i can't believe this exists
Just glancing at the abstract and not having read the paper- looks interesting. Author is trying to do a Marxist analysis of the texts vis-a-vis settler colonialism, with Goblin Slayer as a reactionary re-framing of standard isekai power fantasies (for example, in something like SAO the labour of the protagonist is always rewarded and he is thus non-alienated). What I'm curious is 1) how the author will reckon with other isekai that had their narratives centered on colonialism like Gate or Shield Hero and 2) the relative utility of such criticism of culture/entertainment/soft-power, because as much as they might flatter themselves terminally online weebs aren't the drivers of fascism, it's the politicians who get got by :the-doohickey: (after all, superstructure follows base).
I'll come back and comment more later when I have some time to read thru.
Edit: Ok, having skimmed thru it: 1) he doesn't, rather he just wanted to point out that in general isekai power fantasies are the fantasies of the oppressed proletariat yearning for the end of alienation from their labour with Goblin Slayer as the reaction to the emptiness of that fantasy and 2) his scope was much smaller than I anticipated, my man just wanted any excuse to quote J. Sakai’s Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat.
But most importantly, as the crisis of the system awakens the global proletariat, the ideological justification for keeping it down becomes more and more genocidal. Goblin Slayer emphatically reminds its fans of this fact with vigor.
I like the cut of his jib, author go on Chapo.
:yea:
Thank god recently there's been a trend of isekai stories where they drop the entire "save the world by exploiting it" pretense and replace it with "I retire to the countryside with my big boobed 30 something girlfriend to become a farmer". It's not lesbians overthrowing the bourgeoisie, but it's better than slavery harems. Low bar, I know, but still.
It can go the other way honestly to a reorientation of further escapism. Doubling down, instead of confronting the isekai genre's pitfalls.
The thing is that i find these comfy situations complacent unsustainable without exploitation running in the background irl(ex: underpaid workers and why the americana, your own big farm fantasy is shit).
I don't watch Hollywood shows, but it's intriguing on how much TV in Asia rely on a middle-class fantasy as a dream occupation/occupation of the protagonist. Like cafe owners, bookshops, friendly landlords, and such.
On another tangent obviously i'm not hoping for a marxist art to pop up and just watch that for the rest of my life. Tendency literature, according to Engels, is bad propaganda. Most contemporary leftist art is corny and boring(in terms of form).
There's a reason in why you can appreciate Bambu as a rapper so much, he blends the struggle and his truths, that's why he's not corny. Most non-corny art that incorporate social commentary are either in prestige TV with great form(writing) and not too self-aware(Billions, The Wire) and others have the backing of experience in being organized(Boots Riley, Masao Adachi).
The oppressed are hoping for an ending, and they have to be stuck with vague/bittersweet conclusions? That's supposed to be cinema? Fuck arthouse. Fuck indie. A proper ending is more entertaining.
Those vague shows are just schlock for bougies to teeth on(Succession, The Menu, Tar, Triangle of Sandness as recent examples).
Considering they fund the above shows the ruling class obviously have an eat-the-rich fetish. Fuck them.
Anyone who champions these A24 class signifiers as class struggle entertainment are professional bullshitters. You don't want to engage in a bougie "cinephile's" kink non-consensually. Stop watching eat-the-rich stories.
Good post. Yeah, those shows probably are a further retreat into escapism- I guess they're only preferable in that their form of reaction is less overtly fascistic.
Good point about leftist propaganda. Personally- I think the only way we'll find out how storytelling turns out is when/if we come out the other side of revolution. Right now I'm just taking the frequency of left/right leaning media as a cultural barometer of where we're at.
I know you lot are mostly not Maoists, but How Yukong Moved The Mountains is a great preview about the socialist future.
(In my own words as observation of the film: Even love is different on the other side of the revolution. It's dialectic!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPX2fWgoiyg
Whole thing is about capturing enjoyment from fascist violence (generalization from watching this video 3 years ago)
37 minutes in it talks about the history of it and how its based off/influenced by vile racist shit.
the whole conceit of the show is watch the hero mindlessly slaughter the vile subhumans that rape our women. Like, exact replica of conservative rhetoric
I would like to apologize for the shit that I've given you in the past about Treat Enjoyers. I think I just didn't get it because I hadn't interacted with them enough. I still think it's good to try to flush that voice from one's head, but I can see why it would be difficult and there are worse things you can do than vent about bad things being bad.
I agree. I like some anime that have bad things, I just don't kid myself about the bad things. Hell, I have been meaning to get into Berserk for a long time knowing full well about the bad parts (because Griffith seems interesting and the art is incredible), I've just bounced off it because the series started when the author, Miura, was very young and so it was a bit grimdark in just the way you understandably dislike (and I find boring). I hear it gets better later on and Miura even does a lengthy prequel arc to make the grimdark part a bit more compelling because it establishes characters and motivations leading in to it.
And like the most sordid of incantations, you summoned its apologists.
The curtains are blue!
The curtains have a swastika on them.
No! They're just blue! Not everything is political!
I don't think I've ever seen something more openly fascist without using symbols of real life fascist movements than that fucking first episode. "Through expression of my will of power, I find a final solution to the goblin question so that a secure future could be build for our women and children." Gimme a fucking break. The only thing that comes close is if you take the Starship Trooper movie or spess mehreen dickriding at complete face value and even they didn't have some fascist "we must wipe out the bugs/xenos because they're r-wording our women" anxiety.
morally justify a fascist genocide campaign running for the entire duration of the story
I havent watched nor read it but according to the 1st chapter, arent the goblins inherently evil mindless beasts like the demons in doom? So technically isnt it not a genocide to slaughter them? Because in this case they are a fantasy enemy which represents the idea of evil right?
Did you know that they were written to be inherently evil to justify a heroic genocide? Really makes you wonder why the author wanted to justify such a thing
They are, not that that is going to stop the same usual nerds from getting big mad about it being fascist slop or whatever
I want to read some Dungeons and Dragons shit where the characters make use of real world physics intersecting with in universe magic to Do Cool Shit. Goblin Slayer has that, and does a good fucking job of it. Connecting a teleportation scroll to the bottom of the ocean to use the water pressure like a laser? Cool. Using flour as a fuel air bomb? Hahaha cool. Sorry certain people are too fucking obsessed with their hatred of media and media tropes to appreciate it because they think the only Good Media would have the main characters idk building communism with the goblins
I almost want to write some parody shit where I basically take one of the posts criticizing "the settler colonialism of [whatever isekai Nerds Mad About]" and transpose everything to being about, idk, Ghostbusters. Are the ghost busters not a proto fascist escapist stand in for the viewer? Are the faceless, 'evil' ghosts not merely stand ins for the colonized indigenous, encouraging the viewer to Do a Genocide? Idk i think it's a good bit. You can't enjoy Ghostbusters anymore, sorry sweaty
Waitwaitwait hold on a second.
So, first of all- you're free to consume problematic media. Reading Mein Kampf or The Turner Diaries doesn't automatically turn you into a Nazi, otherwise we'd have a lot of right wing political graduate students. The only danger these books pose are to those who uncritically accept the author's ideas, and I'm sure there'll be no problems on that front given the general media literacy of people in the anglosphere. If you think there's cool stuff in the show by all means enjoy it.
But Goblin Slayer was written for someone, by someone, to communicate something.
Why are the goblins cunning enough to set traps and ambush people, but too stupid to engage in diplomacy or have their own culture? Hmmmmm, I dunno, my dude Umberto Eco has something to say about that. “[…] the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.” I dunno, seems pretty sus to me...
Why does it open with graphic rape? Oh haha those whacky Japanese and their strange cultural perversions, that's it, it's totally not that fear of sexual assault has a long history of being used to justify racism. It's not as if historically minorities have been lynched on trumped up charges of sexual assault. It must be because the goblins are ontologically evil, the author's not trying to draw some equivalence or something.
If the goblins pose that much of a danger to people, why do the powers that be leave them alone? Why isn't there an organized response by official to deal with them? Why do the powers that be actively suppress information about goblins? Can't possibly be anything to do with conspiracy theories about how the the media in the real world suppresses the real crime statistics that show minorities in a bad light, right? Can't possibly be so that the big, strong MC has to take things into his own hands, go all 'lone wolf' and enact all that cool improvised violence, right? Gotta be a real big damn hero. Oh here comes Eco again: “in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
The answer to the above questions, of course, is because the author wrote it like that. So the next thing we need to ask is why. Who could this story possibly be for? I hope I gave sufficient inferences through the sarcasm.
When people criticize art, they aren't attacking you as a person, they're attacking the ideas presented in the texts. I'm not trying to wokescold people into enjoying only Good Communist Approved Media. Me, personally, I call shit like Goblin Slayer out because I'm the fucking minority in question who racists will call a goblin and say deserves to be genocided, "just like in my le ebin animays". Because the spread of and acceptance of these ideas in the wider culture without pushback is just one more drop in the bucket towards fascism, so I'll point out all the ways in which a show like Goblin Slayer promotes far-right ideas and talking points in the vain, pointless hope that people who watched the show and didn't realize it actually think about what the show is trying to say, and maybe they realize how those messages can be dangerous because too many people are uncritical of the media they consume.
Ask yourself: why do racists 4chan shitheads stan this show so hard?
P.S. Ghostbusters? Really? The movie about how Reagan era deregulation is good actually, where the villain is the EPA and attempting to enforce environmental regulations is what causes the most problems?
great post
i'm regularly shocked at the supposed unwillingness of self-described leftists to read. your comment is a 2-3 minute read at average reading speed.
I admire Goblin Slayer on how militant he is even after success in vanquishing his enemies, he never underestimates his opponents.
(w/ Japanese entertainment as context) I also appreciate many right-wing shows(mostly in form). My fave band even said some anticommunist talking points out of context, didn't even expect it. My appreciation mostly ends at form though. They're just fun to watch/fun to listen to.
Critiquing them is even another form of enjoyment! And it's fun to do. Try watching and critiquing Shin Godzilla, for example. Not all entertainment has to affirm your politics for it to be fun(This is a problem especially in watching art by problematic artists. Learn to separate them already).
Watching and dissecting their themes can be even used as a tool to sharpen your own political alignment.
I love Shin Godzilla! One of Anno's best, most politically charged works. His take on US Imperialism was really interesting.
Not all entertainment has to affirm your politics for it to be fun
Of course. What I'm taking issue with the person I'm replying to is their insistence that there aren't any politics present in the text we were discussing.
Edit: Also, it gets a bit harder to Death of the Author when you're the one on the receiving end of the author's political violence. Still possible, but still.
I'm just trying to have a discussion with you because your points are interesting, didn't even notice the ongoing replies.
For me, Shin Godzilla distills Japan's right wing political bent( on reaffirming japanese nationalism). The reccuring anti-American esp. in connection to anti-nuclear sentiment really seals the deal. It's a complex work.
Regarding on the Death of the Author: A fascist statement is still a fascist statement whether attributed or not. If a song sounds misogynist, it's probably misogynist. I don't derive enjoyment from misogyny. I take along the art based on my own valuations and interpretations.
Shit on the author as much as we can. They're the least of our consideration. In the turn of the capitalist condition, we can always repurpose and decontextualize their work. We should and we must separate the author and their work. We are at least entitled to that. Art are mere commodities and should be treated as such.
Shin Godzilla
Really? For me the film's insistence that small technocratic expert committees that eschewed traditional ways of doing things were the only way to tackle crises (Godzilla is basically Fukushima in the movie), along with the tacit acknowledgement that international cooperation was necessary (even in the face of American imperialism) made the film seem very liberal, although I do see your point about edit: an overall Japanese nationalistic tone (didn't finish my sentence haha)
Art are mere commodities and should be treated as such.
I agree with everything else you said, except this. Yes, right now under capitalism the majority of art is mere commodity, but hopefully (eventually) it'll return to what it should be- communication.
I spend my time to engage in good faith and this is all you got? tl;dr?
Fuck it, here's the tl;dr: why do racists 4chan shitheads stan this show so hard?
Fuck it, here’s the tl;dr: why do racists 4chan shitheads stan this show so hard?
Idk dawg I literally don't care what 4chan nerds like, it does not matter to me. Makes me think of the Republican/Democrat duopoly and how all Americans view everything in that context. Ahhh the fascists like it, must be fascist!
Ahhh the fascists like it, must be fascist!
In your opinion, why do you think Hexbear doesn't stan this show? Partisanship? Virtue signaling?
Goblin Slayer has that, and does a good fucking job of it.
I've read a bit of the manga and, uh, no it does not
More importantly, you can have you creative violence without a highly racialized narrative of heroic genocide and sexualized rape. There is no need to be so defensive about the story because you think the mechanics of their gas chambers are creative.
I love how hexbear is mad about genocide of rapists. What if they were a species of slave owners :thinkin-lenin:
Is this really a difficult puzzle for you? Ask anyone if the infants on a plantation should be killed and they would probably say no. Goblin Slayer says yes.
Making a race ontologically evil and also coded as "savages" in order to justify genocide is fucked up. You are still reasoning on the level of a character in the setting when the problem is on the level of the author making the rules of the world.
I think the eroticized scenes of rape that are just censored versions of established eroguro rape pornographic tropes are more about titillating the audience and at the same time tapping into fears of the racialized 'other' defiling and stealing away 'our women'
than they are for establishing a moral justification for murdering the shit out of goblins, seeing as rpg players do that all the time without ever seeing goblins so much as burn down a house.
Oh, in universe it is correct to kill the goblins. They are fundamentally evil and incapable of change. The problem is that the author made a story where genocide is the right option.
Because in this case they are a fantasy enemy which represents the idea of evil right?
Triumph of the Will is a must watch, and Leni is an auteur unironically.
In the same way the USSR film scene utilized The Birth of A Nation as cinematography study we must do the same. The author is dead.
You wan't catch me watching any Griffith doe(obsolete) or reading Rand(awful clunky writer). Both are just not entertaining.
Anyway for anyone who was intrigued by Goblin Slayer and wants something with that vibe but without all of the problematic shit, Dungeon Meshi is really great as long as you're not vegan.
finally something we can all agree on except for those who are vegan
I tried to think of a second rec that's also vegan friendly and came up short. Could be an interesting story - isekai'd into a world where you're expected to hunt monsters, but you reject the premise and become a high fantasy Steve Irwin protecting endangered magical creatures instead.
All I got from this 100+ comment post is that stanning Goblin Slayer should be a bannable offense. The first episode was literally just your typical fascist anxiety of [racial slurs] r-wording virginal (white) women. The entire series is just your typical muh-will-to-power fascist fantasy about genociding an untermensch subhuman race in order to secure a future without the untermensch subhuman race to pollute muh women and children. And it was already openly fascist in the first episode, so you can't even use the excuse of "oh I didn't know it was fascist."
Like come on now lmao
mf forgot the first rule of media analysis - everything is legitimately fucken political
