Lately I have been watching a friend play BioShock Infinite, something to which I paid little attention at the time of its release. At first the setting and the story were attracting me, as they pertain to my field of interest… but later in the story, after acquainting us with an archetypal capitalist, I noticed that the story was getting a little ‘darker’—in a familiar way—and it soon devolved into what I feared: another subplot about how much revolution sucks.
I’ve seen it already in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Metro 2033, so I know how it goes: first the writers lure you in with a display of the prerevolutionary situation, and at first they portray the revolutionaries positively, but as the climax approaches the revolutionaries go around suddenly committing atrocities without any clear rhyme or reason, nothing can be done to prevent it, ordinary people hate it (so the revolutionaries abuse them too), and the lesson is that revolution is no better than the prerevolutionary situation.
Why do revolutionaries go through the trouble of making revolution? Not because the material conditions (whatever those are) made revolution inevitable, no. It’s because revolutionaries are stupid and unreasonable. Simple as that. That’s probably also why they commit atrocities, and also why they can’t figure out how to keep their supporters without resorting to coercion or violence.
The message, it seems, is an advertisement for conservatism: ‘Yes, we’ll admit that things may be awful now, but no matter how awful they may be, anything else would be worse, so just shut up and do nothing.’ They don’t state it outright—possibly because of how embarrassing it would look—but that is the only conclusion that I can draw. (Otherwise, the only alternatives are either that the writers wanted to subject innocent people to their angsty, immature whining, or they simply wanted to waste their time, both of which would be bafflingly unwise of them.)
Is there anything inaccurate about my observation? Because otherwise, I don’t know why these presumed professionals would suddenly subject us to this lazy and shallow writing.
The recent Wakanda film was especially terrible on this sort of thing.
I started cutting people off for trying to talk to me about that movie. I’ve not been able to give a fuck about Marvel since the Avengers replaced the X-Men as the ‘front-and-center’ cape team; but when the Black Panther movies started dropping, that’s when my DGAF metastasized into outright, total hatred.
Imagine naming a cape after the single most radical organization America has ever known, and then having that cape be the same Pentagon collaborating, military-industrial complex bootlicking piece of shit all your other capes are.
Part of me believes there’s a conspiracy to separate these names from their roots. If you look up Black Panther now you’ll most likely have to sift through a load of capeshit till you find anything about the movement.
And recently Marvel announced a film about an Israeli hero called “Sabra” which is the name of a town where occupation forces committed one of the biggest massacres in its history. So if you look up “Sabra Israel” you’ll first see some shitty Israeli Hummus brand, then marvel crap, and only then do you find something about the massacre.
Ohhhhhhhhh, so this is a pattern of malevolent action on Marvel’s part. Just fuckin lovely.
The comic Black Panther was named at the same time of the movement and had no relationship. So I dont think that was the ORIGINAL idea, but cant say the same thing for modern day movies specially with the Sabra bullshit you gave as an example
I was expecting big things with that film. It became the go to example in so many books on race and decolonisation. I was hesitant but looking forward to it. What a disappointment. Jfc.
Same. I remember polish internet crying “It’s full of antiwhite racism!!!” so i watched it, and there was racism, but it was just the standard murican one.
Yes, but then the CIA guy shows us the US isn’t racist, actually. This is good because now I can sleep soundly again, knowing that even when it’s the bad guy the US is really the good guy.
Sounds like a plot for most of those movies
The one I hate the most is the Falcon/Winter Soldier series. Halfway through the series a black man that was tortured and experimented on by the US government tells Falcon this about becoming the captain america:
“No self-respecting black man would ever wear these symbols”
And he is fucking right, but you know what is the resolution to his storyline?? Falcon inaugurates a statue with a 3 paragraph text explaining his story in a museum dedicated to the Oeiginal captain america. Literally a footnote on the history of the “great myth” of Captain America.
Its so ironic and infuriating bc that is exactly how Americans treat any of their past horrendous crimes. Its just a footnote on their history at best.
Native americans genocide? That was long time ago…
Slavery? Oh but the civil war…
Two fucking nukes on civilians? Not war crime because WWII or some shit
Concentration camps for japanese? Philippines genocide? Colonization on the Pacific? Apartheid? Imperialist agressions? Wiping out whole nations? Chemical weapons? Persecution of black movements? Radiation poisoning of native people on the pacific? Torture centers? Police brutallity? Keeping the whole world under surveillance?
That’s bad, sure, but fuck China because Mao killed some feudal lords I guess 🥰#blm
Not to mention the main “villains” of the show. All they wanted was a dignified life for everyone, but fuck them I guess cause they got angry and killed a few cops. So much for human dignity, you didn’t ask the billionaire overlords nicely so forget about it.
Also the intro of the new Avengers manager type character. There was probably lots wrong with Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury but he seemed neutral enough as far as Marvel goes. Julia Louis Dreyfus’ character on the other hand… Is she supposed to be Madeline Albright or Hillary Clinton or something?
Reee #itwasherturn you bigot! /s
Also, funny little unrelated bit, since we’re on Marvel talk: there was this (cancelled short) series called Newuniversal, by Warren Ellis. Now Ellis is your typical British “enlightened” lib, but he did some bangers in the past. So in this series, which is set in a parallel (to the main one) universe, Hillary is president and authorizes NSA to begin a massive program for locating and exterminating emerging super-powered people. Funniest shit.
Lol why was it cancelled?
Low sales or Ellis being a primadonna, could be either. I don’t actually know
The MCU has become waaaay more pro-status quo since its beggining
I doubt we would even get something like Captain america 2 nowadays
Funny you should mention that particular movie. See, they did an oopsie there, what with having Hydra being in charge of US intelligence community, sowing chaos worldwide to ensure their new order is accepted and all that.
Thing is, if you pause for even a minute after that, you’ll find yourself thinking “wait, if USA and shield have been under the bad guys since the 1950’s at least, doesn’t that mean USSR were the good guys?”
The studio must have realised that as well, because they’ve backtracked in the third movie. They’ve introduced a stereotypical russkie bad guy character (ever noticed how they’re always made ugly?), a secret hydra base in Russia, those secret super soldier assassins, etc etc. All for the single purpose - to wash away the concerns.
I think that the movie has a “libertarian” vibe to it. In the end, Steve speeches are how they will defeat the government because he believes in “freedom” and trust “individuals”, so I’d say it’s the classic broken clock that is right twice a day.
And in the end they destroy SHIELD but keep the Avengers and every other government institution running, so the problem was never the status quo, the problem is that it was not the “true america” because it was full of nazis 🤓
Ironicaly Captain America 2 is partially responsible for my radicalization bc its the reason I know Edward Snowden and his revelations about NSA
That’s actually an excellent point, regarding the individualism of it. Thanks!
Real talk: Sam Wilson, if he wasn’t a cape, would’ve been another one of these ladder-pulling misleaders that graduated from a Divine Nine frat the way damn near every misleader I’ve ever known did(you can’t trust the modern-day Boulé or their adjacencies), moved his whole family out the hood and into some hwhite gated community to ‘keep his kids from running the streets’, and from there, would eventually end up some do-nothing politician in the Congressional Black Caucus. Honestly fuck him and anyone who backs him.