Politics & Power Quote by Alex Cox

Cox frames politics less as a hobbyhorse than as an involuntary reflex: a "curse" that turns every seemingly neutral opportunity into an ideological X-ray. Coming from a director whose career has often leaned toward the insurgent and the suspicious of power, the line reads like a confession and a warning. He is not bragging about being principled; he is admitting that the cost of constant political awareness is practical loss: jobs not taken, doors not opened, projects not made.

The phrasing matters. "These things" is deliberately vague, a director's shorthand for the whole ecosystem of offers: studio notes, funding arrangements, festival alliances, co-productions, even the soft coercion of branding. By refusing to name the offenders, Cox suggests the problem is systemic, not a single villain. "I don't say yes to them" lands with the bluntness of adult refusal, but also with fatigue. It's the language of someone who has learned that "yes" is never just agreement to a script; it's agreement to a set of power relations, to who gets final cut, to which narratives are safe, to which countries and institutions get legitimized.

The subtext is an argument about the myth of artistic neutrality. Cox implies that culture is always already political; the only question is whether you choose to notice. His "curse" is simply refusing the comfort of pretending that creative decisions happen in a vacuum. In an industry built on compromise, he positions conscience as both compass and self-sabotage, making the refusal itself a kind of authorship.