Agree or Disagree - Action Movies/Superhero Movies are basically fascistic.

[el_bryanto]

I wasn't sure whether to post this in the movie forum or here, but these movies are big enough and culturally influential enough that I thought it worth posting here. Andrew O'Herir review of Guardians of the Galaxy refers to the film as "faintly fascist," making the following argument.

When I say that “Guardians of the Galaxy” embodies a kind of primitive or juvenile fascism – the essential ideology of the comic-book hero — I’m not claiming that the movie’s no fun or that I didn’t enjoy myself. If fascism were boring, people wouldn’t be so drawn to it! Furthermore, I’m not claiming that director James Gunn and co-writer Nicole Perlman are secret Dick Cheney fans or that the movie’s really about war with the Muslim world or whatever. I’m saying that this amiable Robin Hood fable about a ragtag bunch of indestructible renegades who join forces to combat evil rests on an outrageously exaggerated version of teenage narcissism, and on deeply ingrained American-movie ideas about individuality and mortality and power and death. The lives of individual Cool People are worth more than millions of boring and ordinary people, violence and war are a form of ritual purification, and a sufficient amount of awesomeness will render you immortal.

What do you think? I personally enjoy action movies, but I can't really deny that they usually suggest that violence is a solution to problems and that certain people (i.e. the main characters) matter more than others (i.e. everybody else).

Bryant

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[steve2470]

1. off top of head, I'd say militaristic nt

[PowerToThePeople]

2. Are they fighting on behalf of corporations? n/t

[el_bryanto]

5. I haven't seen it yet; from the ads it looks like they are keeping the Dirty Dozen in space

vibe of the original comic book (although transplanted considerably) - working for the Nova Corps (kind of like the Green Lantern Corps). So they are working for an interplanetary justice faction? I don't know.

But I'd doubt there are any corporations in the movie.

Of course in another sense they are fighting to bring money to the Disney Corporation.

Bryant

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Part of the hyper masculine hero worship

Iconography that accompanies fascist culture. Not always, but typically.

[Codeine]

4. On some level that's probably true,

which is odd because comics writers and screenplay writers tend to be overwhelmingly liberal, with some obvious exceptions (yes, Frank Miller; I'm looking at you.)

[Javaman]

6. virtually ever action star in action type movies is either a

narcissist or a sociopath.

it's the nature of the archetype.

and to then take it to the concept level of the script as an entirety, yes, virtually all big explosion type movies have a element of fascism in them.

and to only segregate your concept to only super hero type movies, is lacking in the larger scope.

they are the popular flavor these days and yes, I watch them because I'm a comic geek.

I was a big superman/capt America/thor reader when I was a kid and can't get enough of these movies now.

However, I also know they won't last for long and probably have reached their apex.

now stepping back, how will these movies effect the larger psyche of America?

probably not much at all.

given the fact that we have slid down the fascism hole long before these movies started becoming popular and we had massive gun violence prior to these movies and the militarization of our local police forces started decades ago.

so will this only add more to the basis? not really. people escape to the movies for something the feel they need to fulfill on a "fantastic" level.

but given the current state of our nation with the abject racism, local nut job militias, nra gun fetish nuts, and the crazy right wing political/religious morality passion play, people go to the movies for a little good triumphs over evil by super hero's that seem incorruptible.

people are tired of the daily insanity that is our political process and sometimes want a twinkie.

sadly, it appears as if society, as a whole, has bought into the "wanting a twinkie" a little too much.

And sorry, I didn't vote. I couldn't find a choice that fit my concept.

[el_bryanto]

8. This makes a lot of sense - I suspect that superhero movies will slide into the

same category of Westerns/Gangster movies, in that they've had their moment in the sun, but people will still make them off and on. Then again, if Marvel keeps the general quality up, who knows how long their run could go.

Bryant

[Javaman]

12. There's a great podcast that I listen too...

Comic Geeks.

These guys hold back nothing in their fawning over these movies and even they say that it won't last much longer.

Their biggest argument is that there are no new "top level" hero's (in the classic sense) to exploit.

I think they might be onto something. It's the saturation of the market issue that will take it's toll.

Personally, while I love me some super hero movies, I would prefer to see some of the lesser known, non-super hero type comics being turned into movies.

There are great story lines and fantastic concepts.

One that comes to mind right off the bat would be "100 Bullets" or "Chew"

And if they are going to continue on the super hero tact, perhaps they should try something a little different with "Irredeemable". It's about a once good superman type guy that gets pissed off and turns evil. The basic concept is, "what if superman went bad?" chilling thought.

expansion into other types of hero's would be a gold mind.

300 hundred was okay, not great, in my opinion, because it only plays to a very specific audience. But it was interesting that it was made and shows that there is much more diversity out there. Sin City, falls into that as well. But they were written by the same guy.

There needs to be new talent that challenge the accepted norm.

[el_bryanto]

16. I do agree that there are a lot of comic books that would make great movies

Irredeemable would be one for sure - I'm still annoyed that the Global Frequency tv show didn't get made, but that would be a good one. I think they are looking at doing the Sixth Gun, which is a good choice and Once Upon a Time is basically Fables softened for a Disney audience.

East of West would make a good movie, and the Couriers. The Nightly News I'd love to see, but think that might be too dark. And I really really hope they do an animated Goon movie.

On the Superhero front, I agree that they've run through the big names (at least on the marvel side) but there are still plenty of second tier heros that could make successful movies - frankly Iron Man was a 2nd tier character before Robert Downey Jr.

Bryant

[Javaman]

18. True on Iron Man...

I guess that with that franchise, it took a good team of writers and a director with the vision (aka someone who reads and understands the beat of comics). And with that said, if the same combo is put together, I guess any 2nd or 3rd tier superhero could get their day.

One the flip side of the discussion.

I am enjoying old movie franchises being turned into comics. I have been following Robocop and the new Terminator series.

But back to the topic.

It didn't get great reviews, but I liked the new Judge Dredd movie. It didn't serve up the typical morality play that happens in the super hero movie. But again, Dredd is of a similar archetype to the sociopath/narcissist superhero.

I haven't read Sixth Gun yet. I'm not a big westerns fan, but I have heard good things about it and I may give it a whirl.

I agree, East of West would be excellent.

I have always thought Transmetropolitan would make a great tv series but the budget would be insane. LOL

[el_bryanto]

28. The thing with Judge Dredd is, like Rosharch and the Punisher, he's supposed to make you

uncomfortable a bit. He's often placed in the hero position, but he's not necessarily a heroic character (he's basically the Captain America of a totalitarian state, as I take him).

I still need to see the new Dredd, as I heard it was very good.

And yes - Transmetropolitan would make a great TV show - but very expensive to do it right. Still TV special effects do keep getting better.

Bryant

[Javaman]

31. Dredd: the anti-hero hero.

I think the comic does a great job with making one uncomfortable. The movie...I'll let you decide.

I would enjoy chatting with you after you see it. Given our current political landscape where the NRA has such power and our almost daily mass shootings, I would enjoy your perspective.

As I get older, I'm finding my tastes in regards to comics to be more alone the line of less "caped" type to more humans with flaws.

Don't get me wrong. I will still pick up a good Superman or Spiderman series now and then, but they have to be pretty exceptional.

I'm leaning more toward independents these days. Like: Adam & Ada, Trillium and Planetoid.

I could see Adam & Ada being made into a scifi channel series. If you haven't read Trillium, the writer and artist do some fun stuff with the flow of the actual issue. One part will start at the "front" of the comic and the second part will start from the back. In some issues, part of the story is upside down. lol

[hfojvt]

50. I haven't liked very many of the movies

Except for V, which I never read as a comic.

I also haven't watched very many of them, afraid of what they would do with characters that I liked. Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy was that way. I got about half an hour into it before I got too mad to keep watching.

I was never that much of an X-men reader and these things have changed over the decades anyway. I don't believe, for example, that Wolverine was one of the original X-men. The originals were Iceman, Angel, the Beast, and a few others.

But I cannot really say originals since I was reading these in the 1970s and the series probably started in the 1950s.

I noticed that the characters seem to change over time. Ben Grimm's girlfriend Alicia got much better looking in the 1990s. Mary Jane Watson was always a babe, but she became a super-model in the 1990s. Daredevil, the man without fear, sorta became a thug in the 1990s. This archetype of the "sociopath as hero" seems like a fairly new one to me. I don't think it is a fair characterization of most of the 1970s heroes or the 1950s heroes.

As a grumpy old man, it seems to me that our society as a whole is becoming more thuggish.

As for violence being the answer, well in the first place, that is typical Hollywood. I was watching some teen show, like "that's so Raven" or some such and there was a bully and the bully got dealt with, the problem got solved, with a punch. Very predictable.

But in the second place, is there really any other answer to dealing with the "bad guys"? If the heroes are sociopaths, they look like cub scouts next to their enemies. Although there are a fair number of bad guys who become good guys - Nighthawk, Magneto, The Vision, Valkyrie, Wonderman, Hawkeye, Namor, etc. (Although Namor was originally a good guy who became a bad guy who became a good guy. Or something like that.)

[Javaman]

55. the issue with dealing with bullies other than hitting them is...

it requires clever writing and sadly...well, you know the rest.

Viewers are always delighted when the see clever, but clever is tough to write in a believable way.

I was disappointed with Hitchhikers as well.

when I first heard they were going to make that into a movie, my first thought was, "how?"

I knew it was going to be nothing like the book other than the "high points" which was spoon-fed to the masses and totally ignored the subtleties which would require to much for a short attention spanned audience to deal with.

[hfojvt]

68. myself I am not clever enough to think of another way

One thing that bothered me about Hitchhikers was that violence was ADDED to the movie. Same thing with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban. But I had the same complaint way back when it seemed like sex was added to the movie for "That was then, this is now".

I must admit that I, myself, am not clever enough to come up with some other way than violence to deal with violent "bad guys".

I guess the radio show of Hitchhikers pre-dated the book, so who knows WHAT the truth is. Book being true to the radio show or movie being true to the radio show. For me, it was the book I knew first, so I considered that to be the standard. But I knew the movie "The Neverending Story" before the book and consider it to be an improvement over the book, even though it added some violence too.

[Javaman]

74. there are scripts and there are great scripts.

today we get mostly scripts.

something that is cranked out via predicable formula with the occasional lame plot twist that makes the audience to, "Ohhhhhhh" because they don't know any better.

great scripts go one of two ways: either they get watered down (aka dumbed down) because the marketing morons thing that the audience won't get it (which sometimes is the truth because most audiences are lead around by the nose to "figure" out the plot) or if the film is made it is loved by the critics and hated by the viewing public because anything that's requires ones brain to follow the plot is then relegated to the "art houses".

yeah, I'm a grouchy old screenplay writer, can you tell? LOL

[Shadowflash]

30. The problem is

That the non superhero comic book movies ARE being made. They just typically flop at the box office while the superhero movies tend to make big money. If you were a studio, forking out millions of dollars, which would you do?

We've had:

From Hell
V for Vendetta
Ghost World
Road to Perdition
American Splendor
Constantine
The Crow
30 Days of Night
Josie and the Pussycats
Red Sin City
The Losers
Bulletproof Monk
Scott Pilgrim

And I can go on and on. They ARE being made, it's just no one wants to pay to see them.

[el_bryanto]

35. Some of them did pretty good - The Crow, Road to Perdition

And Ghost World and American Splendor were seen as successes as indy films.

Bulletproof Monk, the Losers and Constantine were kind of poorly made and poorly cast so it's not to surprising they flopped. Scot Pilgrim, though, breaks my heart, as that was a great movie.

Oh well.

[Action_Patrol]

40. Too specific

Scott Pilgrim was very well done but it was created for a very niche audience.
Anyone not enthralled with video game culture was pretty much turned off by it. It was more of a companion piece to the comics. For fans, by fans.

[Javaman]

47. Loved Scott Pilgrim. nt

Ghost World is still one of my favorites.

It thought it did a great job of capturing the comic.

[Javaman]

46. We geeks see them.

but the general audience who wouldn't know a good script if it hit them in the face, sadly don't.

Wait! 30 days of nights is a movie????????

How did I miss that!!!!!

[Orrex]

48. Maybe you instinctively ignore Josh Hartnett films.

[Javaman]

51. That's very possible...

I just looked up his IMDB listing.

Not much I have heard of.

[Action_Patrol]

49. It's not bad

It's about as good of an adaption as possible. The vampires are unique. Certainly better than the abomination that was I Am Legend.

[Javaman]

56. I am legend was a predictable mess.

but given the Hollywood script machine, it was, sadly, the best they could do.

[Action_Patrol]

59. Can't agree

The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price was a far better adaption of the novel. The will smith version was nothing like the book.

[Javaman]

73. That was then.

now, it's about money and stupidity.

[Action_Patrol]

80. Truth

I like you.

[Orrex]

57. The Wiki entry for the film is weird

If I'm reading it right, it opens the story in Mexico and Antarctica and then jumps to Alaska. Um. What?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_of_Night_(film)

[Action_Patrol]

60. Vampires

It shows that the vampires are scattered around and converge in Alaska to feed unfettered.
It works in context.

[Orrex]

62. Oh--I see.

I haven't seem the film in a while--I thought that they were equating the Alaska town in Antarctica.

I'm not a cartographer, but I always kind of placed them at opposite ends of the globe...

[mythology]

83. 100 Bullets would be better as a tv series

It would be really hard to do as a 2 hour movie.

And Chew is getting an animated movie.

There have been other non-super hero comics made into movies. Scott Pilgrim versus the World, A History of Violence and Road to Perdition all come to mind. They didn't set the box office on fire, but I think all made money.

[Javaman]

92. I completely agree with you on 100 bullets...

if done correctly, as we always hope, it would completely kick ass.

Chew getting an animated show? Hmmm, I hope i's a good team of animators.

They did make money, mostly after market in rentals and over seas but to me, that's still a big win.

They were all wonderfully written too.

[joeglow3]

29. Not John McClane

[Javaman]

45. Good point. but he did have an enourmous ego. nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

64. As far as narcissistic sociopaths in action films go --

Sharon Stone's character in The Quick and the Dead is very complex and vulnerable.

For any who may not have seen the film (no spoilers): The film as Stone as "The Lady," Russell Crowe (yummies!) as "Cole" and Gene Hackman as "Herod."

It's a morality play about the nature of courage. The finding the courage to fight, finding the courage not to fight and the monster we can become if we were truly fearless.

Sam Raimi directs and it is magnificently shot but the entire film is something I could talk about all day long.

[CBGLuthier]

7. Despite their alleged great intelligence, Batman and Superman

almost always win by beating the shit out of their opponents.

Watchmen (book and film) demonstrated all of this perfectly. The lesser heroes won by beating people mercilessly. The two more powerful ones, Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias used their minds to achieve their goals but in the end, even Dr. Manhattan resorted to grotesque violence.

After reading and seeing Watchmen I lost my taste for superhero movies. A similar thing happened after watching The Larry Sanders Show pull back the lid and expose the rottenness of TV Talk Shows. Have not watched any of those shows since.

[Action_Patrol]

19. I don't see it that way.

Batman tends to have to outsmart his opponents. I really enjoyed the Dennis O'Neil run because it brought him back as 'the worlds greatest detective'. He didn't need to beat you up, he won the second he walked into the room.

It's difficult to try to put Watchmen in the same mold. It was written and created in '86 to tear down the preconceived ideas of comics. It did the same thing that The Dark Knight Returns did.
It's why DC wouldn't let Alan Moore use the classic characters to do what they were scripted to do. He had to create aliases for them considering some of the vile decisions they make.
In the end of that story, violence was only enacted 'for the greater good' regardless of how shitty and insensitive that decision was.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

66. Batman is subtitled, "The World's Greatest Detective" and he does uses his wits and

technology to ferret out the villain and thwart their machinations. However, part of the point of the villains is that they resort to force. They aren't relying on policy recommendations in a duly elected legislature, they're using weapons and powers. They aren't going to surrender simply because they're bomb was defused in time let alone surrender peaceably.

Superman, I believe is a different sort of character. His powers are god-like. That he chooses to be guided by the highest ideals when he could conquer instead is a commentary on his character.

Dr. Manhattan is a parallel to Superman. He too has that level of power but it leads him to grow distant to humanity, whom he would presumably protect and because of that he becomes manipulated into becoming the focal point of not only a false peace but a fragile one that is built upon the ashes of tens of millions of innocent lives.

The only one who escapes the moral failing of Ozymandias' scheme is Rorschach and his unwillingness compromise leads to his death. He stayed true to his moral code regardless of the personal cost. Many would label him a dangerous fanatic -- and indeed that conversation arises constantly during the course of the story -- but he is nonetheless untainted in the end. Not even Night Owl could make that claim and it was all due to unravel in the near future begging us to ask, "Was it worth it?"

[Nye Bevan]

9. The fascistic undertones of the Adam West Batman series used to make me physically sick.

Nazi indoctrination at its most insidious.

[el_bryanto]

10. Really? I was too young to watch the Adam West Batman as it came out

But have watched it sense and mostly think it's silly fun.

Bryant

[Nye Bevan]

11. You need to look past the "silly fun" and read between the lines.

At the very least it should be obvious that Bruce Wayne was a 1 percenter.

[el_bryanto]

14. Yes - it's inherent in the set up to Batman

Having a lot of money is kind of Batman's superpower.

But of course I don't think they used the term 1 percenter in the 60s.

Bryant

[Iron Man]

15. A 1%er who cared about the less fortunate.

[Action_Patrol]

20. Wow

You really see it like that?

[Reter]

65. He's actually an 0.1 percenter

He's worth $6.9 billion. But how that that in itself make him a fascist?

[Katashi_itto]

84. Wow...just...wow

Talk about a stretch

[Art_from_Ark]

89. Adam West as Bruce Wayne was not a "one-percenter"

He may have had wealth, but he used much of that wealth to devote himself to fighting crime. He was also a philanthropist. As a bigtime 1960s Batman fan who has watched numerous episodes over and over again, I have no idea how you can equate Adam West's character, or even the series, with fascistic undertones, much less Nazi indoctrination

[NuclearDem]

22. Fascism at its worst.

[Orrex]

38. When the Bat-tusi is considered fascist, then only fascists will dance the Bat-tusi.

And who wants to live in a world like that?

[Orrex]

36. Yeah. I remember the episode when he bat-purged the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto.

[Tom Ripley]

39. I found it to be more extreme camp rather than concentration camp

[snooper2]

43. did you actually throw up?

did you keep watching afterward?

[Nye Bevan]

85. I did keep watching.

But when they sang "na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na BATMAN" I sang along changing the words to "na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na FASCIST".

And don't tell me that Robin was not some kind of Aryanized ideal of a "Boy Wonder".

[Action_Patrol]

88. Shirley

You can't be serious. You can't be.

[Iron Man]

13. That reviewer jumped right into Godwin's Law.

It's just a movie.

Relax.

[truebluegreen]

17. Your post sounds like a bit of special pleading, Iron Man. nt

[Orrex]

21. I find the review facile and obvious.

Cool People are worth more than millions of boring and ordinary people, violence and war are a form of ritual purification, and a sufficient amount of awesomeness will render you immortal.

Ditto for The Epic of Gilgamesh, the classical Greek myths, and Beowulf, while we're at it.

It's a rare piece of fiction that focuses on the "millions of boring and ordinary people."

[Action_Patrol]

26. Ditto

Exactly what I was going to say with the same examples.

[Coventina]

27. This ^^^^

And, I would add, that the superhero genre in most cases (not all) takes a sad-sack of a character (pre-serum Steve Rogers for example) and is transformed through various ways into the hero. I always interpreted the stories as messages to always strive to be your better self.
Batman transforms his personal tragedy into a quest for justice.
Steve Rogers transforms his desire to contribute into heroic self-sacrifice.

If anything, I always thought the superheroes were fighting AGAINST fascism.

This reviewer is way off base.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. That what I was thinking - it's the same as classical 'heroes'

In which the important characters have amazing powers or weapons, and there are plenty of red-shirted extras as fight fodder for them. You can add Samson into the list, and even when a more explicitly fascistic (and real) story comes along, like '300', it gets sexed up with huge warriors and "with one mighty blow he slew the beast"-type stuff.

In fact, for all its liberal sentiments, the original Star Trek had an aspect that was more fascistic than a lot of these - a full military hierarchy, everyone in uniform, the red shirts ready to take the initial attack of whatever this week's enemy was, and die for the ship in it, and the awesome leader, whose word had to be obeyed, would come in and sort it all out. And the Federation expands by one more planet.

[thucythucy]

78. I think there's actually a lot of great literature

that focusses on ordinary people, as opposed to gods or superheroes.

Moby Dick is about an ordinary whaler, which in America of the 1850s was about as low socially as one could get.

Huckleberry Finn is about a semi-literate runaway "river rat" and his buddy an escaped slave.

Ulysses is about a college student, an ad salesman, and his wife.

Death of a Salesman is about, well, the death of a rather boring and ordinary salesman.

The works you cite all come out of patriarchal oligarchies. Even as limited a democracy as ancient Athens produced the plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, which (on rare occasion) featured ordinary people (as opposed to gods and superheroes) as their main characters.

I'd even hazard to say that much of the great literature produced since the 1850s has been about relatively average people, in terms of social status or class. And when "great" people are introduced as characters, as often as not it's to mock them or portray them as ridiculous--Napoleon in "War and Peace," Stalin in "The First Circle", the various military higher-ups in "Gravity's Rainbow" and "Catch 22" and "All Quiet on the Western Front." And so on.

Superheroes seem to me a definite throwback to an earlier, even classical tradition. Whether or not this constitutes some thread of fascism: that seems a bit much. But it does conform to a sort of "great men" vision of drama and literature, as opposed to something more modernist. "The Iliad" as opposed to "The Tin Drum," etc.

Anyway, it's nice to see some critical discussion about media on DU without an immediate piling on about how social or literary criticism inevitably leads to "banning" and censorship.

Best wishes.

[Orrex]

90. I was responding to a specific point made in the article, though

When I wrote

It's a rare piece of fiction that focuses on the "millions of boring and ordinary people."

I was addressing this assertion:

The lives of individual Cool People are worth more than millions of boring and ordinary people,

You're absolutely correct that a huge volume of literature focuses on the mundane individual, but the article seemed to be pitting "the individual Cool People" agains the "millions of boring and ordinary people." I don't know that I've ever read or even heard of a work of fiction that's specifically about these "millions" rather than about a relatively small population of characters, so superhero movies can hardly be singled out as unique offenders in this regard.

However, one of my ongoing criticisms of the Star Wars mythology is that the entire cosmos depends upon (or at least exclusively involves) just half a dozen or so Cool People, including (apparently) the forthcoming new film. I would instead be very interested to hear the story of the guy who fueled Luke's X-Wing, or the non-Force-empowered woman who contributed anonymously to the rebellion at the far edge of the galaxy.

Nope. The whole universe boils down to Luke, Leia, Han, Obi-Wan and Anakin, apparently.

[thucythucy]

91. I see your point.

And I'm not sure I agree with the article's conclusions either, though I did vote the "somewhat agree" option, because I didn't want to dismiss it entirely.

Yeah, it's probably impossible not to have any work of fiction driven by character, which almost by definition means singling out individuals, even if you want those individuals to stand in for the millions, as in "The Grapes of Wrath" or the Dos Passos [sic?] trilogy. "One Day in the Life of Ivan Dinosavitch" (again, not sure of the spelling) is probably the ultimate example of that.

Best wishes.

[FSogol]

23. No, not inherently fascist. They might have god-like powers, but typically*

are concerned with the public good. It is a nonsense argument since it is only fiction and secondary, they are just modern versions of mythology. Read the 1970s-1990s Captain America comics. He was essentially a liberal character concerned with civil rights, Watergate (Nixon killed himself when confronted in the comics), and human rights. At one point he was so disillusioned about the US he became Nomad, the man without a Country.


* There are anti-heroes, moderns versions, etc, that don't fit this model

[Nuclear Unicorn]

67. And in the Marvel civil war CA sides with the anti-registration faction and is vindicated. nt

[treestar]

24. I can dig that

The idea that someone is so strong they can beat back evil for the rest of us seems to be a cultural fantasy we have.

Though the villains are there too, representing evil in a similar way. So it's possible the hero stands for all of us in a way.

[NuclearDem]

25. Most tropes in action and superhero movies are old as dirt.

Fascism, by contrast, is a fairly recent invention.

[wyldwolf]

32. The more people throw around the word 'fascist,' the more it will lose it's sting...

... against REAL fascism.

[Bluenorthwest]

34. I think it is fascist like to opine about films one has not seen.

To attack people and art in terms of 'type' rather than as specific entities is a basic trait of various bigotry based ideologies and religions.

[el_bryanto]

37. To be clear, I don't have an opinion on the movie yet; as I haven't seen it

Andrew O'Herir has seen the movie, and that's who I am quoting, as a discussion point.

But I guess I know that you think I'm a bigot anyway.

Bryant

[Bluenorthwest]

41. I think claiming to speak for others is rude. I speak for myself and do not need you to rewrite me

I said I do not care for criticism of artworks or entertainments sight unseen. I think that is very small minded and almost always agenda driven. It is a habit on the right and it does in fact reflect a larger world view in which people and things are lumped into groups and judged without regard for actual fact and individual identity. I don't like that sort of thing. Do you?

[el_bryanto]

42. I think that a discussion of general themes in mass media is fine, and I think it's your attempt to

shut down that discussion with veiled references to bigotry is pretty lousy.

Mass media is interesting on a historical and sociological level precisely because it brings back the same themes again and again. This movie, which I intend to see tomorrow and which I expect I will love, is not the work of some author or painter in a small room - it is a big budget, Disney financed movie which exists because the people who paid for it determined it would tap into the same sort of impulses that other superhero movies have inspired (i.e. it will get people to plop down their 10 bucks to see it). I has been worked on by hundreds of people all with the goal of getting that money.

But even setting aside Guardians of the Galaxy, I've certainly seen enough superhero movies to have a general idea about how they work and what kind of messages they are spreading. And they are all made the same way - by hundreds of people, with studio approval, all trying to figure out how to get people to pull out their wallets and pay money for them. Which is why they can be analyzed to show what those themes mean to the society at large.

Why are you trying to shut down discussion of those themes?

Bryant

[thucythucy]

79. This ^ ^ ^

"Mass media is interesting on a historical and sociological level precisely because it brings back the same themes again and again."

Not only that, but I think it is perfectly legitimate, in fact even necessary, for progressives to examine mass media for their social and political messages, overt or otherwise. Mass media reflects upon and also helps create the society around us, and to ignore their political and social content, or to see them as inevitably politically "neutral" because "it's only a movie" is simplistic at best. "Birth of a Nation" was "only a movie," as was "Gone with the Wind." Both of them had a definite political impact not favorable to any sort of progressive or liberal agenda.

On the bright side: at least no one has accused you of being a prude or a censor. I guess for that to happen the content under scrutiny would have to contain at least one scene either explicitly about or suggestive of rape.

Anyway, thanks for your OP. Definitely some thought-provoking stuff.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

61. facepalm.

The OP, while it uses one movie and review as an example, is about an entire genre, of which most of us have seen many examples, even if we haven't seen the same ones as each other.

As human beings, we're able to perform generalizations that do indeed have meaning. In addition to discussing the individual characteristics of each individual dog, there are plenty of things we can say about 'dogs' as a group or 'beagles' as a breed that will remain accurate, even when we haven't seen your particular beagle, for example.

And this is something all humans do, not just 'various bigotry based ideologies and religions'.

[conservaphobe]

44. Don't know. I just watch to be entertained. nt

[hifiguy]

52. Depends entirely on the superhero.

Batman is pretty goddamn authoritarian. Spider-Man on the other hand, has always been a nerd that attracts trouble like a pile of horse manure draws flies.

Superman is a sort of platonic ideal of what a 'murkan superhero should be, which is hardly surprising since he was the brainchild of a couple of first-generation Jewish immigrants living in the Depression era. If he were inclined towards authoritarianism or fascism he could in theory just say "Fuck this, I am now dictator of the planet and you can't stop me."

A really good superhero movie is fine entertainment, just as good superhero comics are. The vision of the writer or creator decides where to take the basic characters in most instances.

[LittleBlue]

53. I think he's spouting nonsense to get clicks/comments from fanboys

No surprise it's Salon. They need an editor over there to focus on publishing quality rather than trollish clickbait. Salon has never been profitable partly because it publishes crap like this.

Yesterday it was "I'm a lesbian marrying a man", now it's superheros as fascists.

[Throd]

54. Some people overthink shit to death.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

58. fascist isn't the description I would have gone to, but

as you point out, they promote the same message as the NRA - violence employed by 'the good people' is the solution to pretty much everything. Depending on the movie, the violence might or might not involve guns, but the genre generally promotes and glorifies vigilanteeism. Even when the protagonist(s) is(are) part of the government, they are usually portrayed as 'going rogue' or going beyond their jurisdiction or legal abilities.

Given the state of our country, that's not really a great message to be sending, even if it does play upon the American myth of rugged individualism and self-reliance. It encourages the Zimmermans of the world. And certainly we've got far too many overly violent police exceeding both their authority and common sense showing up in the media as having shot family pets, burnt babies with flash grenades, beaten up people having medical emergencies, or shot unarmed suspects in the back.

[hughee99]

63. Having now read the review, it's now clear to me the writer doesn't really know what fascism is.

It sounds like someone who's gotten in the habit of using the term generically for things he's not supposed to like (like violence).

[Nuclear Unicorn]

69. I'm trying to find the description of something actually fascist in the review.

The complaint is about violence. Fascists may be violent but violence is not fascist in and of itself in the same vein that a horse is an animal but all animals are not horses. Such readily flawed thinking betrays someone who simply wants to be too cool for something as gauche as a mainstream comic book movie.





On the contrary the Guardians themselves are anti-authoritarian criminals. What movie was this guy even watching, let alone paying attention to?

[Throd]

70. The term "fascist" has been watered down to the point of meaninglessness.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

71. Agreed. It now means, "something I don't like and I don't like it because I

probably failed to understand it."

[el_bryanto]

72. It depends on the definition of fascism.

Fascism is a political system, an economic system (sort of) and a philosophy. While the Guardians aren't supporting a fascist political system or economic system, you could argue that the structure of the story is fascistic in philosophy.

Fascist philosophy isn't really that deep; it's a set of myths. One of these myths is that some people matter and other people don't. Arayans matter, and other peoples don't. Well some action movies do a good job of showing the consequences of the violence, but others don't. And if a movie doesn't show the consequences of violence on regular people, than you can argue that it supports the theory that the main characters matter but the rest of the world (or universe) doesn't.

The other point is the transformative power of Fascism - a fascist needs to be fighting, and in fighting reveals his true nature as a hero and a person worthy of mattering.

That said, I think that O'Herir does stretch it a bit; because frankly almost all movies focus on a few characters, the rest of whom don't matter. But it's not totally crazy to suggest that these movies can be seen as fitting into a fascist worldview.

Bryant

[AngryAmish]

75. I don't think the author understands what fascism is.

[Douglas Carpenter]

76. they do tend to promote the notion that all the world's problems can be fixed by kicking ass

conversely they also tend to promote the notion that most of the world's problems are caused by being a wimp - you know someone who thinks things through a little bit.

[DinahMoeHum]

77. These days, I prefer a spoof, like the "Kick-Ass" series. . .

. . .given the over-saturation of the superhero genre and the focus (too much) on CGI and explosions.

[8_Point]

81. Must be a hoot at parties...

[bigwillq]

86. Hello

Welcome to DU!

[nadinbrzezinski]

82. Having talked to creators

X-Men was about civil rights. You could not speak of blacks or Latinos in the 1960s but fuzzy blue guys with superpowers...or people in wheelchairs...

Batman is slightly about inequality and how it really is hard to deal with. The hero is doing what the police is unwilling or not capable of doing, and it came straight out of the depression. Superman is about solving issues, again depression.

Most comics are social criticism at it's core. These are archetypes going back millenia as well.

Author needs to learn about the subject the person chose to write about.

[TIMETOCHANGE]

87. Movies are interesting because they focus on narrow plots and occurrences.

If you made a movie about the average world, on an average day with average people. I wouldn't even bother to steal that movie online.

Sucker Punch --- was just plain whacky but entertaining for the visual effects and music.

Punisher --- was simple and focused. It was revenge for his family getting killed and he kept going afterwards, finding a mission to kill bad guys.

Salt --- featured Angelina Jolie and dealt with deep intrigue and espionage.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith --- funny, whacky, full of relationship issues common to many marriages writ large.

300 --- Because those Persians weren't interested in nicely talking things out and just going home. So a fight had to be had against invaders.

Action movie by their plot and purpose is to enjoy violence. There are typically good guys and bad guys, sometimes anti-heroes and bad guys. Bad guys don't listen to politics and don't care if they are deemed bad guys, and the only thing they understand is force and violence and won't stop till they are dead, so they have to be killed off. Thus violence is sometimes an answer.

To borrow from Frank Herbert of the Dune series, it is foolish to say violence solves nothing, it only fails to solve a problem when you don't use enough of it.