we have to clarify that "don't worry guys I know the MCU is soy shit haha-ha buuuuut ..."? We should be better than this.
As a committed communist I "disdain to conceal [my] views " and I've said it a few times that the "MCU is good actually" and I've made it known a few times. 80% of the MCU dunks on the "left" I see are lazy garbage and honestly at this point are insulting to the fellow proles working on it. Lazy takes are much worse than dumb takes.
Same as Imperialism is the "Highest Stage of Capitalism", I've said that the MCU is the highest form of moviemaking. Notice I said moviemaking and not filmmaking.
Anyone here daring to give a lazy "haha lib MCU amIrite folx?" should be forced to read Ryan Coogler's eulogy:
https://www.marvel.com/articles/movies/marvel-studios-black-panther-director-ryan-coogler-on-the-legacy-of-chadwick-boseman
In my meeting after watching the film, I asked Nate Moore, one of the producers of the film, about the language. “Did you guys make it up?” Nate replied, “that’s Xhosa, John Kani’s native language. He and Chad decided to do the scene like that on set, and we rolled with it.” I thought to myself. “He just learned lines in another language, that day?” I couldn’t conceive how difficult that must have been, and even though I hadn’t met Chad, I was already in awe of his capacity as actor.
I can't imagine something like that happening in the Snyderverse that some of us hold up as a more "authentic" and interesting if mideocer movie making exercise.
Anyway, the amount of criticism the MCU gets only betrays your impotence: theoretical, for not coming up with better targets for your ire as well as practical, for not being able take any action to further your liberation.
PS if I should post to c/movies instead let me know
Edit: Nah. This isn't fun. Just downvoting arguments instead of a constructive rebuttal and engagements on bad faith isn't what I expected.
I mean... it's a Disney product. If you pirate all of the movies and are immune to propaganda, then I guess it's fine.
By the way, I've watched all of the movies and have paid to watch at least three of them. Disney is a force of evil and giving them money gives them more power, but I know people can't choose to give their money only to good companies since there aren't any.
Just want to say that piracy is the best way to go if you can do it and that the MCU, like almost all media, has reactionary messages that we have to watch out for.
I also think that it would be better if we could avoid giving AT&T money in order to be able to watch The Searchers.
By that logic you should pirate all your media.
Edit: And never visit a theater.
Yeah, that's what I was trying to say when I said "Disney is a force of evil and giving them money gives them more power, but I know people can’t choose to give their money only to good companies since there aren’t any."
Performative leftism looks for easy targets is the only way I can explain the low hanging fruit of criticizing superhero movies. Way too much other important shit to care about right now. I literally don't give a shit if someone likes MCU.
The only thing I use the MCU for is to bring up the absolutely bonkers amount of money it gets from the state department. Iron Man was the single biggest win for military PR in decades.
Superhero stories
That goes for all action movies, most TV shows and basically all long running media. I don't see them being maligned to the same degree.
Plus "The Winter Soldier" can be interpreted as revolutionary just to bring a counter example of the top of my head.being morally simplistic and unchallenging to its audience
Now that's something that I'd push against and would call pretty lazy.
don’t produce materially impactful actions
Which I tried with my analogy to Imperialism. It's something I've talked about here and in the discord.
Critiquing a dead person for being in a movie… Eh, unless that movie is some chud documentary, it’s a pretty pointless critique. We all do jobs to feed ourselves and there’s nothing more ideologically wrong with playing a character in a movie than writing the code for a video g*me.
No one ever said anything to that degree. Literally a strawman argument.
I would say you're just being disingenuously reductive towards the movies and would say that I hold the audience in a higher opinion than you do.
Edit: The screenshot didn't critique critique a dead man either
I think your ego is far too invested in the external validation of the MCU. You can feel free to enjoy them regardless of their ideological issues. Suggesting they don't have any of those issues is highly weird though.
I already go to therapy. I don't need anglo internet pseudo-leftists to try to
psychoanalyzeanalyse me as well.This didn't need an effort post and your reaction to people either being ambivalent to or disliking Marvel is just not worth your time. I'm also confused at the leap you're making here about this being about a larger leftist struggle.
It's mid tier effort post. Jeez. I guess I should have named it sincere post. My actual effort post take me hours to write and collate references but all of them are gone because reddit.
Listen snacks, I can't abide by a movie named after the Blank Panthers that also makes the actual Black Panthers the bad dudes. Now give me a marvel movie with a queer lead and class struggle and I'll change my tune on cape flicks, but until then don't play me any clarinet concertos. I'm old, but I'm not deaf, ya hear? :dem:
I can’t abide by a movie named after the Blank Panthers that also makes the actual Black Panthers the bad dudes.
Biden would never say that.
Leftist Biden would know that the names aren't related. but you are correct. I missed the point.
I'm sorry snacks, but I never followed comics. Just baseball, revolutions, and horse races.
Popeye and Archie just never did it for me, they cost a whole nickel and you could buy a pack of smokes for that same amount back in the day.
then we're square and spoken for... now spit in your palm and shake an old man's hand so we can part ways as compadres.
The character "Black Panther" predates the Black Panther Party by 3 months smart ass.
that's a honkie lie and I refuse to believe others, snacks. No way our man Huey named a Maoist org after a Jack Kirby character.
Is the OP not doing a bit? This reads like a copypasta... especially the Snyderverse dig that completely nullifies everything said before it.
I thought it was a bit but deleted my snarky comment in case OP is just having a hard time getting his point across or something. It just reads like a fanboy rant to me.
Ok. I see how that might be confusing. It's a point I didn't think about a lot compared to the rest. I might have just made a bad comparison or more likely an ilthought out argument.
You tried to make some sort of grand "think of the workers" argument for MCU then just trashed another highly produced series. Your argument comes off like a fanboy more than someone actually examinimlng the material consequences of massive budget military propaganda.
You're being intentionally obtuse. I clearly laid out an example of collaboration and worker input being taken by management in the MCU and compared it to the notoriously dysfunctional set and top down mismanaged work environment, with included delays and months of avoidable overtime.
You also completely (intentionally or not it doesn't matter) misinterpreted my argument. I'm not criticising the Snyderverse. I'm criticizing you, who hold the Snyderverse as being somehow obviously superior. This is a reference to an argument I got myself.
You're getting mad about people not taking hypercapitalist superhero movies seriously as leftists. I think you're putting way too much stock into movies that don't deserve it but that's just my opinion. It comes across as a weird fanboy rant that is a bit divorced from reality. Sorry about the snark though.
No. I'm getting mad that in a community built on empathy people in it seem to have a blind spot. I'm also disappointed in a community that wants to tackle hard questions is lazy when it comes to an easy one.
Edit: Instead of deleting a comment based on a misunderstanding it's ok to just add and edit saying there's a misunderstanding. I don't mind snark. I was snarky myself. Combative even.
As someone else said superhero movies are reactionary as fuck but side note: dam if it was amazing when i finally watched black panther that it was so fukn reactionary. The bad guy is almost literally a real life black panther. Ie, someone who wanted to arm black rebels. Like god dam if that isn't the most whitewashed shit. The bad guy wants to arm literal black panthers and the good guys are a hereditary monarchy that keeps the peace in the movie by essentially not helping out any other black struggles in the world at all. They even mention that they could help, but don't. Amazin stuff. The effective message is "the black struggle is real but the bad guys are the ones who want to do any of the struggling, instead we should all just be friends." Like they literally end it at a UN meeting. Amazing.
I read all of the think pieces, I listened to the podcasts and I agree with most of the points. That aspect left a bad taste in my mouth while leaving the theater. I'm not blind to it. I'm not in the mood to argue the Black Panther point at this point. Edit: Yes I know that the movie has the CIA getting their hands on rare African minerals. I fucking know.
But I'll ask you this about the "Superheros are inherently reactionary because they are an Over Man" crowed: what about Spider-Man? The everyman superhero whose life is shit even after getting powers? Who's still poor and can't afford rent? What about Spider-Man stories where he is saved by his friends? What about the themes of responsibility and empathy in Spider-Man's canon?It's not about the literal person the superhero is, it's about the world portrayed. Superheros defend society from an external threat. It's inherently always a conservative vision. There are undoubtedly superheroes that are rebels to a society, but most "super heroes" are people who save people from a calamity caused by some personalized external threat. I.e, our society needs to be defended from an external threat that we aren't prepared for and thus we need to centralize a lot of power and authority into one defensive thing in order to stop it.
EDIT: I remembered that some people have done the "well the external threat is climate change!!!" or the "external threat is fascism!!!!" thing and even that is more libshit. In the case of climate change (a lot of people say Thanos is this) you're still in hot water because either Thanos is those fighting climate change via some conservative caricature, or he himself is climate change in which case you end up with the idea that climate change is an external threat to society rather than a feature of society as it's constructed. In the case of fascism, if you can present me with superheroes from the soviets who stopped invading nazis, that'd be neat, but there's still be an air of nationalism there. Still it'd be vastly preferable to the current configuration in the west, where you can pretend it's fascism but again like with climate change, fascism is a feature here not a bug so it's not an external threat. Realistically it's just gonna be Russia/China/etc (edit: or mexicans/refugees if you're conservative) in most people's minds
Spider-man is a class traitor who spends most of his time fighting low level street crime and not using his power to fight for the liberation of the people.
This should have definitely gone to movies instead and also I'm confused as to why this matters so much to you at all.
I kind of don't like Marvel movies, but you do have a hood point that people on here are pretty obnoxious. So yeah, have an upvote.
That's what I mean. I seriously don't care if they aren't your thing. Say Marvel isn't my thing instead of Marvel is just lib shit if you want to talk about it in a positive light. Marvel in the grand strokes IS lib shit but when you look closely there is a lot of unrelated good to find. What frustrates me is most people here don't bother looking closely.
Also I hate to break it to everyone. More people like the MCU than go vote. So it's not a good idea to shit in something this popular all the time if you want to persuade them to your side.
It’s funny as fuck that slagging off marvel movies is what finally crossed your red line. Not the constant simping for North Korea and China or denying Holdomor.
Not the constant simping for North Korea and China or denying Holdomor
Because that stuff is good.
Personally the tankie stuff got me mad to the point where I posted that. I may be "a radlib" but at least I can let people enjoy things and have hope without accusing them of being CIA.
Lol hilarious thread. Judge Dredd was the best comic book, loved that artwork.
I try to enjoy stuff and not let my political beliefs make me miserable when watching media.
You don't let your political beliefs make you miserable at all times? Liberal.
![[mid tier effort post] Are some of us so subsumed in this culture war shit that even when discussing the tragic death of an upstanding man and fellow worker](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/KVIzxjxQuB.jpg){kind=link}