American History X is the ur-example of this. Nominally anti-racist and anti-fascist, the movie intends to depict a man's journey to recognize his own hatreds as built on prejudice and his own insecurity and anger. He learns to accept others, lets go of his hate, and returns to his community a changed man. But, at the end of the movie, we see that it's not so easy to escape the cycle of violence.
But it's also a movie that starts with a hot, ripped Edward Norton having bed-breaking sex with Fairuza Balk when he is interupted by black men trying to steel his truck. He proceeds to confront the men, gunning one down, before he wounds the other one and curb stomps him with near-orgasmic enjoyment.
And that's what the fash focus on. They laugh and mock the anti-racist messaging, choosing only to engage with the parts of the story they think glorifies their beliefs.
Fight Club is a great example. The story was written by a Gay man and the plot is pretty much "Are the straights alright?" The story follows a nebbish office geek, again played by ripped as shit Edward Norton, under going a delusional tail spin of self destruction where he becomes homeless, terrorizes his coworkers, builds a cult of disenfranchised young men, has hot sex with Helena Bonham Carter, and then engages in a major act of anprim terrorism. In the end of the book the hero defeats his depraved hyper-masculine alter ego but finds he cannot escape the consequences of his actions.
But most straight men focus on the "Ripped as shit" "Sticking it to the man" and "Fucking Helena Bonham Carter" parts and ignore how the protagonist ends up broken and completely alienated from society except for his psycho cultists.
There's a saying that there's no such thing as an anti-war movie (excepting Come and See), and in the same sense there's really no such thing as an Anti-Fascist movie. Death of the Author is in full effect. Whether it's Pink Floyd's the Wall, or something openly and enthusiastically fashy like 24, Fascists and nascent Fascists will engage with the material they like and ignore the rest.
I think Blakely's read on Breaking Bad is misplaced. I could see where the fash could read those things into the show, but it would take a fair bit of warped logic to get there. I mean yes, the entire point of the show is Walter engaging in a power fantasy but that goes on to ruin his life pretty soundly. He poisons a child and kidnaps his own infant daughter. His wife hates him. His son hates him. His sidekick hates him.
One of the parts of the show I didn't like was where Walt shows up to quasi-redeem himself by killing the nazis. Because Walt was just as bad, if not worse, of a person as they were, but the ending lets the sympathetic viewer pretend that's not true. In my ideal version, Walt dies in anonymity and Jesse escapes some other way. Maybe someone else shows up to kill the nazis—Badger and Skinny Pete show up with a bazooka or something, maybe he just files through the bars of his cage and gets out. But I don't need Walt the Antihero, big mistake.
I will agree with Blakely's take that the show doesn't engage with the reality of the narco-state and instead portrays narcos as uber powerful psycho terrorists.
Though I haven't actually watched Breaking Bad since my political views, uh, matured so maybe I'd feel differently if I watched it now.
breaking bad was always bad. there is no judgment for white (he's happy to trade everything for his pride/vanity); by the fifth season, it's just a series of many opportunities to indulge in how clever he is, all to the audiences amusement and vicarious gratification of their will to power. grubby, hot couch trash.
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