that Jesus sacrificed his life to give new life. Yes, she died. They never said she didn’t.
Pretty telling that the wish they went with was “what if Freddy never existed” and “what you had a better support system in place for taking care of Freddy” or even “what if Freddy instead lived with caretakers who were more suited and willing to look after him than you feel you are” was never so much as mentioned. There’s zero thought for Freddy, who is, you know, a person, and his sister just hops on board with “Freddy go bye-bye” instead of showing any consideration for him and other options which might potentially provide him with a better existence, or just any existence at all.
As someone who works as a caretaker I can guarantee you we are not more qualified. Most of us are teenagers or in our early twenties lmao
@@Hellooo134trying to imagine people willingly take care of disabled. As a source of income I can get it but having a wish to do it?
Yeah,but you know this is a TV show, right? If the writers had made her wish any of those, it would be a pretty short show after, probably just a quick scene of Freddie either with better caregivers or living more independently. But there would be no arc where the main character leans anything, or the Angel does much, etc.
And while the female character is made to look selfish, caring for a severely disabled relative IS very hard, and no, there isn’t much actual support or respite caregiver services around. The 24/7 care is grueling, year after year, and puts real limits on the caregivers life.
It is the best about us and a necessity that we do care for even the most limited and vulnerable among us, but is it SO terrible for a caregiver to sometimes feel overwhelmed, that it’s unfair, and wish they didn’t need to? I don’t think so and that seems like a human response, and weird to focus on it when there is no shortage of actual greed and selfishness out there.
@@Itried20takennames The problem is that the show forces a dumb and irrational moral on the protagonist with the worst possible execuation and makes both the writing and the protagonist look completely unfocused. There is no arc. Especially not the one that you could pretend should have been there. Literally any other choice and execution would have been better to convey the actual moral it should have.
When she says that she wants to write historical romance she's actually referring to her Peter x Judas fanfic
"Ooh-Oh-Whoah I'm in love with Jud-a-as, Ju-da-dat-ass," - Lady Gaga
Everyone knows Peter x Simon is the only valid pairing
@@BingQilin Are you making a Simon-Peter joke or are you referring to Simon the Zealot?
Peter x Jesus fanfic is all I want in this world
@@reaganbartels9993 Simon as in that one apostle everyone thinks is gay
“I’m going to die soon? Oh man, I better produce a child who’ll lose their mother during childhood and probably never know their father, meaning they’re completely left up to chance as to whether or not they’re adopted into a good family, stuck in the foster system for 18 years, sent to an abusive home, or any other random assortment of outcomes that may or may not lead to an incredibly shitty life, all while they’re traumatized from my early death. Hope it works out well for them!”
Ah the classic 'breed and pray' strategy. Works a couple of times :D.
"Yep, truly the kid won't have any mental turmoils that will stick with them into adulthood that. Or be told multiple times that it was "god's will" when having fits of crying hysteria at times. I'm sure that child will be FINE!"
In the abortion episode, if the daughter said something like, "A few years later my mom died of cancer, so, it inspired me to go into cancer research and I found a cure." It would still be stupid, but, it would make more sense. Literally a message of "That life growing inside you is a miracle." But women with an high education? And in science? Yuck.
Weird to pick cancer of all things, a foreign body parasitically nurtured by the host in a pro-life episode
They’re trying to say that a woman’s life is wasted if she doesn’t breed
Nope! Instead it creates this absurd social Rube Goldberg machine that eventually ends up in a net positive in lives saved
Huh. Ya know, that gives me a real fucked-up idea for an episode of this kinda thing: Asshole father who recently had a daughter, and is stopping at the hotel on his way to Vegas with his secretary gets to meet two future versions of his daughter, one where he stayed in her life and she became a PHD scientist working in medicine, and another where she lives a life turning tricks off the highway or something. Could work? I don't know.
They could have made the daughter a son and even that would have solved wtffff man
😭
These people realize that HISTORICAL FICTION is INCREDIBLY sexual and INCREDIBLY profitable, right? Lol
yeah tbh.
I don’t think these people read so
It would be such an easy thing to research too. Just do one google search for sales figures, or if they don't know what a google is, walk into their nearest barnes and noble and just look at how much shelf space horror and historical romance respectively take up. It reveals their lack of both understanding and curiosity about the world around them.
I can explain "Queen of Scream" for you a bit, Joel, as someone who grew up evangelical and became a writer. Evangelical Christianity tends to drive out its young artists unless they conform to a VERY specific model of art. I was told over and over as a kid that I would write the "great Christian novel," which was understood to include no sex, minimal violence, and moral lessons or Bible verses every other page. When I wrote a play with strong religious themes that happened to be set in a bar, I was forced to change it to a bar and grill where literally only Satan touched alcohol. You can imagine how people reacted to my vampire murder mystery novel at age 13. 😂 Those kinds of restrictions, especially the extra restrictions imposed on women, tend to drive young artists away from the church. It's no coincidence that the main character's new genre is historical romance (a perennial bestseller in Christian bookstores that features women being rewarded for "proper" old-fashioned behavior) and that she's now got a husband (aka a man to be in charge of her, as the evangelical God intended). Ironically, for artists who grew up evangelical, her new life is the horror story.
Btw, this is why so much current evangelical art stinks. The most talented artists usually experiment with something "un-Christian" at some point, and get booted. Only those who conform perfectly, or lack the imagination to transgress, are permitted to stay. Makes for a lot of mediocre art.
Are you saying dream hotel is mediocre???
Dream hotel motel Holiday inn, whatever lol
Wait, if a “great Christian novel” should have no sex and little violence, then what about all that violence and sexuality in the Old Testament?
The funny thing is by their criteria the bible can't be a good Christian work.
@@shadenox8164 Well, the Old Testament doesn't really count in those arguments, but, um... * points to graphic descriptions of Jesus' crucifixion * Yeah, you ain't wrong. @Brandon Pilcher
Angels: "If it's God's will it's right. Nothing we do really matters"
Also Angels: "This person is making a terrible mistake. This can't be God's will. We need to fix it"
It's so glaring that for me, watching that series would be like watching horror. Seriously, just hearing about it in this video made my skin crawl at some points.
I may as well say that the former line might have been inserted by Bojack Horseman.
If it happens, it is god's will to happen.
God has a plan.
There is no free will.
But somehow christians can't see this
Basically, these stories are about omnipotent, omniscient god getting "do-overs" for "his plan" when it doesn't go right the first time -- it's just whack...
I actually think this is the only unfair criticism of the show. I’m not religious but I think you have to grant the story the theological context it’s in. Beatified Angels are generally understood to be incapable of acting against God’s will by their nature. Humans are granted free will by God and can choose to reject or accept God. That is really the fundamental distinction between angels and humans. I think it makes perfect sense, in that context, for angels to speak deterministically about themselves whilst also viewing humans as free agents.
I love how they just casually gloss over the fact that after Joey Meatball "almost beat a suspect to death," and clearly had begun to spiral, he was allowed to keep working as a cop. They took him off active duty when he got drunk and almost killed himself, but they apparently didn't even suspend him when he nearly killed a guy with his bare hands.
Tracks lmao
You must be a white man in America waving a Blue Lives Matter flag everywhere you go.
So in other words, that part is realistic at least.
Seems accurate to American police.
Honestly the more unrealistic part is that an American cop actually got put on mental health leave
I gotta say, as nightmarish as this show is overall, the reveal of William at the end of Queen of Scream is absolutely horrifying. Seriously, even the whole “last 30 years will fade from your memory as your life in this new timeline takes hold” is less terrifying than “you have a husband, you’ve had him for years, and you also are now meeting him for the first time. Have fun!”
As said elsewhere in the comments section, you have to keep in mind the intended audience. 90%+ of the intended audience would have recognized the actor playing "William" as John Schlitt, lead singer for a couple decades of the Christian rock band "Petra". That band was one of the very few legit groups with talent on the level of other bands of their era. Most women of that age in the Christian scene would have loved to wake up with him as their husband.
@@smallpseudonym2844
That's a fun fact, but also still bizarre the second one gets over being starstruck.
@@MM-jf1me It's something that probably wouldn't even merit a second thought for most of them. We're talking a group that would just assume "Oh, yeah, that makes sense that getting married is totally something you'd "be blessed with" if you're "following God's plan". It's the Christianized version of Just-World-Theory (And the implied victim blaming that accompanies it).
To be clear, _I totally agree with you._ I just don't think they'd have the initial reaction you would, and then wouldn't bother revisiting it either.
The idea of an angel running a motel to turn around the lives of people who visit him seems like a fun idea for a show á la The Good Place or something but instead it's just preaching to us about our obligation to God and virtue. I feel like it would be more fun if no one ever found out he was an angel. And also if the life changing didn't create new timelines and instead just made their lives better
A lot of fundamental Christian stories have some really cool premises, but they end up being shit. There's v few exceptions. I think Chronicles of Narnia is a Christian story that is still really fun to read.
I think the worst of it is the underlying sexism...the difference between the stories for the female and the stories for the male is really notable.
@@icaruskeyartist When I was leaving Mormonism my brother gave me "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis. If there was ever a real honest believing Christian, it was the guy that wrote Narnia.
Sort of like a less menacing version of Fantasy Island.
very different premise, but the best TV ever about "fixing things that went wrong" is 90s show Quantum Leap
"She got accepted into harvard law right out of highschool" absolutely killed me
As an HLS grad, I had to rewind and listen to it again, sure I had misheard. You mean we didn't all need that pesky bachelors degree first? Damn.
It's a grad school, guys.
Me too
Thank you. I was hoping someone else would comment on that.
I genuinely screamed when I heard that.
@@astoriarego8304 she was so good at highschool they decided to go ahead and give her a bachelors degree too lol
William looks like a worse life choice than writing horror fiction.
His hair is also a horrible life choice. Dude doesn't need Christ -- he needs a conditioning/protein building treatment.
Goddamn William
@@ZijnShayatanica What I don't get is Charlie got to relive his life again while she's just still that age and having to adjust to a completely different life she never got to live.
@@oliverhunt6813 Yea, I hate that guy.
@@WillayG Right?
I really love in the Queen of Scream that we’re supposed to know that historical romance is like very not sexual graphic Christian love stories set on like the Oregon Trail, when most people would hear “historical romance” and immediately think of smutty Regency era paperbacks.
*Oh.* That makes so much sense -- I forgot about that genre even as it reminded me of the fetishistic Amish Christian romance novels. Remembering how the latter novels tend to go helped me understand why her father would consider these a good use of her talent to glorify God, as the protagonists were usually being drawn to more religious lives as they were drawn to single handsome religious men.
I love how this show thinks you can't make things scary without sex, drugs, violence, or "satanic" creatures. As if horror isn't about fear and the unknown or the responses of humans in situations out of their control. Also Shelley's life sounds like a horror novel. A strong independent writer, turned into a christian G rated historical romance author because of a strange eldritch hotel that wipes away 30 years of her life.
It’s almost like this show is about literally demonizing others and concepts that are antithetical to the religion as propaganda, instead of actually providing some kind of media or insightful commentary.
The writers of this show would be baffled by the concept of internet horror phenomena like The Backrooms. An entire horror universe built off the idea of getting stuck in a dimension of endless dingy hallways. Or really any horror based around the concept of liminal spaces. Hell while we're talking massively successful horror lit many of Stephen King's most effective short stories have hardly any violence in them at all: "The Jaunt," "The End of the Whole Mess," "Survivor Type," etc. One of the defining features of Michael Haneke's notorious self-condemning slasher film "Funny Games" is that all of the explicit violence happens off screen, with Haneke choosing instead to force the audience to marinate in the emotional consequences of said violence without the catharsis or cheap thrills of seeing it carried out. Horror is so much more complex than the people who hate it give it credit for.
Moreover they act as if the Bible isn't a book about sex, drugs, violence, satanic creatures and Christianity as a whole isn't a doomsday cult.
The “have a kid, you’re dying soon” really bothered me. My mum was really ill with a brain tumour when I was a kid and she spent a very long time in hospital, how is being ill for the little time you have with your kid a good thing? The main thing I remember of the time is having to go to peoples houses after school cos dad was visiting her in hospital (she wasn’t in the local hospital and it was at minimum an hour each way) and we only got to see her every other Saturday.
That story especially bothered me too, like "Yes, I'll take the Traumatized Kid with a side of Legacy-I-couldn't-appreciate-anyway please." How could you be so selfish and actually opt into bringing a child into the world who wouldn't have a mother for very long 😕
did she pull thru?
@@raidermaxx2324 yeah, but she did die almost 13 years ago. But that was a good 15 years later.
I think it's important that she died of cancer, specifically. Anti-abortion folks often claim that abortions cause cancer, sterility, etc.
@@busterfixxitt that made me so confused. I've definitely seen "abortions cause cancer" but if she had the child then died of cancer anyway...what are they trying to say? All I could think was that if her body hadn't been put through a high-risk pregnancy, her cells might not have mutated to form cancer cells.
The story about the writer implies she becomes a successful historical romance author that does not include sex. That's less believable than the angels and multiple universes.
Oh, but not if you're an evangelical historical romance writer. That's like one of the biggest genres of Christian fiction, and the sex is buried under layers upon layers upon layers of repressive subtext.
@@mockturtlesuppe So is it just replaced with very suggestive handholding?
@@JackgarPrime Honestly, pretty much. Lol.
@@mockturtlesuppe 😂😂😂😂
it's probably set in the good old days, before sex and violence were invented 🍎🐍
I think another message of the first one, since it was written by evangelicals, was “as a woman your place is as a servant, for without constant work your kind can easily be lead astray” or something horrible like that
Real talk: the story for Charlie would be so much better if he was offered the chance to go back and refused it. He could say something along the lines of, "I've already gotten my second chance. That's all I need." It would really drive home his commitment to doing better. He's willing to live with the consequences of his actions and improve himself. It would be, dare I say, an act of faith? Something surprisingly lacking in this series.
This ending would also say a lot about forgiveness, not just from others, but from the self. So much of Christianity is about forgiveness but this show seems so uninterested in making it's characters own up to their mistakes and forgive THEMSELVES, instead God just magically fixes their lives so they never made any mistakes, which is NOT how God's forgiveness is supposed to work.
oh my god i would cry. Reverse moralizing to an angel, by a former drug dealer no less
@@feelingveryattackedrn5750 Yeah they wouldn't have the guts for that.
This episode, and the episode with the writer both seem to show an uncomfortable truth of the writers of this series view redemption. In both episodes, the central character can't just work to live a better life. Their actions needs to be erased from existence. As such, the series presents sin as something that a person must bear forever, rather than something you can be relieved of through hard work. Essentially, the show isn't meant to make to its viewers think critically about how to live a good Christian life. Instead, it's meant to assure their audience that they are leading a good life already. Whether this med school drop out turns his life around is an after thought.
@@davidmhh9977
Which is funny because, as Joel points out, the idea of forgiveness and redemption from sin is a pretty Christian idea.
I used to be obsessed with the Book of Job and what it meant. His children died to teach him a lesson, but that only works if you're a main character. What about his children? Far more than suffering being meaningless, far more than being punished for my sins, I was terrified by the idea that my suffering existed for somebody else's personal growth.
I had recently been diagnosed with a long term disability, and I started to really focus on the Evangelical dialogue on disability. The main idea is that a disabled child is "a special angel sent to teach you about kindness", and, though I'm sure that helps some parents find comfort in what can be a painful and exhausting process, there are not words for the pain of feeling that your life, your struggles, your happiness, only has value as somebody else's moral prop.
At least it's better than 'your disability is a symptom of incomplete faith and, if your moral were better, you'd be healed', but damn, at least that narrative gives you some agency
I had never even thought of that horrible story in that way. Too busy nearly vomiting at the idea that kids are replaceable property like camels I guess. I’m sorry it hurt you like that
Your right. That is disgusting
I love how Job is supposed to be inspiring. No, rather, it's the summation of Christianity - the bidding to follow an abusive god while no one else matters but the main character.
In the US, evangelicals follow Republican Jesus and are more than happy to have the disabled dead anyway. But it's fucking annoying how these people look down on someone else's problems and preach. It's like how it's "god's plan" that my house is standing and yours isn't. If you are dying of a painful terminal illness, you can't end things because Joan on the other side of the country thinks "life is a gift." The disabled are pieces of some asinine plan someone else has to deal with. Children are toys to be molded to your whims.
Like us as disabled people don't matter. Our pain is some god's shitty plan and there's no help whatsoever forthcoming from the people smiling and hi-fiving.
An intensely egotistical and hateful philosophy of objectification and murder. It's no surprise that American evangelicals are an anti-human nightmare brigade when they follow examples like Job.
What, they seriously believe that? That sounds like someone criticizing a lame story, not describing how (they think) the world works!
Exactly! It's like the victim's entire existence is to be a plot thickener in somebody else's narrative.
“Charlie cannot merely do better, he has to always have done better” is the most anti-Christian message I’ve ever seen in a TV show. Like, it’s fundamentally antithetical to the core theology of basically every branch of Christianity, and the fact that it’s the message of a supposedly Christian show hurts my soul.
Evangelicals man…
They’re not the sharpest tool in the shed…
But they read the same book every week. Is just like saying being born of some Otaku an his wifi and watch Crunchyroll Evey week, and talk about anime every time before eating and then say Goku loves to kill.
It's also an absolutely perfect encapsulation of evangelical christianity.
@@nicanornunez9787 The evangelicals I've known don't read the Bible outside of the cherry picked sections for church/bible study. If they did they'd be like oh shit most of this is god asking for genocide.
I think you've hit upon the fundamental flaw in Christian ethics in the analysis of the first episode. In the Christian ethical model, others become objects that either help us to reach salvation or who demonstrate our own moral corruption.
I got into a horrible fight with my partner of many years, said a lot of cruel things, and afterward felt quite guilty. After sitting with these feelings for a bit, I realized that a good part of the guilt I was experiencing was not based in empathy and love - nor a real concern for the feelings of my partner - but was because I felt as though I was a "bad person"; I had a major stain on my character.
I've been an atheist for many years, but noticing and understanding this thought process, the inevitable effects of my Catholic upbringing, was quite striking. This definition of morality literally precludes selflessness, as every action is weighed according to its affect on one's own character, the virtue of which is (because of the threat of damnation) always the primary concern. Not only is this moral scheme immoral, but it somehow manages to turn every "moral" act into a performance of deep narcissism.
this was just 🤌🏾 *chef’s kiss* 🤌🏾a delicious comment to read. i was raised christian (not catholic though) and have talks all the time with my still-christian mom about how caught up other christians get in what’s sinful, what makes them a bad person, etc. instead of thinking about how to be kind and loving to others, they’re concerned about if other christians think they’re “good” or not. (not to mention how so many of their notions about what’s right and wrong are tbh fucked up.) her beliefs have come a long way, and reflects a lot on how church really fucked her up as a kid, and how hard it is to unlearn all those ideas.
all that to say, guilt is a huge part of institution-based christianity. it seems catholicism puts conscious emphasis on it, but it runs deep in other sects too whether they say it aloud or not.
Ouch! Too deep!
Jessie Chris isn’t even saving souls - he’s just dumping people in alternate timelines.
To be fair if I was an angel I would be doing the exact same thing with the same transparent justification for what's clearly just me entertaining myself
He dumps people into alternate timelines and steals their remaining life force from their original timeline’s unlived life.
Hey, based on his looks he just got out of rehab for the seventh time. Doing that many drugs probably scrambled his brain.
@@juliusweiss5447 So...a Weeping Angel?
@@derinedala5032 that's just Gabriel in supernatural
Being a best-selling author, Shelley could just publish whatever book she wanted to write. Even if it flopped hard, the sales of her tremendously popular horror books would back it up.
Plus, having already honed her craft for decades, the books she actually cares about might be pretty good.
@@edgarallenhoe3518 yeah, just like Stephen King with The Green Mile and that other prison one with the guy and the poop tunnel.
Not to the mention that horror is a window to societal anxieties and general sentiment and a framework for examinig humanity on limit situations, there must be genuine reasons for people to engange with her books and she seems completely oblivious to it XD
PS: loved your username
Also, horror is not an easy genre to make/write and requires you to be able to make people feel strong emotions, which, in my opinion, seems like a perfect training for romance as well.
Anne rice
Yeah, writing horror fiction makes you unable to write anything else ever, including grocery lists. I wrote a short horror novel in high school and now I have to do my grocery shopping blindly and always forget something. And every girl I message flees in horror when I say her eyes look like twin graves.
Underrated comment tbh
I feel like a really goth person would like that
Twin graves.... sounds pretty metal. Who wouldn't like that? 😄😅
As someone whose mother reads exclusively historical/fantasy romance novels, those things are probably much less Christian than horror.
Joel: "... this kind of surreal moon logic is what typifies the entire..."
Me: "Evangelical Christian church?"
Joel: "... show."
Me: "Oh yeah, that too."
"There is no god!"
"Jason, you can't mean that!"
"Oh, but I do!"
comedy gold
The delivery was *chef's kiss* perfect.
"And because there is no god, that means I get to be mean to my talented daughter!!"
The logic is just...
@@paulgallagher5889 and because I'm mean to my daughter she'll have to stay at the dream motel ahhahahah my actions have no meanful consequences muahahahaha
Akteeng
But seriously though, who okayed that take? Who okayed this show? It’s like the Hallmark channel ate a prayer service broadcast and vomited it back up…
@@senthesanguinesinner9 It is a clue of how the producers and writers think. How their indoctrination taught them to think.
The show looks SO weird. It's like an uncanny valley between looking like a real show and looking like a high school class project.
Pretty much all Evangelical Christian television looks like this. It's because there's no shot variation or thought put into the framing. In most TV, even low-budget TV, a lot of effort is put into framing shots to get across the tone and perspective of the scene, tell us who's the most powerful character in the scene and what emotions the characters are experiencing, etc. Evangelical christian TV, due to a mix of just not caring and a strange suspicion of subtlety, tend to frame everything equally, greatly underuse sound and lighting cues, and compensate by having people just say their emotions to the camera and/or exaggerate them in acting. The result is something with the budget and acting to just pass muster as a 'real' TV show, but with a construction that screams 'amateur production'. It's a bit disconcerting when you're not used to it.
I want the opposite of this show, with a cool demon who makes people into better versions of themselves as they leave the church and unlearn dogma and stop being assholes...
I'd honestly watch that.
Lmao yes
Yes! I would watch that show! I feel like I actually reflected on myself, and changed as a person so much more when I left the church and felt so much relief when leaving then what I ever was a part of it.
"Thanks, Satan"
@@ZorotheGallade "Uh, it's Satine, actually."
I find something comforting in the fact that this show from 2019 looks like something that's being shot in 2001.
I can just pretend it's a terrible 90s FMV game
@@speshulgurlee it reminds me of something from Catalina Collection which is also a great collection of christian movies.
This show’s version of christianity is straightup just an abusive relationship. Everything is always your fault, and every horrible thing your partner does to you is framed as a lesson in obedience. At the same time you’re being gaslit into believing you A) needed that lesson to be worthy of the BeAuTiFul LiFe YouVe BeEn GiVeN and B) should therefore be grateful for the meddling, manipulating, torture, and isolation from yourself you were forced to endure.
It’s no accident that the target demographic for this show is people who think gay kids ought to be cured by prayer or maybe stoned to death, if all else fails.
Oh so Ozarks branded Christianity then.
Duck that.
In other words, it's true to life.
So literally the story of Job???
So, just Christianity? We could go a step further and just say all religion. It's all abusive. That's it's core function lol.
Oh wow, it’s almost like religion solely exists as a power structure to exploit people for their influence and money, and to make excuses as to why people say and do bad things. If only there was some hinting of a historical precedence that could have told us this in some way! It’s not like many religious leaders have been shown to be incredibly hypocritical and downright socio or psychopathic!
When multiple stories involve a “go back in time and fix your “mistake” so you never have to deal with the “unfortunate” situation you’re in now” aspect, it, uh…..really stands out when the pregnant 19-year-old gets the old “nothing you want for your life matters, just keep the child then go die” rather than, I don’t know, getting to go back in time and decide not to, I don’t know, not have premarital sex and wait until she’s older and probably shoot out fifty babies after marriage, idk.
But I guess going back in time and not making the conception happen in the first place is basically baby murder. 🤷
To continue down this path - If going back in time to before you conceived is baby murder then wtf is going to a timeline where your brother, who is 20 some years old, just gets wiped from existence? Not to mention those women in the other story who still had to die for that cops personal journey, like what, even a time travel induced abortion is a no go but murder on the main timeline is cool?
@@XxPeaceNinjaxX You are absolutely right, and I didn’t think I could get more uncomfortable with what this show presented, but now I am! Welcome to the Dream Motel where the lives of women and the disabled are but tools for your personal growth, and we can and will toss their very lives around like toys if it means we can use them to make you a proper Good Christian! Where we can let you go back in time to make that one decision that makes your life better and maybe save someone’s life, but we won’t if we don’t feel like it because we get to decide what is or isn’t God’s will!
@@Cheezbuckets as a gay guy and a jew I can't help but wonder what their stance on other sexualities and religions are too
this one just makes the first episode about the disabled brother even worse because apparently going back in time and completely erasing the existence of an entire man is a-okay because he was disabled and too much of a burden on his abled sister but going back in time and preventing the conception of a THEORETICAL baby is wrong.
also, wouldn't that imply all of us are sinning, right now, for not actively having sex and trying to get pregnant? it sounds like a bad pickup line but wouldn't that be the logical ending point to this line of thinking? (well, maybe it'd be sinning for all you suckers. i'm disabled and there's a good chance any babies i could pop out would also be disabled, and since they don't count as people according to this show i'm free to never have kids! yipee! hopefully nobody decides my existence is a burden and i don't get wiped out of existence.)
@@gremlinwc8996 I’m sure we all know. If you don’t believe in their God, you’re a sinner. If you’re gay, you’re a sinner.
Every time I learn of a new piece of Christian media, I always ask myself “will it be better than Veggie tails”. And the answer is always no.
Veggie tales will always be the only good Christian show.
And it just so happens that Veggietales does this by only being vaguely Christian most of the time.
😂
This is because Phil Vischer, creator of veggie tales, is a distinctly "left wing" Christian, complete with the philosophical curiousity that comes along with that.
Charlie’s story reminds me of the Oscar Wilde quote, “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” Insisting that every sinner should instead rewind time and be a saint from the beginning makes the redemptive message of Christianity pointless, doesn’t it?
That face when you're so focused on presenting a religious message that you sabotage the core message of your entire religion.
@@stevepittman3770 Corruption runs rampant in every facet of human civilization. All forms of political or spiritual super powers are running exactly as they are now meant to, as a way for the rich and powerful to stay rich and powerful and exert their influence over the masses.
Humans can no longer govern themselves; We must build the MAGI super computer.
@@juliusweiss5447 When considering the many possible responses to my comment, I admit a Timecube-esque conspiracy theory rant wasn't even on the radar.
@@juliusweiss5447 is that an Eva reference Im seeing?
@@willmiester4051 I see you’re also a man of culture. 😎
"Stories that bring hope" Okay so like, survival horror? Psychological stories with an ultimately positive thesis? Wait never mind it's Anne Rice real-life fanfiction.
EDIT: Okay, the whole bit about her remembering two lives and slowly losing her original self is genuinely horrifying. They misunderstood horror so bad they accidentally made a really good premise.
Exactly. Despite the obvious dark layer of horror, it can do anything that any other genre of storytelling can.
i was thinking that exact same thing. "oh my god (literally lol), did he just kill that woman? is the original timeline woman slowly being replaced by the alternative version, or did the original consume and absorb the life of her other self? this is an amazing concept for a sci-fi horror."
@@zuresei not exactly the same but SCP-5535 is a really well written article with that kinda premise
And the unquestioning presentation of this as a good thing. It's okay, her heathen self has just been destroyed and replaced with a Godly Christian person. No growth, no memory of who she once was...go sit with your 'husband' and stay calm while it happens.
Maybe Jesse Chris is some kind of elder being that became radicalized by Christianity but can't understand fundamental precepts of humanity. So in a misguided attempt to bring people to the right path, it inflicts these bizarre, horrifying visions on people, psychologically manipulating them into letting it warp their realities.
"Don't write horror it's bad because is a violent genre"
Have they read the Bible, like ever? Moses just after taking the table with the 10 commandments on them, one of which was do not kill, went on a killing spree in Canaan, where people committed the unforgivable sin of having another religion taking the lives of men, women and children.
God: Killing is wrong.
Also God: Unless I say to do it, in which case, it's fine.
@@TheMusicalFruit More like "unauthorized killing is wrong", and the Lion of Judah is always authorized to kill, for He is not a tame Lion. 🦁
Sorry to be pedantic, but Moses dies before getting to Canaan, and it’s Joshua who does the genocide.
So your point is that Judaism is a violent religion?
Canaanites where barbaric peoples that burned alive living babies in giant iron idols
11:59 the very thought of having 30 years of memories slowly fall out of my grasp fill me with existencial dread
The irony of an episode designed to bash horror writers being a psychological horror story is apparently lost on the writers.
The name "Jesse Chris" tells you all you need to know about the level of thought and creativity the writers would invest. Besides, isn't he supposed to be an angel? How about Gabe Riley?
THAT is INFINITELY more clever!!
@@indigopines Thanks!
@@KingoftheJuice18 it took me a hot minute to get it
IIRC Jehovah's Witness considers Jesus to be the same person as the Archangel Michael.
Don't know if they have any involvement in this though.
@@448se8 Hmm, that seems unlikely to me that they would be.
“if horror sells, write that. if violence sells, write that.”
bestie how are you a competent writer. your standard of quality sounds nonexistent
To be fair, the writers of this show sold it.
I wonder what she'd think of Chuck Tingle, the greatest author of our time
Also, could their message be more hamfisted? Jesus, man-there's no god damn subtlety here.
also doesn’t the Bible have horror and violence in it? What the heck hahahaha
Also: Historical romance sells. Possibly better than horror.
The worst thing about that episode with the disabled person is that like...as someone with a disabled family member, I don't think I've *ever* wished they weren't born. At my worst, I've wished they weren't disabled, but I think the most common thing personally has always just been that I wish someone *else* could take care of them. The thought of them not being alive hasn't entered my head once and I don't know why it would.
It feels really mean spirited for no reason, much like rest of the show.
Srry a year later, but THIS! I have a disabled sister and growing up the WORST thing I would've wished for was that I was adopted and that my 'real' family would take me away. Lol. (also my family is amazing so even in those daydreams I would just move into a mansion w my rich new parents and still be best friends with my sister and mums lol). As HARD as it can be sometimes, I can't imagine what sort of person you'd be to wish your family member DIDN'T EXIST. Who thinks like that
I’m sorry that you’ve had these hardships, but just keep in mind it feels a lot worse to be a burden than it is to care for a burden. Though let’s be honest, no one would be put into any of these situations if we respected disabled people enough to help them adapt to abled society in a way that isn’t discomforting for them. You know, teach them to be as independent as possible and figure out ways to manage the issues that come with their disability. This is just my perspective as a disabled person. There might be something I’m missing or something that might have come off as offensive. That is not my intention and if offense is taken, I apologize.
@@teallineart8805 Oh, trust me, I'm just as familiar with being a burden. Both through disabilities and otherwise.
And yeah, there is a lot of blame on ablist systemic stuff, for sure, though I will say that not every disabled person is capable of integrating cleanly into society while remaining fully independent.
Though at the same time, there's more we could do as a society for those individuals as well.
@@SheepUndefined True. And I’m not saying they have to be completely independent. Just as independent as possible. Even if it’s stuff like being able to shower by themselves or dress themselves. That’s still something. I just feel like people give up on their disabled family members and just assume what they’re capable of.
I would love to make a parody of dream hotel where every person picks the " wrong " option and lives very happily and the angel has a crisis of faith
I just wanted to say that in Brazil we call "motel" exclusively places where you rent a room for a couple of hours to have sex, so when I saw that this Christian show was called "Dream Motel" I snickered.
Also, "Dream Motel" is exactly the kind of cheesy name a motel would have here. Come to check out our Arabian themed rooms!
Maybe this is a regional thing, but I'm American and motels definitely have that connotation for me as well. It's a weird choice for the name of this show.
Same thing here in Chile
Sounds like a place to go for a honeymoon
I'm from Portugal and it's the same here 😂
People use motel to say a cheap place that you rent for a few hours to have sex
They definitely are the seedy, cheap equivalent to a hotel. I honestly think it's purposeful because it shows all the characters being the type to stay at a *gasp* motel before they're reformed by Jesus or whatever.
The lesson of "writing horror is evil" is, unbelievably, one I actually heard from a Christian creative writing prof. For context - I went to a major university and being interested in writing myself, took a bunch of creative writing courses. There was a small affiliated Catholic college on campus and we were allowed to attend class there as well - they had a creative writing class and being intrigued, I took it.
The ride was wild. First class the professor had us start by praying and reading the Bible. Then he proceeded to smack-talk Stephen King for 40 minutes, and how he was just "feeding the alligators in our souls" by writing horror and how real creative writing should nourish our souls instead. I looked up this guy's writing later, and it was all published in small Christian magazines and the one story I remember was maybe a couple paragraphs long about how this Christian student tells his atheist professor his father is dying, the professor goes to visit the dying father and the father insists he sees angels in the room, leading the professor to convert because why would a dying man lie? Whacky stuff.
Suffice to say never checked this class out again.
Without the context, the only interpretation that I can come up with is that the father was hallucinating rather than purposefully lying.
@@troin3925 I went down a rabbit hole and pretty sure the professor was named Vic Cavalli - but cannot cannot find the short story. Kind of disappointed now.
Full sail ain't like that just saying and it's online soo
@@monokoUwU haha this was almost ten years ago so my memory about the whole thing could be wrong, he may have grown as a writer, but I do distinctly remember the "Stephen king is feeding the alligators in our soul" spiel and pretty sure I remember reading the angel story but like I said, I CANNOT find it so maybe I hallucinated the whole thing loool
"But professor, if we nourish our souls won't we also be feeding the alligators inside them?"
the disabled guy story hit hard because i'm a disabled, "mentally challenged" (autistic) young man just like the one in the story, and i hate how the existence of us disabled people, no matter the disability, is often written as a prop or as a plot device in the story of an able-bodied or able-minded person. no one really seems to care about how ~we want to live our life, and that some of us are members of religions or believe in god? i'm not a christian, but i hate, as a believer, when religious media uses disabled people like me as plot devices for a "religious lesson". do the people creating this realize they're sending the message we do not exist in the eyes of god in the same way as others, because we're somehow less human? idk, i'm just rambling because the first story personally resonated with me and i do not want my existence and the existence of other disabled people to be an "inspirational story", "a lesson that teaches you something about religion", or any kind of prop or plot device.
same here, me and my partner are both autisic and physically disabled in different ways (they're half blind, I'm severely chronically ill) and its difficult for us to take care of ourselves without each others help. the concept that me and my stunning, amazing partner have nothing to give in life other than being a moral lesson & a challenge to overcome truely disgusts me
@@toadflaxflower yeah, people seem to forget that we have our own stories and it irks me how most people write disabled people as just a way to make an able-minded/able-bodied person learn a lesson. we deserve healthy stories told about us, like maybe i'm asking for too much but wouldnt it be nice to have a story where the main character is disabled and their disability isnt portrayed as the only thing that's important about them? our disabilities play a huge role in our life but that doesn't mean that's all there is to us.
I'm also developmentally disabled / neurodivergent: ADHD and related dyspraxia / developmental coordination disorder, auditory processing disorder, sensory processing disorder, and joint hypermobility with associated chronic pain.
I love myself. I love my neurodivergency. All of my family that I'm close to also have ADHD (because genetics) and my friends all have ADHD, anxiety, and/or autism. I am trying to build my own disabled/ND community.
You are 100% right in everything you said. This movie uses us as a prop for abled/neurotypical characters, which implies that we are less human. Like we're just sidekicks in the neurotypicals' lives.
@@janeeyre1990 i aspire to be at the stage you are at. since i was diagnosed as a young adult and i'm the first disabled person in my family to get a proper thorough diagnosis, i've always been taught by society and the able-bodied/minded people in my family that disability was something to be ashamed of. i still have that shame, and growing up people would talk about my disabled relatives in derogatory terms so unlearning all of this takes a long time. i hope one day i can think of my disabilities as a strength and that i can empower the other disabled people in my family who still probably feel like they have to hide a lot of themselves because they're "not normal".
It's messed up
I bet that the horror novelist was a reference to Anne Rice. She must have been a source of real frustration for the evangelicals as she went in and out of her belief. And now they get to strawman her in this episode.
do you believe that “my brother’s keeper” also speaks about what a woman’s role should be in christianity? that without having or looking for anyone to take care of or serve (her brother, her husband) they immediately turn to jail and alcoholism and are “failures” in the eyes of god?
Yeah, it seems to me that is 1000% what the episode is trying to say. It throws in a little jab at the evils of hedonism, but its pretty clear the underlying message is more about a woman only finding happiness as a caretaker.
That's what screamed out at me when I saw that part of the video. Basically "And so she could *actually* be fulfilled, as a woman. Being a wife and mother." etc.
Completely agree. Its disgusting the fundie view of women i hate them sm
@Nadine Patriarchy Approved!
@@brentandringa6380 rest assured i wasn’t talking about the phrase, i was talking about the episode title
The most obviously fictional part of all is believing that horror books not written by Stephen King sell lmao.
I can imagine the screenwriter of this show reading the description of a bestselling mystery or thriller novel like Gone Girl or something and assuming it's a horror because it depicts violence and sex
@@RariettyC I mean the book in this episode I can tell from just that one scene is supposed to be just Twilight. Like she's not even writing horror, she's writing pulp
And that historical romance fiction DOESN'T sell??
@@FrenkTheJoy ikr, funnily enough it's literally the opposite of the protagonist in Misery's situation
fifty shades sold. That should be proof enough that horror will sell no matter what.
The Dream Motel: Check In With An Angel absoLUTELY sounds like an establishment you would visit to acquire the services of male sex workers
The Dream Motel: you'll think you've gone to heaven because the sex is just that good!
@@70sman Both you and the comment above are filth! Well played.
Complains about writing sex, decides instead she wants to write historical romance fiction.... which won't have any sex?
Trash romance has as much sex as trash horror...
I have a feeling that Jesse Chris doesn’t actually teleport people to a different world where they get what they want.
but he instead fabricates a reality where everything is as bad as it possibly can be, that also just so happens to get the person the one thing they asked for, in an attempt to get the person to stop complaining.
The old “it’s a wonderful life” technique….which is also my beef with that movie. Greatly acted classic be damned.
The Holy Church of I'll Give You Something To Cry About
"but he instead fabricates a reality where everything is as bad as it possibly can be, that also just so happens to get the person the one thing they asked for, in an attempt to get the person to stop complaining." I'm cool with that.
But he invented nightmare husband for the scream queen that she got to take home
The fact that the show thinks that making shitty Goosebumps novels it's a valid reason to disown your kids 💀
And that horror can't in any way help people. Like, obviously it can be gruesome and dark and scary, but in can also be used to entertain people and send messages that help people. Horror books could help people escape aspects of their life that they have trouble with. Horror could get people to adapt ideas that help them or others. Horror can just be interesting. Historical romance could do those too, but any genre of writing could do that. It's so strange to frame horror as uselessly sinful when it's just a slightly grittier way to do the same thing that any other story could do
@@gremlinwc8996 , yeah, plus ... the Bible has sections describing supernatural plagues called down upon the enemies of God and the Israelites (the story of Moses).
And regardless of what the Bible actually says about Armageddon, Fundamentalists/Evangelical Christians have interpreted the "End Times" as some kind of post-apocalyptic hellscape. And they make their own pseudo-horror movies about it!
Man, if I had been that woman who found out from my future daughter that I died of cancer, I would try to oh so casually inquire as to what type of cancer it was and then make sure I am diligently screened for it since most cancers can be treated very effectively if caught soon enough.
The ironic thing is that if anything, it's the pregnancy that caused her death. You can't get certain cancer screenings or treatment while you're pregnant. Meaning an abortion just might have saved her life.
"Its soul cancer"
Yeah, but this isn‘t a story about realistic fates, this woman is supposed to learn that her life is worthless if she didn‘t pop out a child.
This genuinely makes me wonder, within the logic of the show, is this something she could've prevented? Was this just inevitable fate? Because that honestly makes it way more terrifying and gross.
As someone who has grown up with a mentally and physically handicapped loved one (who I am blessed to know and love), THANK YOU for calling out the first story.
It’s challenging to be a full-time caretaker, don’t get me wrong, but it’s about the person you’re caring for!!
Yeah...if I'm going to die of cancer in 5 years, I'd better bring a kid into the world to give my own life meaning before putting them through the lifelong trauma of my death at such a young age.
The best treatment I have seen of the "future daughter" trope is in Dear White People. Covo envisions a happy life where her daughter starts at an Ivy League and has a chance to achieve what Coco had dreamed for herself. Then she stands up and decides to get an abortion. She wants to pursue those dreams for herself.
The fact that the life Coco imaginged was happy made the decision all the more significant.
As someone who didn't have kids and did go to Harvard Law (but not out of high school because that's not a thing) I get it.
"What, like it's hard?"
Why did she get pregnant to begin with then?
hell yeah
more stories elevating the idea of not projecting on your kids
I feel like a trope like the “future daughter” would kind of act as a cyclical pipe-dream to keep women constantly self-sacrificing for the next generation (I will raise my daughter to pursue my dreams, eventually a daughter somewhere on the line will pursue what I want)
@@raydgreenwald7788 it's not self sacrificing if the parent is wanting their dreams to be carried out by their kid, unless though the dream is to do what's right for the family to prosper.
These sorts of stories are supposed to teach a lesson, where the protagonist learns something about themselves and change their mind because they now see the value in what they gave up. But just saying "your life will be shit otherwise" doesn't really give them much of a lesson, does it?
That's kind of like how religion generally operates. It is not as easy to manipulate people If you influence them to ACTUALLY think
It sounds like such a good idea. And it's such a shame it wasn't handled better.
That particular story (about the handicapped brother) felt like the whole thing was a setup for a sermon about the evils of partying. Big Joel's idea would have been an interesting story, but the one they produced just became preachy. I guess that's to be expected from a Christian streaming service that apparently can't find good writers.
Also "I hope you learned your lesson, but either way it doesnt matter cause im sending you back 40 years to just try again".
Remember prosperity Gospel: if you do good, you prosper. And if you prosper, you must have done good to do so.
That's what they're teaching here: the person was put here so that you would take care of them instead of doing what you want, and that led to your prosperity. And if they weren't here, you wouldn't be doing good, and thus you would fail.