Filmmakers skewer fascism with satire and tragic heroes. But what happens when audiences miss the point?

  • DragonBallZinn [he/him]
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    14 days ago

    Joked about this before, never make the villains too cool.

    Idiocracy is so far the closest thing I would say to a problem satirization of reactionaries. Not endorsing the film, just pointing out that it’s a somewhat viable strategy: play into the ego of the viewer that they are simply too smart to just blindly trust Fox News and corporations and that reactionaries are absolute fools.

    • BeamBrain [he/him]
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      13 days ago

      Joked about this before, never make the villains too cool.

      This is one thing I love about Hypnospace Outlaw.

      spoiler

      Adrian, the CEO who owns Hypnospace and whose short-sighted greed kills the platform (and several of its users) isn't a smooth, manipulative, ruthless executive with a clever scheme. He's an idiot who can't bother to type properly and thinks he's much cleverer than he is.

    • frauddogg [null/void, undecided]
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      edit-2
      13 days ago

      never make the villains too cool.

      If you're gonna make a straight-up fashy villain, at least make them an Eren Yaeger. Sure, people simped hella hard over him before the epilogue dropped; but all I can see post-epilogue is a sobbing, insecure wretch hoping Mikasa doesn't move on from him. And that's how he, and every villain like him deserves to be remembered. (They say, with a full-on (if meme-edited) post-Hidden Inventory Suguru Geto icon...)

      • Enjoyer_of_Games [he/him]
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        edit-2
        13 days ago

        Somewhere between Hogan's Heroes and Downfall there is a relate-ability valley that must be avoided.

      • DragonBallZinn [he/him]
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        edit-2
        13 days ago

        Not that I have any room to talk myself lol. I have a Goku black pfp.

        But if I could vote on a good way to write a fash villain, I’d make them like elf from Elf Comic because she makes for a good loser fascist villain already with this comic and this one and the one where Elf chooses death over associating with the so-called ‘lesser races’ as good inspiration.

        I’m even personally working on writing a story of an elf who’s a total loser fascist called Forsan and all he has going for him is “at least I’m an elf!” (the story title). He starts off as a loser, but at least has a few loser elf friends he hangs out with but eventually those friends start getting to know all the “prey races” that they were told were beneath them by the elf supremacist content creators they watch on crystal ball (this universe’s version of tv, phones, computers, etc.). Forsan’s friends eventually mature past their elf snobbery while Forsan doubles down and ends up becoming the least popular in-universe character and makes zero achievements with his life….he ends the story friendless but I’m debating whether he realizes he messed up big time or he copes by simply assuring himself that he’s an elf and everyone clearly must be jealous of him and the world is plotting against him.

        I try to play into one fear that reactionaries have: being unpopular, and therefore no one respecting them.