I don’t understand why it’s bad to enjoy evil characters. I don’t want to just consume Disney forever. I wouldn’t say I like Griffith as a person, but he is a very interesting character and crucial to the plot of Berserk. The title makes it sound like there is some alternative version of Berserk where Griffith doesn’t exist and it’s somehow better. Just because I like these characters doesn’t mean I missed any point. I don’t think that’s the case for most people. These posts are r/iamverysmart material.
You are missing the point, this post proves it. Nobody said that you can’t call characters well written or interesting, where people fall short is when they think these people are anything to aspire to or emulate. If you’re doing neither then move on but if you think those guys are worth anything of human value then you’d be severely confused on what humanity is worth.
I don’t think anyone is really saying any of those things though beyond obvious trolls. At least for most of the characters in this post. Maybe the fight club guy is an exception. Who is with 100% sincerity saying that Griffith and Johan are in the right? This post is making up problems that don’t exist.
Again, you’re missing the point.
People absolutely pull that shit with the brotherhood of steel
I think that the Brotherhood of Steel at least has valid arguments for each side. It’s not an inherently evil idea, it’s certain individuals that give them a bad name. There are genuinely good people in the BoS.
Yeah the point of them is that they’re ultimately grey. They’re blocked from doing the most good and to a reasonable degree from doing the most evil. But they’re self destructive no matter what and for every group of heroes you get from them, you get similar groups of villains. They’re knights in shining armor, some gallant and heroic and others self interested bullies, trying to keep everyone else from returning to an advanced society, but also trying to protect them from the evils of it.
The biggest thing is they can’t maintain any moral character from group to group or generation to generation. They’re too insulated, too ideologically bound (in a way completely separated from morality), too focused on their goals. They hate the Enclave, sure, but in part because both see themselves as what’s left of the government, they hate Caesar, but they also hate other grey factions like the NCR and the institute, and they can’t see the good of the railroad.
If you understand that Griffith is not someone anyone should want to emulate, I don’t think this meme is about you anyway.
This meme is about the insecure dudes who are hurt and angry and decide to channel that into some cringe edge-lord ‘I want to hurt everyone else and feel nothing but that it is my destiny to be on top’ phase.
Is this becoming a big thing somewhere? I have somehow managed to avoid those communities apparently. Or is it tied to a certain age group I don’t fall into?
This is the part I’m stuck on too lol. People see a couple of trolls online and believe there is a whole community of Griffith worshipers
I was unaware if it was that’s why I figured it was worth asking. I don’t exactly travel the world and my passport is in fact expired lol. So if it isn’t happening locally in my small town I find I may be blind to it
Becoming? It’s not new. Plenty of people have seen Scarface as a self-made badass instead of the pathetic, neurotic mess of a man he collapses into.
I have a hard time believing that those people represent a demographic larger than just a few online trolls. I think the meme is really about OP feeling smart
You cannot draw a visible Venn diagram of the coincidence of sociopathy and poor media literacy.
I don’t understand why it’s bad to enjoy evil characters.
Just because I like these characters doesn’t mean I missed any point.
It’s not bad but it’s a dangerous line to tread. You may get the nuance but far too many people don’t. It’s why so many people are enchanted by Tyler Durden and Patrick Bateman. These characters are meant to be vilified, not aspired to. That is why the cults of personality and admiring strongman authoritarians still persist because many people are easily impressed by raw display of power. Yanis Varoufakis mentioned we are all susceptible to it-- and by extension fascism-- in varying degrees and we’d be lying if we don’t feel impressed. He’s not saying we all secretly admire fascists but that all of us have a dark side and containing it is really the challenge.
I know it’s just my personal experience but I see more people saying that people are enchanted by those characters than i’ve ever seen anyone actually admit to it. Maybe you have, I can’t really argue that. I also disagree that it is a dangerous line to tread. Liking evil characters isn’t anymore dangerous than liking violent video games like GTA
I see more people saying that people are enchanted by those characters than i’ve ever seen anyone actually admit to it.
I don’t know about you but i see on social media defending and glazing toxic masculine figures such as Tyler Durden and Patrick Bateman. The profile of those admirers are typically lonely and insecure men, which another user has pointed out.
I can agree that there are probably some people who severely misunderstand those two characters. I do find it kinda funny that we both picked completely different people from the post. I firmly believe no one is misunderstanding Griffith and Johan. Any posts you may have seen defending them are 100% trolls
I don’t know about Griffith and Johan. I just thought they are of the same level of asshole-ness as Patrick Bateman, Tyler Durden and Joker because they are put together in this post 😅
Any posts you may have seen defending them are 100% trolls
I even met people in real life who hinted they admire toxic male figures although they won’t say it out loud. But in social media, they are vocal what they truly believe in. Although many are trolls, some indeed admire toxic masculinity. Social media merely gave these folks a megaphone to proclaim their thoughts.
In short, Griffith turns into a God/Demon by sacrificing all of his friends and followers, then proceeds to rape his best friend’s love interest right in front of him. Johan was the product of a Nazi experiment to turn humans into super soldiers from birth.
In all honestly, I likely wouldn’t have been so critical of this post had they not been included with the likes of Tyler Durdan, Joker, and Bateman. Lots of users have used the latter 3 as examples that work with what the OP is saying. I just don’t believe Griffith and Johan fit here.
Agreed. I love tons of evil characters precisely because they are more interesting or they make the world more interesting. So many have more interesting motivations, more interesting developments, and more interesting dialogue than the hero roles they counter.
There is a difference between enjoying an evil character, and what a lot of people do with these specific evil characters. The ones in this meme are often looked up to by a bunch of people. There are lots of people who believe they are the correct person in the story, or otherwise the one to be idolized.
I can’t really counter your argument, I’ve just never heard of anyone who thinks Griffith, Johan or any of these characters are correct. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but I doubt it’s anywhere close to being a split position to having.
Well, TBF, you have to get deeper into the weeb side of the black pill movement to understand how many weirdos out their side with grifith’s philosophy/the godhead, or Johan from monster. However, you will absolutely see them frequently if you, for some reason, subject yourself to places that have black pillers in larger numbers, twitter, 4chan, facebook… You would probably have to been in conversation space about scifi to really see the people who unironically defend the military government of earth in starship troopers, however its pretty common when the subject comes up.
However the Joker? you really have never seen people side with the Joker? I actually have a hard time believing you are social media savvy enough to be on Lemmy, and have not experienced the armies of losers that identify with the Joker as a hero. This is like police with punisher skulls level of common. The idolization of Tyler Durden as a working class hero is also quite common.
Looks at Enclave patches on my jacket
I understood the messages perfectly well, I just like the bad guys in this case. If it makes it any better ive also got a Freedom patch from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and two NCR patches.
Well it’s more people who think ideologically similar or missed the message. Like BOS is just techno-feudilism.
Two more for the pile
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?
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
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
I wonder if the message is about Rage Against the Machine and how conservatives always misunderstand the lyrics because they have zero media literacy.
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: …When did rage against the machine go woke?
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’s all good. Here I was thinking I was laying it on pretty thick given the context, but here we are. 🤷
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.
Upvoted because I caught the sarcasm lmao.
Before they formed as a band.
Lol.
Holy wooosh
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.
Guitar strings.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
based tbh
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.
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
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:
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)
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.
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.
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?
White’s whole thing was that he wanted power, not just money.
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.
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.
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
Only if you’re not a sociopath whose wants to directly against the well-being of others
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
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.
Taxi Driver as well
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.
deleted by creator
Right, we like Griffith because we want to obliterate that twink.
deleted by creator
Damn, some of y’all just suck all the fun out of tv and movies huh
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.
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.
What’s the message in Starship Troopers?
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?
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
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.
A non-militarized society likely wouldn’t get into a conflict with the bugs. We encroached on their land and bothered them
war is fun, and it’s cool when the enemy is scared of you
Also, big-butt-bugs 🐜
Service guarantees citizenship.
Do you want to know more?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Author: Satirizes toxic masculinity via cartoonishly terrible male characters
A concerningly significant portion of men: basedbasedbasedbasedbased
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.
Based? Based on what?
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.
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.
I believe it was Clarke that mentioned that Heinlein’s political beliefs depended on who he was having sex with that month.
