Agree or Disagree - Action Movies/Superhero Movies are basically fascistic. [View all]

[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

18 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Totally Agree
	2 (11%)
	Somewhat Agree
	0 (0%)
	Neither Agree nor Disagree
	0 (0%)
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	0 (0%)
	Totally Disagree
	1 (6%)
	Lighten up! It's just a movie!
	13 (72%)
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