Politics & Power Quote by Ben Edwards

Edwards is smuggling a dare inside a truism: if you care enough to make something powerful, you have already picked a side. The line tries to puncture the comfortable fantasy of the “neutral” movie, the one that claims to be pure entertainment while quietly reinforcing whatever the default values of its era happen to be. His logic is blunt on purpose. “Care” isn’t presented as a warm, fuzzy prerequisite for art; it’s a force that inevitably organizes itself into priorities, villains, and stakes. And the moment a film assigns stakes, it starts making political claims about whose lives matter, what counts as justice, and what kind of future feels acceptable.

The interesting provocation is the double move from political to partisan. Lots of filmmakers will concede that cinema is political in the broad sense (power, money, representation) while insisting it shouldn’t be partisan, as if partisanship is a taint rather than a clarifying commitment. Edwards rejects that distinction: if you’re making a “powerful film,” you’re not just observing society, you’re arguing with it. That’s why the quote lands in today’s culture-war media ecosystem, where every casting choice, historical angle, or genre trope gets read as a statement. He’s effectively telling artists: stop performing impartiality for the comment section; own your agenda.

There’s also a challenge embedded for audiences: if you demand art that never risks offense, you’re not asking for apolitical cinema. You’re asking for cinema that quietly agrees with you.