Media

[lulie]

What are the best movies, TV programmes, books (fiction and non-fiction), and songs/music, with philosophical content? (Or if they're just really good. But if they're really good, they should have philosophical content.) Examples: Iron Man, House, Atlas Shrugged, Conjectures & Refutations. List all the most awesome stuff you've found.

Comments

[shadowspinner]

Does it matter what kind of philosophical ideas are expressed within the item in question?

[lulie]

Preferably good ones (or if neutral/bad, at least raising interesting issues to consider).

For example, Dexter explores what it would be like if one could be a moral serial killer. So even though, objectively speaking, it wouldn't actually be moral for him to do that, it still raises interesting issues. (He also explores issues of how to be moral in general, which is nifty.)

[l1berty]

Ooh, also try Dostoevsky. Not entirely good philosophically, but there are some good ideas and a lot of relating the stories back to philosophy generally. Rand liked Dostoevsky.

(You should actually ignore this comment until you've read Orwell and TKAMB.)

movies and books

[l1berty]

Oooh, interesting thread :-)

It's Emma again.

There are some anti-Rand moments in Dirty Dancing. Not that I'd recommend that movie on any grounds except 80's nostalgia...

Schooled is interesting. Ferris Bueller is wonderful ("now we're cookin' with gas").

Recently, I found Peaceful Warrior (http://www.amazon.com/Peaceful-Warrior-Widescreen-Scott-Mechlowicz/dp/B000QEIOSU) inspiring, but probably more spiritually than explicitly philosophically.

The Standing Ground (Jan Fortune Wood) is well written and a good story as well as being TCS-y (well, duh).

[anonymous]

Not on the good side, but you might be interested in knowing that the storyline of Bioshock (a horror shooter) is influenced by Atlas Shrugged. From what I could see and read it portraits Ayn Rand's philosophy negatively. Rapture, the underwater city where it's set, is Galt's Gulch gone terribly wrong. It might be interesting to investigate what are the reasons they give for it.

[anonymous]

The Neverending Story (1984 film) can be interpreted as pro-individualism and some even see anti-communism in it, but it's not explicitly so. It can be taken the wrong way and reinforce the bad idea that wanting to follow one's dreams is childish evasion.

The good ending of Exile (Myst III) is a common preference.

The Toontown (Disney's MMO) plot seems to attack capitalism, associating all its symbols with evil, but the toons are in fact capitalist. Each toon fights to improve his personal skills and to earn jellybeans and teamwork requires common preferences.