In an era plagued by crisis—climate collapse, worsening inequality, authoritarianism and imperialism on the march, unending racialized and gendered injustice, a lingering pandemic—it might seem trivial to spend an entire book bemoaning the state of entertainment and popular culture. Are movies and TV shows and pop songs that important to our deepening, interrelated crises? Indeed, media matters for a number of reasons: it shapes and circulates values, it represents communities and experiences, it offers pleasures and connections, it educates and informs, it persuades and misinforms, it shapes identities and discourses, it creates and expresses.

Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, loc. 27