Talking about not getting it. The people in this thread bring up points about liking things for reasons that don’t mean you agree with the evil character, and think the are to be looked up to, while simultaneously ignoring that there are massive crowds of people out their that do just that, look up to these people like hero’s, believe they are the correct ones, etc. and that this is what the meme was addressing, not someone thinking a character was a good character for story writing purposes.
What’s the message in Starship Troopers?
Religious Extremist Settler Colonialism just ends up destroying your society as well as the colonized.
The entire situation with the bugs was caused by Mormon Extremist settlers, who literally started the entire interplanetary war by settling on territory illegally.
A relative minor detail in the movie, but maybe perhaps relevant to current events, human history broadly.
Oooh I didn’t remember that one, thanks!
It satirizes facism, its a facist dystopia
Read the book not realizing the film satirizes the book and kept waiting for some kind of punchline. Finished thinking “wait, the author was serious?”
Not exactly. It was supposed to be a cautionary tale, a sort of instruction manual on what to look for.
Fwiw, he likes the movie more.
Who likes the movie more? Robert Heinlein died 9 years before the Starship Troopers movie came out.
Doesn’t fascism need a dictatorial leader? I don’t remember one, at least in the movie.
The Lemmy has decided that it is about facism so it is about facism, just like you might think the matrix is a fun sci-fi future tech action movie but it’s not, it’s actually about the experiences of transgenders
You see when you spend as much time online as the chronically online, you come to learn that if you overthink enough you can find problems with everything
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(film)
It’s satire. For goodness’ sake, the plot begins in Buenos Aires in a majority white school.
I think the SS uniforms, the eagles in the flag and the emblems, the social darwinist attitudes, passionate hate towards the bugs (a disgusting subhuman enemy which needs to be genocided for a final solution) and dismissals of logic in favor of propagandistic appeals to emotion are much more apparent examples. Also the fact that all the actors got cast for their looks in true propaganda movie fashion.
The protagonists home could’ve been anywhere for the same plot, so my interpretation was that the city was named just to drive home the point that the there’s only one global state.
That’s the actual demographic in Buenos Aires today.
Having never been to Buenos Aires, I expected to see brown people when I looked up Buenos Aires. But no, their demographics are majority non-native. Colonialism and immigration hit them like a train. To be clear, I don’t mean a mechanical locomotive.
The Lemmy has decided that it is about facism so it is about facism
Well, so did films creators. Though as with all art of course you don’t have to view it the same way its creator did. But there’s no need to be an ass about it.
Neil Patrick Harris is dressed in a blatant SS look alike unform at the end and Switch exists in the Matrix movie. Matrix was more overtly about the illusions of a constructed soceity but I feel like the trans allegory was always there. Isn’t the red pill a HRT reference since estrogen pills were red in the 90s?
Switch
Switch was originally meant to change genders upon entering the Matrix, which coined their name “Switch”. In the real world, Switch would be male, and in the Matrix, Switch would be female - a very clever and critical point of the ‘residual self-image’ idea. When actress Belinda McClory auditioned for the role, she was going for only half the role - Switch’s Matrix form. Warner Brothers made the decision to cut this and give Switch one form for both environments.
Yeah premarin is red and was what was used in the 90s
While fascism has only ever been observed with a dictator, due to its fundamental nature of consolidating power and national identity, in theory a very tight oligarchy could be fascist.
Dictatorship isn’t so much a mandatory component of fascism as it is a logical conclusion of the ideology in practice
Well, there was in fact a dictator in the story: the brain-bug that controlled the swarm.
If you haven’t read Eco’s essay on ur-fascism, it’s a good read: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism
So we come to my second point. There was only one Nazism. We cannot label Franco’s hyper-Catholic Falangism as Nazism, since Nazism is fundamentally pagan, polytheistic, and anti-Christian. But the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. The notion of fascism is not unlike Wittgenstein’s notion of a game. A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some “family resemblance,” as Wittgenstein put it. Consider the following sequence:
1___2___3___4abc bcd cde defSuppose there is a series of political groups in which group one is characterized by the features abc, group two by the features bcd, and so on. Group two is similar to group one since they have two features in common; for the same reasons three is similar to two and four is similar to three. Notice that three is also similar to one (they have in common the feature c). The most curious case is presented by four, obviously similar to three and two, but with no feature in common with one. However, owing to the uninterrupted series of decreasing similarities between one and four, there remains, by a sort of illusory transitivity, a family resemblance between four and one.
Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.
It’s so obvious that Eco is biased when it comes to religion.
Nazism is fundamentally pagan, polytheistic, and anti-Christian
After reading “Belief or Nonbelief?” I continue to find little hints about how Eco, even as an agnostic, really struggles with leaving his catholic indoctrination behind.
To expand on that, it tricks the viewer into getting seduced by that fascism. It’s much easier to get swept up in the jingoistic hate for the subhuman enemy when said enemy is actually nonhuman. Wisecrack made a good video breakdown of the this some years ago.
At the start of the movie you’re just in it to avenge Buenos Aires, by the end you’re cheering for the guy dressed as a Nazi proclaiming the enemy is afraid.
I might be reading too much into a specific visual choice here, but IIRC even that might’ve been a false flag operation. The arachnid home planet is shown on a map to be on the other side of the galaxy, so not exactly asteroid throwing distance.
It’s a pity the filmmakers leaved out these details from the book. The bugs not only were capable of sending asteroids through the galaxy, but also made starships to travel to other planets. The humans had power armor and carried a couple of shoulder-mounted atomic bombs each.
Before the asteroid we get snippets of lore here and there that hint at the fact that humanity intruded into Arachnid space and started the conflict by killing lots of bugs and that the bugs started throwing rocks in response to that.
Service guarantees citizenship.
Do you want to know more?
The message: “Look at this heavily militarized society, absurd huh?” But some people: “Looks fine to me”
But would a non-militarized society survive in a conflict against the bugs?
A non-militarized society likely wouldn’t get into a conflict with the bugs. We encroached on their land and bothered them
Don’t you think a non-militarized society would probably have not started a war in the first place? The bugs were minding their own business before humans showed up looking to shoot shit and steal other shit.
I don’t remember that part in the movie, sorry.
There are hints throughout. For example:
Weren’t these religious settlers? It says so in the voice over…
The voice over puts this on “Mormon Extremist Settlers”, yes.
The problems with that is:
- Those are still humans settling in bug space
- Can we believe the propaganda voice over?
- Mormon extremists?
The propaganda machinery of the Federation would never take responsibility, it’s all about keeping the populace in a constant state of fear, anger and hyperpatriotic, unthinking loyalty. We keep hearing about the “Arachnid exclusion zone” and “quarantined bug space” which implies that the Federation has been trying to restrict the bugs from leaving their space, while the map of the galaxy, showing where earth is and where bug space is located makes it pretty clear that the Federation of Citizens has expanded aaaaaaall the way across the galaxy. Knowing how imperialist settler colonialism works, it’s easy to see how the Federation is either
a) sending settlers into bug space to expand their own territory, or
b) engineering conflict with the bugs in order to keep the militarist machinery rolling, or
c) most likely, doing both.
Regardless of speculation about the movies universe the point is the movie is a satire of facism, as that’s how the director interpreted the book (that is, fascist in nature). A lot of people missed this about the movie. If the arming of kids and sending them off to war, the slogans, the service guaranteeing citizenship and as I mentioned in another comment, the SS uniforms, don’t convince you. Maybe the directors own words will:
Although some contemporary critics and audiences considered Starship Troopers to be an endorsement of fascism, Verhoeven said, “whenever you see something that you think is fascist, you should know that the filmmakers agree with your opinion”
Edit: check out the wiki if you’d like to know more.
check out the wiki if you’d like to know more.
I see what you did there :D
war is fun, and it’s cool when the enemy is scared of you
Also, big-butt-bugs 🐜
How is getting the Brand of Sacrifice tattooed missing the point?
I dont get how that one made the list either. As an American, I feel that brand on me whenever I shop and I know my money feeds the machines of giant corporations that want nothing more than to consume me until I die. Even my existing and consuming is feeding those beasts that hurt those around me and destroy the world we live in.
Sure, a bit melodramatic and “I’m 14 and this is deep” but I’m not sure it’s so innaccurate.
Sure, a bit melodramatic and “I’m 14 and this is deep” but I’m not sure it’s so innaccurate.
No, don’t accept that “you’re only 14” bullshit. I was fed that garbage and wondered when I would magucally understand that the shite state of affairs in our bleak modern “culture” in the USA is OK. It’s not ok, and I have never accepted it as inevitable, or “human nature”, or any other justification for complacency I was given.
Don’t sell your ideals and hopes for a better world short because people that have given up tell you it’s not possible.
based tbh
Rough guess: maybe because it’s a burden on Guts and not something he wanted. His life is basically forfeit and he endangers those he’s around because of it.
You have now been marked with the Brand of Sacrifice. The lives of those who bear the Brand, from the last drop of blood, to the last moment of your agonizing death, will feed life to the new Child of Darkness.
That doesn’t make sense though (I get that you’re doing your best to explain, not saying what you’ve come up with is dumb, I just don’t see the initial premise). It’s like saying you admire Lord of the Rings characters or a WWII hero, and someone asks you if you realize how much these characters suffered. Yeah, no shit?
No worries, I haven’t read Berserk in a while, so I might even be missing a few things. The hell they went through is kind of the point I think. People admire folks and figures that endured through unimaginable traumas, because they try to take strength from it.
Yeah, judging a tattoo without asking about it is often a path toward misunderstanding. A friend of mine has all of their allergies tattooed down their shoulder, but only some are visible when they’re wearing a short sleeve shirt. You’d think they were a freed beekeeper based on the feather and bee peeking out. But the list is fully visible and labeled in a tank top
deleted by creator
I think my BoS Tattoo looks better than the one in the picture.
That, and I dunno. The older I get the more I start to agree that maybe lots of motherfuckers really shouldn’t be trusted with technology.
The Brotherhood’s original intentions were more or less sound, it’s just that like with all religious and quasi-religious organizations the internal power structure and rituals eventually became more important than the mission, and as everyone kind of went whackadoodle as a result the whole thing rather went off the rails.
I think it depends on your BOS chapter. Fallout 3? Okey dokey. Fallout 4? You’re gonna need some rad-x.
New Vegas somewhat inbetween? Not as fanatical as FO4 though.
That’s Marriage material. If you aspire to the Mojave chapter you probably already have a bunker and enough stored resources to survive the fall of America twice over.
I think part of the problem is that Bethesda doesn’t really seem to have a good critical understanding. They like the superficial stuff, like children. Like this meme, I guess.
Two more for the pile
Who’s the dude in the bottom picture?
What’s Tom doing in that list? From everything I’ve heard about him he seems like a great guy
Right wingers are too dumb to have media literacy and tend to love RATM. I do agree just a photo of him was probably the most confusing way to convey that message though.
The photo includes a message on his guitar, “arm the homeless”, should have been a good indicator they weren’t right wing.
Ahhhh yeah that makes sense, I think I was just under caffeinated. Thanks
It’s a “misunderstood the message” in the opposite direction. He wrote angry songs about how the establishment is evil, and pro-establishment people thought they were angry songs about how people trying to change the establishment were evil.
Given there lyrics that’s less of a misunderstanding and more illiteracy. The lyrics themselves were pretty damn clear.
I remember a classmate of mine thought the “some of those who work forces are the same that burn crosses” lyric was saying “Satanists are infiltrating our pristine and flawless police force!” And of course there’s the quintessential “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!” that all republicans thought meant “Fuck you, I won’t do the bare minimum to care about others!”
Sure, but in the former case that takes some extreme cognitive dissonance. Rage wasn’t ever really hiding things in their lyrics.
Oh, they were certainly enraged. Those damn satanists! But yeah, nobody I knew actually knew what the lyrics were - we all just mumbled along incoherently until we yelled out the few parts that everyone knew, so none of us were actually certain that the conservatives were totally misinterpreting what the song was saying.
I wonder if the message is about Rage Against the Machine and how conservatives always misunderstand the lyrics because they have zero media literacy.
When did rage against the machine go woke?
Upvoted because I caught the sarcasm lmao.
Before they formed as a band.
Lol.
Holy wooosh
Do you ever consider why being aware of and against horrible things happening to innocent people, aware of the people in charge scamming and laughing at you while you scrabble around in the dirt blaming other people being scammed just like you is considered an insult by your kind?
Do you just enjoy the feeling of constantly being made a fool? Is that why you think ‘woke’ is such an insult? Some kind of weird kink about being robbed and abused?
It turns out Lemmy is full of humorless morons.
Rage against the machine going woke is a very common joke on the internet. XD
People get used to assuming other people are dumber than them, especially online. So they see an obvious joke and instead if thinking “well obviously they didn’t mean the thing they are pointing out, so they are pointing it out to mock that perspective”, they just accept it face value, and then when called out on it go “poe’s law” or argue that the fact that they didn’t understand says a lot about society instead of doing any introspection.
It’s all good. Here I was thinking I was laying it on pretty thick given the context, but here we are. 🤷
Same with Born in the USA. They hear the chorus and think it’s about how America rocks, but it’s really about how we traumatize our soldiers and leave our vets out to dry.
Fortunate Son too
The Machine: Love this shit USA FTW
RATM: …
Guitar strings.
https://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=7794
Tom Morello, took offense to the fact that Mitt Romney’s choice for vice-president, Paul Ryan, cited Rage as his favorite band
Tom Morello
I know the point of Tom Morello being included is because RATM is completely misunderstood by conservatives, but it makes me giggle because he did a song for Final Fantasy XIV because a friend he played D&D with also knew a guy involved and it just happened.
But progressives can have hobbies. It’s fine. Lol
Damn, “Arm the homeless” is a hell of a take.
Yeah. The leftist in me thinks it goes kinda hard, but the volunteer social worker in me has spent a lot of time and effort making absolutely sure the homeless folk I’ve interacted with were not armed. I thought it said “arm the hopeless” when I found the picture
I mean, that’s often the same thing.
Morello was in a Voyager episode?!?!? I don’t even really like RATM, but holy fuckin BASED
‘Good Shepherd’ S06E20, it’s just a cameo appearance though.
Good lookin out! Voyager is one of the few Trek shows I haven’t seen every episode of, I mean I’ve seen most of Voyager, so I might’ve seen that one. It just makes sense, Starfleet is the embodiment of leftist socialist idealism, I do love it so
What are you on about? Starfleet is a (at least quasi)military organization with a obvious hierarchical order. The captain tells you to jump? You say how high. There’s a lot of discussions, but in the end she/he decides the fate of all aboard.
Now, I love old Trek (up until and including Voyager) - it has a lot of merits - but it’s far from how I’d want society to be optimally.
Starfleet is a (at least quasi)military organization with a obvious hierarchical order.
moth can’t think of any examples of socialist nations with a rigid military hierarchy in the entire human history. no, none at all. can you?
Don’t forget this one
In a similar vein Walter from breaking bad, though that makes less sense. Tony soprano was at least a charismatic sociopath, Walt was just an asshole
Also the classic nerd version, Rick from Rick and Morty. Bojack horseman too, which is extra funny because the show eventually called this out (in a way that almost certainly went over the head of some of the people who idealized him)
I think that people may admire/covet the super-power of doing what you want without caring about other people or being afraid of consequences.
Which is a huge shame, because doing what you want without much worry about consequences is actually super doable WHILE still caring about other people
Not if you’ve been taught that everything is a zero-sum game, which apparently many people believe, especially in the States. If you believe that one person gaining something necessarily means that someone else loses something to an equal or greater degree, caring about other people inherently means having to compromise on your own happiness.
Of course it becomes a lot easier if you believe that it’s possible to win together and that giving a little can make a huge difference in someone’s day.
siiigh the ’ “prisoner’s dillema” being taught in elementary schools needs to be a thing everywhere’ thing again?.. TT
Only if you’re not a sociopath whose wants to directly against the well-being of others
Bojack is relatable. He’s just super duper depressed.
Bojack isn’t just depressed. He’s almost certainly got CPTSD, possibly with a personality disorder (HPD feels right but I haven’t watched since the finale was new). His life sucks because he keeps giving in to his worse instincts and desires.
Hrs very relatable as someone who struggles with CPTSD, and had to learn how to do healthy and responsible things instead of just whatever my brain says.
But fundamentally as a character he represents the failure state of managing trauma. He keeps trying and he keeps failing harder and harder, but never seeks the real help he needs or learns to have a setback without spiraling out of control and hurting someone else, usually pretty bad. Hell, he keeps thinking that dependants will make him better and then damages them because of course they won’t.
Bojack horseman too, which is extra funny because the show eventually called this out (in a way that almost certainly went over the head of some of the people who idealized him)
The thing with Bojack that I think is really poignant, though, is that I think that the people who idolize him don’t do so because they see in Bojack somebody they want to be, but because they see somebody they already are. Bojack is a canary in the coal mine to the depressive viewer. “If Bojack can pull through this, maybe I can, too.”
As a character, Bojack isn’t a goal to achieve; he’s a warning. If you treat everyone around you like shit, you’re going to find yourself all alone in your darkest moments. Bojack serves as a reminder that sometimes personal redemption has an expiration date; the longer you wait to correct the wrongs of your past, the more Sarah Lynns will come and go through your life. Bojack shows the viewer that it’s never too late to change, but that there are consequences to waiting; you can’t wallow in pity and self-loathing forever, and you’re not the only one who’s affected by the way you treat yourself.
I’m sure a lot of people don’t make it through the show to really get all that, though. Which is a shame, because I think Bojack tells an incredibly beautiful story that gets missed by many.
Bojack is a great show because it highlights so many forms of depression and destructive behavior. Everyone in that show has problems, even Mr Peanutbutter, who I think importantly shows you can be a flawed person while most people love you and you’re usually happy.
Seeing Bojack act out in so many destructive ways gave me an objective view of a lot of behaviors in myself and it led to me getting help for my major depression. I lead a very different life today thanks to the realistic depictions of broken characters in that show.
Maybe I’m media illiterate but when I watched BB I could not follow Walt at all. Like he did the thing, he got the money, then he’s like more meth Jesse we need to cooooook out of nowhere. Were there hints that I just missed that he was going down that path? Because every time he tripled down it felt like it was out of nowhere.
power corrupts. as he amasses more power in the criminal underworld he believes himself to be better than the people around him, that he can change the corrupt system from the inside. it’s not until hank dies that he actually realises what he’s been doing, but at that point it’s already too late.
…and then the season 6 finale ruined the point.
White’s whole thing was that he wanted power, not just money.
Walt was on an ego trip the entire time - the money was an excuse but the feeling of being in power and in control was always the real reason for his actions. Remember that he torched some guy’s car and turned down a generous job offer for personal, functionally petty reasons before he’d started cooking. You could argue that the offer was patronizing, but if his concern was really about taking care of his family instead of wanting to feel like he was the big guy in charge of things would he really have said no?
Agree with your points but I will say that Tony’s charisma seems to wane by the end of the series. Seasons 1-3 Tony 100% charismatic sociopath.
Yeah true, and I think that makes him more authentic tbh. When I worked with domestic violence situations the perpetrators often hit the same vibe, super charismatic and many people around would second guess claims against them. but underneath they had serious anger issues that made them increasingly assholes and eventually straight up dangerous during periods of high stress. The charisma is a cloak that takes a lot of effort. That’s what people ignore with the character and irl too, they rationalize it away to try and make sense of caring about a person who is objectively shitty
God I love the sopranos, I wish I had time to rewatch that glorified crew
The show also goes out of its way to show you how phony the gangsters are. Especially in concerns to them being Italian.
So basically we can’t like Berserk? I don’t like Griffith, I don’t have a BoS tattoo, but I don’t think getting one is “missing the point.” A lot of people have been through fucked up shit, they feel haunted by it, and they relate to that message of soldiering on.
The only Lemmy-approved character you’re allowed to like is Puck. Sorry you had to find out this way.
I read the entire manga and oh my god I HATED Puck by the end.
I stopped reading any of his dialogue bubbles about half way through because they were relevant to the plot exactly 0% of the time.
They’re like Navi but completely disassociated
One of the four great spirits Puck? The beast of the end Puck? This Puck?
The 4 great spirits of Puck:
I think id be more concerned about an enclave tattoo or a caesars legion one honestly. BoS across the franchise is morally all over the place.
Its considerably less all over the place when you realize Bethesda doesn’t know how to write them, Interplay/Obsidian does.
I grant you that for sure.
FO3/NV seem alright (somewhat) FO4 seems problematic. I really need to play 1 and 2…
FO: London was nice because I didn’t have to remember any of the faction morality because it was all new people.
I will say I was uncomfortably far into the game before I realized that Fifth Column were just straight up fascists. Characters said so, but pretty much everyone is unreliable so I thought they would be exaggerating.
God dammit didn’t even realise. Dunno why this is being downvoted? Yet another baby account with hundreds of posts and seemingly copying them from reddit. This is like the 4th I’ve seen a couple weeks. The one before this had 588 post and comments in the same time span.
Does it matter? The post is here. It’s being interacted with. It spawned discussion. Why stress over it also being on Reddit?
Shouldn’t matter if I point out accounts that are dedicated to reposting Reddit content either.
I mean, I agree that it doesn’t matter. That’s why I’m curious as to why you’d take the time to flag it.
Because I think it’s pretty toxic to the fediverse.
Author: Satirizes toxic masculinity via cartoonishly terrible male characters
A concerningly significant portion of men: basedbasedbasedbasedbased
Heinlein was suuuuper in favor of a colonial/martial culture. The whole reason he wrote Starship Troopers was because he was disappointed that the US suspended nuclear weapons testing which he saw as further evidence of the decline of martial culture. The book clearly advocates for the promotion of civic duty as a moral imperative as well as for things like corporal punishment. He WANTED the “toxic masculinity” culture, that was his own culture as he perceived it.
The movie is basically the complete opposite, satirically portraying colonial/martial values against the backdrop of an imperial state. It’s one of the biggest disparities in intent vs interpretation I have ever seen.
The movie rocks, by the way. Still watch it once a year
I vaguely heard that Heinlein engaged with a whole bunch of different ideologies for different books.
I believe it was Clarke that mentioned that Heinlein’s political beliefs depended on who he was having sex with that month.
Yeah, he’s the hardest to pin down of the 20th century masters of sci fi. LeGuinn wears her heart on her sleeve and while she explores ideas, she has a consistent direction. Herbert demands critical thinking (if the entire book is Paul terrified of the evil of him leading the jihad, what does it mean when he leads the jihad at the end). Asimov is out there exploring ideas, but you can figure him out (it’s been a long time since I’ve read him). And Clarke is pretty consistent in his distrust of those who desire power.
Based? Based on what?
Rico wasn’t a terrible person. But he really is the exception in the list.
Rico is an officer in the war-machinery of one of the more fascist systems imagined in film. After the events of Operation Royalty he sends what basically amounts to child-soldiers to their deaths. He believes only military service should grant citizenship and shows unquestioning loyalty to the Federation.
But I’m sure he only followed orders, that’s a perfectly good excuse.
Oh, I only saw the movies.
Well, in the movies alone he’s pretty much the same thing: officer of a fascist war machine. And while he is presented as a dumb jock at the beginning, by the end of the movie (movies, too) he’s pretty much shown absolutely no character growth, besides being much more pumped about the fascist war machine.
Every time I think about Rico, I remember when he talks about citizenship. First in school, then at the funeral. Same definition, word for word. Just more conviction the second time around.
When did he become an NCO? I remember the movie ending with him as a boot.
He becomes an NCO after he kills the first tank bug and becomes a full officer after the funeral.
All that is from the movie.
I don’t remember him becoming an officer. Guess I’m just going senile. My b.
It’s the ending scene. “We have new ships, we have new weapons. Now we need soldiers…” they show Carmen as captain of her own ship with a lieutenant that looks like she didn’t even finish high school and then Rico as the lieutenant of the roughnecks, their ranks filled with new, younger recruits. “C’mon you apes, you wanna live forever?!”
Rico was a terrible person, but through experience and hardship learned the weight of being an adult comes with a high price.
For a brief moment I thought this was telling me my Mechanicus special interest was invalid, and then I processed the ‘ad victoriam’ and realized it was fallout.
I will say I very much suck at picking up the message in media. Not that I end up agreeing with shitty people, but I’m always wondering like “Wait…is the creator saying this is a good thing?”
Rorshach not being on there is disappointing.
We can’t fit all of the Watchmen cast, can we?
I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me! Melts someone’s face with fryer oil. Cringe line…but kinda funny at the same time.
I mean, he pretty clearly set the record. That irrespective of his appearance, clothing, situation, or anything else, he is a severely homicidal lunatic. One of the more effective scenes. (I liked darth Vader’s “nooooo” as well)
Rorschach is basically the Punisher - it’s only luck that he likes to kill and torture “bad people”, and he shows himself that he’s pretty flexible on the definition of “bad”.
Not everyone participates in reading the deeper meaning of media.
Some people just turn off their brains and watch the magic smiles box and come away liking the characters and movie without thinking any further than what was portrayed on screen.
Half the characters on this list are just really awesome visual/character portrayals.
They didn’t misunderstand the message, you misunderstood their intent going into the media.
You watch movies to dissect their meanings, others watch movies to escape reality for a bit.
You watch movies to dissect their meanings, others watch movies to escape reality for a bit.
The dissecting of media (which i do a lot) isn’t something i choose - it comes pretty automatically with media literacy. As soon as you develop the skills needed to analyze subtext and themes, and start to take a critical stance regarding video content, you can’t really switch it off outside of getting wasted.
So i’d say the difference is simply in media literacy (and more broadly, general education) and level of cognitive impairment.
You talk about cognitive impairment of others yet fail to understand the only thing you’re doing is imparting your world view and how you navigate it as how everyone else does/should. You have an extremely narrow perception of how the world works because you can only view it through your own lens.
The only one here impaired in their judgement is you.
My judgement is as follows:
If you are not able to analyze the subtext of content, repeating motives in it and why someone specifically tells a story, you will always be a fool, because you are not able to discern between people who want to lead you astray and people who are upright in their convictions.
And people who are ok with others being essentially illiterate in these times are enabling liars, abusers, scammers, thieves, fascists and dictators.
I have to add: Media made to just have a laugh are fine! I laughed my ass off over all 6 Sharknado movies. But this doesn’t mean i engage uncritically with it - in this case it was obvious that these movies are not taking themselves seriously, and therefore i was also able to go with that.
I was also able to enjoy the Marvel movies somewhat, while having concerns with some underlying themes that are pretty militaristic and disenfranchising of common people. The notion that only “special” people can enact change in a society is a harmful one in my opinion.
That’s because this is the normal flow of things. Pare the mediums away, and you’re left with the same basic core: Stories.
The storyteller always has a reason for telling a story. Even when they are only setting out to entertain.
To be able to separate one’s actual feelings, knowledge, and values in order to write a purely entertaining tale, requires that the storyteller be aware of them. At which point they must then take an extra step to insert others.
What stories are, at their heart is the passing of an abstract message or purpose encoded in a surface pattern meant to be cognitively sticky.
The reason might be to teach the young in the tribe the seasonal crop patterns as it was thousands of years ago, as it still is in some places.
Or it could be a commentary on the social state of the times. Or any other thing.
But the other thing a story must be, is engrossing.
A good story must be entertaining or funny or terrifying. It must tug at the emotions of the listener in some way.
That’s what makes it stick. That’s how stories work.
There is nothing wrong with refusing to dig deeper into the meaning of a tale, especially if it’s presented or done poorly. That turns it into a lesson.
But the best stories, it doesn’t matter if you seek out the deeper meaning or not.
It’ll be there regardless and so will the story, and if and when the listener grows, the meaning will make itself clear on the next recounting.
Thank you BBC for the one-sentence-a-paragraph formatting. But none of that explains why people fail to grok the message of the media.
They didn’t misunderstand the message, you misunderstood their intent going into the media.
Hahaha no.
Their intent was not to understand the media, but to merely consume it.
… they still in fact did misunderstand it.
Yeah, its true that not everybody approaches a piece of media trying to fully comprehend and appreciate it, yeah its true that it’s fine to have media that doesn’t require much brain power to comprehend, yeah its fine to lazily enjoy things from time to time.
None of that means these movies and characters are not notorious for being basically 180 degrees misunderstood by people barely paying attention.
They didn’t misunderstand the message, you misunderstood their intent going into the media
Imagine saying the equivalent of this to a teacher who failed your creative writing paper because you wrote for a completely different prompt than the one assigned.
This is an asinine thing to say, its a non sequitir.
An explanation for why something happens is not the same as ‘that thing didn’t happen’.
I feel like people can think the characters are enjoyable as characters and still recognize they’re bad.
I wish these media tourists took to simple messaging like Indie’s “I punch Nazis”.
Rich frat bros at my college literally started fight clubs thinking it was about getting ripped and dangerous. Then many of them got life-changing injuries and stopped.
Both sides of the equation can be true, yet unequal.
Rich frat bros at my college literally started fight clubs … Then many of them got life-changing injuries and stopped.
Tyler would approve. In-fact, pretty sure that Angel Face (played by Letto) was a rich frat boy.
Maybe. The disaffected youth told they would become something special and they never became that? The office workers and service industry people and low-wage workers that were both the fight club and Project Mayhem? That’s not them. They’re literally the corporate stooges to be that Tyler fought against.
That was so well-put, thank you. I’ve never had a tidy, succinct response for this sort of thing and yet you summed it up so well; I don’t disagree that many people have definitely misunderstood the character/media/etc, but it’s definitely true that some people just enjoy things anyway.
I do both. Doesn’t everyone? I love a healthy home cooked meal, a book or article so deep it feels as satisfying as sex, but also can love a bag of french fries or a repeat of Pride & Prejudice or Hot Fuzz.
Sometimes it’s relaxing to be shallow for a bit.
True, but you can taste the flavors in the fries and you should be consuming them consciously.
Some messages are really obvious and others are kinda subtle. I love Brooklyn 99, but I also acknowledge that it’s copaganda and have to watch out that I’m not letting it influence me out of positions I came to by thinking things through. In the same way that when I eat a bag of fries I have to watch out that I’m not eating myself unhealthy.
When I consume something that’s largely dumb fun, but has a pretty clear message I pick up the message. Fallout games (except 3) are openly telling you that the brotherhood of steel engage in dangerous ideological and organizational structures that lead to damage. But when my brain is off and I’m playing one of the games it just reads as “these guys have serious issues despite the good they sometimes do”.
I think Heath Ledgers version of the Joker was interesting. I didn’t really like the other ones.
I would guess that he’s actually the “Dark Knight.” From the way the movie portrays him, it seems he’s a ex-military guy that lost his mind. Technically he does more for the city than Batman by basically pitting criminals against each other and going after corrupt officials. So I did dissect the meanings in that movie, my buddy was really into superhero movies and such but I usually got bored with them; I would say that’s the only one I enjoyed.
I’m ngl I still don’t understand the ending of Monster
Uhh don’t save kids.
