I think that Black Panther is (ironically enough) even more right wing than Iron Man given that it directly and repeatedly endorses the CIA intervening in another country’s politics in order to overthrow the new dictator (who just happens to be anti-US and against opening up Wakanda’s markets to foreign exploitation) so that they can reinstall the righteous leader (who just happens to be pro-US and all for opening up Wakanda’s markets to foreign exploitation). All the while justifying all the work the new dictator did to illegally overthrow the governments of other countries and torture dissidents while on the payroll of the CIA right up until he starts acting against US interests (kind of like a certain real world Iraqi romance novelist turned poster boy of democracy turned evil tyrant).
Also it promotes the idea that said evil dictator utilising the natural resources of Wakanda to defend other African nations from being ruthlessly exploited by western imperialists is a violent terrorist action is extremely .
And the post credits scene shows the UN applauding as the restored righteous monarch declares that he’s opening the country’s markets for foreign exploitation or ‘to help those with less than us, so that we can be citizens of the world’ or whatever moralising bullshit he says to that effect
Edit: also I forgot about how Kill Monger, did actually legally win the trial by combat and as such the CIA is overthrowing the legal ruler of the country.
Damn, the ideology goes deep on this one, when Kill Monger disregards wakanda’s traditions on isolationism he’s the bad guy for “upsetting whatever wakanda’s bullshit version of the prime directive is” (attempting to build internationalist relations with other exploited countries) but when he respects wakanda’s traditions of trial by combat to decide who rules the country he’s “taking advantage of an obsolete violent system”.
:parenti:
There's also the white CIA agent who directly interferes and works to get the monarch reinstalled and he's portrayed as a friendly hero.
And the one girl (who is played by an antivaxxer, lmao) calls him a colonizer but in a bantery / affectionate way :mao-wtf:
A single one of the villain's ideas is used by the so called good guys at the end. Which is, Wakanda should use their massive wealth and power to protect and uplift the lives of black people where they are oppressed.
How is this idea implemented? He buys a couple buildings in a black neighborhood in the US to make an "outreach center" whatever the fuck that means.
Terrible trash movie and some of the most insidious propaganda I've ever seen.
calls him a colonizer but in a bantery / affectionate way
"Oh oops, I did a little colonisation by accident, my bad. Oh I'm such a clumsy left-brain sagittarius ENTJ coloniser klutz. I didn't mean to overthrow the democratically elected government of all those countries, brutally torture all the political dissidents and fund all those right wing death squads"
I've often said this. It's the most insidious right wing movie since Ghostbusters. It's got the CIA angle, the revolutionary being killed to show that actual change is impossible.
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Despite Wakandan technology, the citizens are still goat herders? Why are they forced to do this? But we'll assume that they want to be goat herders.
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But anyone can be the king, just by challenging the prince? So all citizens have an equal chance! Sure, the goatherder just has to defeat the prince, who has the luxury of being trained in Combat for his entire life AND is also genetically enhanced. Good thing you found time for your MMA training in between taking the goats out to pasture.
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The Prince is defeated using his own rules of single combat. Remember no-one is to help him. But he later appears, saying that the contest is still ongoing. But didn't you have help recovering, thus cheating? Oh well, Divine right anyway since the holy male offspring is destined to be ruler anyway. You lowborn scum aren't really set out to be rulers anyway..
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The Uncle explicitly stated that Wakanda had the responsibility to help the globally opressed, which is actually the mission of "the villain". Rather than the "villain" being allowed to disseminate technology to the globally oppressed, he is killed with the help of the CIA and the Wakandan technology given to the ruling classes to continue their domination. But here's a few outreach centers, and the best of the darkies might make it out of poverty..
I'm hoping against hope that Disney allows a Socialist to sneak by and actually do a decent Dr. Doom vision..
Despite Wakandan technology, the citizens are still goat herders? Why are they forced to do this?
Because they are black and this is their "natural" state, according to Hollywood.
But anyone can be the king, just by challenging the prince?
Well, no. You need to be able to approach the king to challenge him, and he's constantly surrounded by a Lady Praetorian Guard.
But more importantly the monarchs are inherently assumed to be beloved by the people. Wakkanda is Utopian because nobody ever tries to challenge authority. As soon as someone does, the system falls apart.
Divine right anyway since the holy male offspring is destined to be ruler anyway.
I believe future iterations of the franchise have a Girl Boss Yas Queen in charge. So Holy Female Offspring also qualify.
The Uncle explicitly stated that Wakanda had the responsibility to help the globally opressed, which is actually the mission of “the villain”.
The Uncle was deluded into a fit of idealism, while Wakkanda's True Rulers adhere strictly to Nixonian Realpolitik. Once Wakkanda is exposed, the leadership adopts a traditional policy of philanthropy to buy out neighborhoods in allied nations.
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Reverse Kudos to Thor:ragnarok for calling out White supremacy and colonialism blatantly in the movie. LOL@ Hela explicitly calling out "How do you think we got this land in the first place?!"
I was shocked that I heard no right wing hissy fits on that one..
Black Panther is pretty bad but I do think Iron Man 2 is the most right-wing. The scene where Tony goes before the Senate committee is very obviously heavily inspired by Hank Rearden's trial scene from Atlas Shrugged, and even worse Tony's argument is proven objectively correct by Winter Soldier when it is revealed the chairman of that Senate committee was Hydra all along and implicitly wanted the Iron Man technology to institute a tyrannical Orwellian dictatorship. The central conflict is essentially about patent disputes and the moral is implicitly that it's bad for gifted geniuses to get out of the weapons manufacturing industry because it allows far inferior lowest-bidder competitors to win those government contracts and cause a catastrophe.
All the Iron Man movies are, ultimately, overflowing with dogshit Randian tropes. But I believe the core pitch of Iron Man - both in the original comic books and the movies - is that weapons proliferation and armed escalations are bad. The problem with Iron Man as a franchise is that its always "Baby's First Argument For Demilitarization". So you get the fundamental problem with escalation (more heavily in 1 and 3 than 2, but its definitely still there) and the ahem Stark realization that you can't really control where these weapons of war end up. But you never get to the next steps of the equation - what drives militarization? what drives global conflict? what is necessary to achieve demilitarization? what role do people other than oligarchs play in demilitarizing states?
On that note, I really think Civil War is the most right-wing of the Marvel movies. It pitches this theory of justified escalation that neoliberals absolutely gobbled up during the Trump years. It posits an insidious "Outside Other" as the cause of all our domestic problems. It advocates for more Patriotic Vigilantism and mass surveillance in pursuit of these Fifth Columnist villains. And it promotes the military (rogue good-guy Nick Fury) over civilian government (evil Nazi politician) as somehow incorruptible, if not infallible.
I love that Black Panther found out that the CIA was selling weapons to his arch-nemesis and he was just cool with it.
The original Iron Man is pretty right-wing as a neoliberal wet dream.
I think I've read that the inspiration for Iron Man was to make a character that sixties leftists would hate - A rich alcoholic arms dealer.
Movie Iron Man is the liberal dream of a "smart" war on terror, which they all cling to as something that could have actually been done if only that cowboy Dubya hadn't fucked it up. There's a particular moment in that film's action sequences that sums it up perfectly - the terrorists have a bunch of civilian hostages, but Tony Stark uses a super-precise weapon to ID and kill them all without any collateral damage.
Thanks for putting this into words for me. I watched it for the first time recently and had a generally gross reaction to it, especially because of the valorization of the CIA and also the pro-monarchy stuff, but didn't really want to say anything about it because my girlfriend loves the movie. Lol. I have no input for whatever movie is most right wing because I think this may be the only marvel film I've seen since like Toby Macguire Spiderman lol
I haven't watched capeshit since Iron Man came out.
So. I guess my answer is Iron Man.
yeah probably, really the main ones to be suspicious of being right wing are iron man, captain America (but those are actually weirdly ok given that the main enemies are the nazis, apart from erasure of the soviet WW2 effort in the first film I'm pretty sure they're not too bad but its been a few years since i've seen them), and the spiderman films (child soldiers are kinda sus), and of course black panther (I hat e that film so darn much).
on an unreltated note i rpobably shouldn't drink while posting in future.
The actual left wing arguments are treated very strangely. The argument is actually shown as being sound, then they just ignore them. The Falcon and Winter Soldier raised the refugee crisis based on conflict as well as unfair distribution of resources, the white nationalist nature of the USA as legitimate problems, then just ignored them for "we have to be better". Complete Liberal brain production.
