---
title: "Media Illiteracy and the Far Right"
source: "https://medium.com/@cole.haddon/media-illiteracy-and-the-far-right-946780f82cfb"
author:
  - "[[Cole Haddon]]"
published: 2024-08-16
created: 2024-10-29
description: "These two posts from Celine Dion and Elon Musk reveal the extent of the Far Right’s media illiteracy. It’s the same problem that has also allowed Far Right viewers to miss the fact that Homelander —…"
tags:
  - "clippings"
---
## Two posts this week from Celine Dion and Elon Musk can teach us a lot about what’s happening in the world right now

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![Cole Haddon](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fill:88:88/1*TOhBCTaV4wNWYNri5-jt0w.jpeg)

](https://medium.com/@cole.haddon?source=post_page---byline--946780f82cfb--------------------------------)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/0*Uog-09Fl2xLcIyGK)

These two posts from Celine Dion and Elon Musk reveal the extent of the Far Right’s media illiteracy. It’s the same problem that has also allowed Far Right viewers to miss the fact that Homelander — and *they* — are the villains on *“The Boys”*.

On the left, Dion makes clear Donald Trump used “My Heart Will Go On” at one of his rallies, for reasons that confused her (and me). When even Celine Dion starts calling you *weird*, something is wrong.

On the right, the world’s richest person and currently largest promoter of fascist ideology via his hate platform, X, imagines he’s “the little guy” in a whole bunch of films about fascism.

It’s easy to imagine what Trump and Musk have done here as an intentional stripping of meaning from art to reinforce personal ideology/identity, which I’ve written about quite a bit including this piece here at Medium:

But I would argue there is no conscious effort to do as much, and instead ignorance and fancy drive the comical and often comically ironic bumbling through pop culture. With time, such ignorant misinterpretations of art can become an accepted belief and only then, I think, truly replace the meaning of the original work for the masses (i.e., Marvel’s Punisher).

==It’s a great example of how imbeciles with the intellectual curiosity of potted plants can actually warp reality.==

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